FALMOUTH — The protester trudges back up the hill and shouts over the thunder of traffic from the highway below.

“I think it’s supposed to say, ‘BOYCOTT DISNEY NOW,’ right?”

It’s not a question Sarah Russell wants to hear. Local members of the Visibility Brigade already have been waving at passing cars for 15 minutes, enough time for hundreds of northbound commuters to see the hand-painted message Russell has laid out letter by letter on Falmouth’s Lunt Road overpass — a message that apparently reads, “BOYCOTT DISNEY NOM.”

“Oh my gosh,” Russell says before letting out a laugh and flipping her “M” over to a “W.” “Oops.”

It’s not clear how many drivers have clocked the typo. But if the chorus of approving beeps from Interstate 295 this Friday afternoon is any indication, the mistake hasn’t undermined the group’s goal: encouraging people who are frustrated with the Trump administration to make some noise.

Since its founding over a New Jersey highway in 2020, the Visibility Brigade has grown from a local outfit to a web of more than 250 chapters dotting overpasses from Lihue, Hawaii, to Bangor. The intention of the group’s weekly messages, according to the movement’s website, is “to remind neighbors of our nation’s emergency and to suggest simple actions they can take.”

Russell, dressed Friday in a “Mother of the Revolution” T-shirt and an “I’ll see you in court” baseball cap, helped form the Portland crew this spring, after Trump assumed the presidency and immediately set to work reshaping the federal government in his image.

Over the last six months, the small but growing collective has been gathering on the Lunt Road overpass, armed each week with a fresh slogan and a deep arsenal of flags, signs and eye-catching accessories.

“SUPPORT OUR VETS.”

“DUE PROCESS FOR ALL.”

“SAVE MEDICARE.”

The highway overpass is, admittedly, an imperfect medium for political discourse. The group’s weekly messages must be short and simple enough for speeding drivers to catch before they race by. Commuters’ responses can’t offer much more nuance than a quick honk of appreciation or a middle finger out the window.

But the Visibility Brigade isn’t really setting out to change hearts or minds anyway, the group’s leaders say. That task, if it’s possible at all in an increasingly polarized America, is beyond anything they can accomplish from the side of the road. Instead, their goal is to reassure the quietly despondent that they aren’t alone, one wave at a time.

“It takes away the powerless feeling,” said Pamela Fischer. “We want to make this light and positive and welcoming.”

Each week, local leaders come up with a new message related to whatever controversy is making headlines, pick a day of the week to meet up and get the word out to their list of followers.

In Falmouth, last week’s slogan was initially going to call for the end of genocide. But that plan changed, as it often does, when Disney subsidiary ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr appeared to threaten the network. ABC announced this week that it was lifting Kimmel’s suspension, and he returned to late night TV on Tuesday.

“There are so many things that are urgent all the time,” Russell said. “Another unbelievable thing always comes up.”

After high-ranking officials accidentally added a reporter to a group chat in which they were discussing a sensitive military operation: “FIRE HEGSETH.”

After the Department of Government Efficiency, under Elon Musk’s guidance, set to work laying off thousands of civil servants: “SUPPORT FEDERAL WORKERS.”

After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the same day a shooter attacked a Colorado school: “END GUN VIOLENCE NOW.”

The logistics of highway protesting are trickier than they seem. The group’s library of roughly 70 painted letters only feels robust until somebody proposes “NO TROOPS ON OUR STREETS” and they come up short on “O”s. After someone from the Department of Transportation banned the use of bungee cords, the team had to figure out how to use chunks of pool noodle-scaffolding to secure their messages to overpass. The fact that the demonstrators cannot easily see their own signs from the bridge means they have to be methodical in their setup or else risk typos.

Friday afternoon’s mishap aside, the Falmouth operation runs smoothly. Regulars know how to tell the supportive reactions (drivers flashing their lights, a short series of honks, peace signs) from the negative ones (engine revving, laying on the horn, a different sort of hand gesture). Some come with new homemade signs matching the theme of the week, while others recycle the greatest hits from prior months, cardboard fraying from wear.

During the morning and evening rush hour shifts, both of which drew about a dozen demonstrators on Friday, the mood was unmistakably cheerful. The group’s message elicited many more positive responses than negative ones. On the few occasions a driver slowed down on the overpass to shout “Go Trump!” or something ruder, the protesters did not engage.

“We just smile and say, ‘Have a nice day,'” Jeanie Barnard said. “This is not about fighting with you.”

Still, some admitted they aren’t totally at ease on the shoulder of the bridge, just a few feet from traffic. Demonstrators recalled the couple of scary moments they’ve had, like the time a driver pulled over and started to double-back toward them before thinking better of it. Some asked that their names not be used for this story for fear of harassment.

“Once your name gets out there, they go after you,” one man said. “I’m not one to back down, but I don’t want to endanger my family.”

For some, activism is a pastime that stretches back decades. Members of the group have marched for political causes in Washington, volunteered to pick up trash in poor, Black neighborhoods, spent weeks in swing states to register voters before presidential elections.

Others, like Peter Hall, are new to the game.

Bearing a small, homemade sign about the climate crisis, Hall said demonstrating doesn’t come naturally to him, and he’s skeptical that it’s going to accomplish much.

Still, he said, “I guess I feel that if it all goes down the tubes I don’t want to have done nothing.”

So he makes the time to show up and listen to the car horns blare.