Backbone’s inflatable Trump makes splashy D.C. debut

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 8, 2026

A week after Vashon’s third “No Kings” protest and Backbone Campaign’s most ambitious multi-city action yet, one image from Washington, D.C., is still traveling: a 13-foot inflatable Donald Trump appearing to set a “We the People” scroll on fire.

The Vashon-based activist arts group debuted the inflatable March 28 in the nation’s capital as part of a five-city Backbone effort tied to the nationwide “No Kings” protests. What had been months of sewing, painting and logistical planning ended in a long, cold day of marching, international media attention and, later, a shoutout on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

“Perhaps the most impressive of all,” Colbert said of the inflatable during one of his shows last week, later praising its “spectacular craftsmanship above all else.”

For Bill Jarcho, a Backbone co-founder and artist who traveled to D.C. with the piece, the day began with uncertainty.

The crew — about eight people, mostly from Vashon — arrived Thursday night and did a rainy test run Friday in front of the Capitol, where they discovered glitches they still needed to fix. By Saturday morning, they were set up near the bridge over the Potomac leading toward the National Mall, still looking for extra hands.

Though Backbone had brought its “LICE agents” costumes — insectlike parodies of ICE officers — and the burned Constitution prop, Jarcho said the group needed around 10 volunteers total to help carry and steer the piece. They found them on site, including a young couple attending their first protest.

As the group crossed the bridge, Jarcho said, the wind became one of the day’s biggest challenges.

“We were scared that we were going to lose the Constitution, or the Trump inflatable was going to rip off and fly into the Potomac,” he said. “Which it didn’t.”

Instead, the piece made it safely to the Lincoln Memorial, where Jarcho said thousands of protesters and tourists gathered and media outlets from around the world took notice. The group later marched toward the Washington Monument, accompanied at one point by a brass band playing the Darth Vader theme from “Star Wars” as the “LICE agents” slow-marched alongside the inflatable.

“The response was phenomenal,” Jarcho said. “People were just laughing, saying they loved this thing. It made their day. It made their week.”

Bill Moyer, Backbone’s executive director, said the D.C. debut was only one piece of a much larger weekend that also sent “We the People” scrolls and other imagery to New York, Houston, Minneapolis and Seattle.

“We’re really just firing on all cylinders,” Moyer said. “It couldn’t have happened without an incredible volunteer community, supporters, collaborators, here and elsewhere.”

The inflatable’s reach only grew after the march. One video of the Darth Vader moment drew more than half a million views online, according to Backbone, and the Colbert mention gave the piece an even broader audience.

For Moyer, the attention felt like validation not just of the inflatable itself, but of the role Backbone’s handmade protest art is playing in this political moment.

“The need and desire for the tools that Backbone offers has never been greater than it is right now,” he said.

What comes next, Moyer said, is a continued push to send Backbone’s “We the People” imagery beyond one weekend of protest. The group is helping launch a two-month Ohio tour after organizers there asked to partner with Backbone, while the scroll used in New York is headed next to Philadelphia before joining the “We Are America March” into Washington, D.C. At the same time, volunteers on Vashon are still painting and preparing new banner extensions for an even larger July 4 action in the capital. The goal, Moyer said, is to mobilize 700 feet of “We the People” banners there.

Jarcho and Moyer also credited Wade Hankin, Evan Simmons, Steffon Moody, Patricia Toovey, Laura Daughenbaugh, Tom Gross, Eli Stahl, Kyle Gagner, Andrea Walker, Stella Gross and Clare Dohna, along with builders and masterminds Rod Tharpe and Rob Briggs, for helping make the D.C. deployment possible.

For now, though, Backbone is still coming down from the weekend that carried one of its boldest pieces from a Vashon warehouse to the national stage.