February 18, 2026 – Over the past few weeks, we have reported from a wide range of protests, rallies, and council meetings throughout San Diego County. Our goal has been to cover the local stories that legacy media is mostly ignoring.
Our reporting aims to show the broader community the size and frequency of protests happening all around them. It also tries to connect with viewers on a personal level. Each report shares the voices of neighbors explaining why, rather than succumbing to fear, they are standing up to the threat of oppression to hold power to account.
In the course of our reporting, we met thoughtful, caring, patriotic citizens from all over San Diego County who are giving their time and energy to support their community and stand up for democracy.
In Del Mar we met a pair of seniors with an acoustic guitar and microphone. They were performing original protest songs at a Save our Democracy rally. In Carlsbad, we watched a bongo player greet canine protesters and their owners while providing a steady beat for the chanting crowd.
In Oceanside we spoke to a grandfather who was volunteering as a protest marshal while his pre-teen grandson handed out signs from a wagon to passers-by who wished to join.
We came across two German-Americans demonstrating at separate events in Encinitas and Oceanside. Each spoke of their experience growing up in the shadow of German fascism to frame what is happening in America now.
On a sunny afternoon in Cardiff, we bumped into some teenagers who were nervous about ditching school but decided it was more important to participate in the National Economic Shutdown March. In Oceanside we spoke to a passionate teenager who was brought to tears while expressing concern for her immigrant neighbors. She asked “what has become of our nation.”
We heard a candidate for local council in Encinitas offering words of hope and encouragement to attendees of a protest march. At Carlsbad City Council meeting in February we witnessed a police chief taking the time to listen and thoughtfully respond to members of a community concerned about the safety of their immigrant neighbors as well as themselves when exercising their First Amendment rights.
We heard from women who volunteered to deliver food and escort children to school for immigrant families in the Carlsbad Barrio that are afraid to leave their homes. We were also introduced to women who are helping immigrant families that have had husbands or fathers taken by ICE.
We met a charming group of women in Oceanside who were honoring the age-old tradition of quilting circles by gathering to create protest signs in the form of quilts. Each member of the circle created a patch with an individual theme to be joined with other patches to make a quilt in support of their community.
None of these people are radicals, paid agitators, or domestic terrorists. They are proud American citizens who live next door or across the street. They are expressing concern about the safety of their families, neighbors, communities, and our nation. Concerns we all share.
Rather than keeping their heads down, denying what they are seeing with their own eyes, or telling themselves it won’t happen here, the people we met are standing up and exercising their constitutional rights. They are raising their voices in peaceful protests. They are volunteering to help those who cannot help themselves. And they are finding ways to reknit the frayed threads of our political discourse one quilted patch at a time.