(AFP) – Huge crowds took to the streets in all 50 US states at “No Kings” protests on Saturday, venting anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies, while Republicans ridiculed them as “Hate America” rallies. Organizers said seven million people marched in protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities across the US heartland and even near Trump’s home in Florida.
“This is what democracy looks like!” chanted thousands in Washington near the US Capitol, where the federal government was shut down for a third week because of a legislative deadlock. Colorful signs called on people to “protect democracy,” while others demanded the country abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency at the center of Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown. Demonstrators slammed what they called the Republican billionaire’s strong-arm tactics, including attacks on the media, political opponents, and undocumented immigrants.
“I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy,” 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told AFP as she marched down Broadway in New York. “We are in a crisis — the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing.” In Los Angeles, protesters floated a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper. Many flew flags, with at least one referencing pirate anime hit “One Piece”, brandishing the skull logo that has recently become a staple of anti-government protests from Peru to Madagascar. “Fight Ignorance not migrants,” read one sign at a protest in Houston, where nearly one-quarter of the population is made up of immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute. While animated, the protests were largely peaceful.
But in downtown Los Angeles, police fired nonlethal rounds and tear gas late Saturday to disperse crowds that included “No Kings” protesters, the Los Angeles Times reported. “After thousands of people gathered to express their constitutional 1st Amendment rights peacefully earlier in the day, nearly a hundred agitators marched over to Aliso and Alameda,” where they used lasers and industrial-size flashing lights, the LAPD Central Division said on X. “A Dispersal Order was issued and the demonstrators were dispersed from the area,” it added, without specifying if any arrests were made.
– Trump responds –
It was not possible to independently verify the organizers’ attendance figures. In New York, authorities said more than 100,000 gathered at one of the largest protests, while in Washington, crowds were estimated at between 8,000 and 10,000 people. Trump’s response to Saturday’s events was typically aggressive, with the US president posting a series of AI-generated videos to his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king. In one, he is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters. His surrogates were in fighting form, too, with House Speaker Mike Johnson deriding the rallies as being “Hate America” protests. “You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.
Protesters treated that claim with ridicule. “Look around! If this is hate, then someone should go back to grade school,” said Paolo, 63, as the crowd chanted and sang around him in Washington. Others underlined the deep polarization tearing apart American politics. “Here’s the thing about what right-wingers say: I don’t give a crap. They hate us,” said Tony, a 34-year-old software engineer.
– ‘Country of equals’ –
Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.” “We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters. Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send National Guard troops into Democratic-led US cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Portland, and Memphis. “It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said.
Addressing the crowd outside the US Capitol, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders warned of the dangers democracy faced under Trump. “We have a president who wants more and more power in his own hands and in the hands of his fellow oligarchs,” he said. Isaac Harder, 16, said he feared for his generation’s future. “It’s a fascist trajectory. And I want to do anything I can to stop that.”
– Asad Hashim with Maggy Donaldson in New York and Frederic J. Brown in Los Angeles.
© 2024 AFP
