It's golden hour in North Idaho, and everyone is yelling at each other.
The protesters number almost 100. They chant — "Love lives here!" — as the sun melts over Lake Coeur d'Alene. A clean-cut, grinning man named Alex Stein darts in and out of the crowd, wearing a baseball cap with an American flag on it and getting inches from the face of a protester carrying a drum.
"You're exploiting your children," Stein yells. "You're the pedophile!"
The protesters are gathered outside the Coeur d'Alene Resort to oppose a visit from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican known for her culture-warring and embrace of conspiracy theories. Greene's speech, hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee for their annual Lincoln Day Dinner, took place Saturday. Tickets were $175 and had been sold out for weeks.
Stein, it turns out, is Greene's opening speaker.
His speech doesn't start for a few hours, so the self-described comedian is outside starting arguments with protesters and shooting content with a cameraman to share online because the 37-year-old is also an internet personality.
Inside the resort, a group of women talk about how funny it was when Greene tried bringing a balloon to Biden's State of the Union address last week to troll the president over the Chinese spy balloon that recently traversed the country.
On Twitter, Greene refers to the protesters outside as "nasty women who watch the view [referring to the TV show] and their 'low-T' husbands," referring to low testosterone, a questionable phenomenon that Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is currently obsessed with. She posts a picture of herself posing with a man in a shirt that reads: "LIBERALS SUCK." (A photo with the congresswoman is $50.)
The protesters outside hold signs depicting Greene as a clown and calling her a "Karen." Other signs make fun of Biden's predecessor.
Former Coeur d'Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer stops by the protest to see what's going on. He's accosted by a local man who films him and spouts conspiracies about the United Nations.
Many protesters express concern about North Idaho's continued rightward lurch.
On the other side of the street, Darlene Nelson stands with a group of about five counterprotesters who came out in support of the congresswoman. Nelson likes Greene because she "speaks her mind and tells the truth." She praises the congresswoman for calling Biden a liar during his State of the Union speech. She wonders if some of the protesters across the street were hired by Democrats.
While we're talking, someone in a car drives by and tells Nelson and the other Greene supporters to "eat a dick."
Passing drivers are heckling protesters on the other side of the street, too. Some are on their way to Greene's speech. Inside the resort, attendees mill around in tuxedos and formal dresses. There's chatter about vaccines, sex education in schools and big tech censorship. A few families passing through the lobby are dressed for vacation and seem confused about the yelling outside.
Security is tight. A spokesperson for the local GOP tells me they aren't offering press access to Greene's speech because of space issues. Close to 700 people attend, including prominent Idaho Republicans like state Rep. Heather Scott and state Sen. Scott Herndon.
A recording of the speech posted online shows Greene taking the stage in the big, white fur dress she wore to the State of the Union. "North Idaho is truly God's country," Greene says, adding that it's her first time in the state before drumming on the usual culture war beats: vaccine mandates, election fraud, undocumented immigrants and the arrest of the Jan. 6 rioters among them.
Outside the resort, Stein isn't taking any of this seriously. When protesters engage with him, he calls them "losers" and "baby killers," and makes fun of the way they look.
As the sun sets, Stein takes a break from trolling to shoot a promo for an upcoming event in Canyon County, Idaho.
"Buckle up buttercup 'cause we're about to go wild," Stein says to the camera.
"Dude, that was fire," the cameraman says.
Stein's voice drops to a normal volume. He sounds almost bored as he tells the cameraman to make sure there weren't any issues with the audio. Then he runs back to the resort to edit the video together before the speech. He got the content, it's time to post. ♦
