‘The aim is get people to rise up’ said one protester in Washington DC, one of many cities where people are taking to the streets
People across the US took to the streets on Saturday to oppose what left-leaning organizations called Donald Trump’s “authoritarian overreach and billionaire-backed agenda”.
Organizers were expecting more than 500,000 people to demonstrate in Washington DC, Florida and elsewhere.
At Washington’s national mall, demonstrators from as far afield as New Hampshire and Pennsylvania gathered in the shadow of the George Washington memorial monument, in advance of the anti-Trump rally there.
In overcast conditions, protesters displayed a vast array of placards and, in some cases, Ukrainian flags, expressing opposition to the policies of the administration which has sought cordial relations with Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.
Some protesters said they hoped the event – the first mass demonstration in Washington DC since Trump took office – would act as an example to inspire others to register opposition. “The aim is get people to rise up,” said Diane Kolifrath, 63, who had travelled from New Hampshire with 100 fellow members of New Hampshire Forward, a civic society organisation.
“Many people are scared to protest against Trump because he has reacted aggressively and violently to those who have stood up,” Kolifrath said. The goal of this protest is to let the rest of Americans who aren’t participating see that we are standing up and hopefully when they see our strength, that will give them the courage to also stand up.”
MoveOn, one of the organizations planning the day of protest they’re calling “Hands Off” along with dozens of labor, environmental and other progressive groups, said that more than 1,000 protests are planned across the US, including at state capitols.
“This is shaping up to be the biggest single-day protest in the last several years of American history,” Ezra Levin, a founder of Indivisible, one of the groups planning the event, said on a recent organizing call.
The largest event was expected to be the one at the National Mall, where members of Congress, including the Democrats Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, are scheduled to speak to crowds.
“This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history,” says the website for the protest. Referring to the White House’s billionaire business adviser Elon Musk and the government cuts he has overseen, the website added: “Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights – enabled by Congress every step of the way.
“They want to strip America for parts – shuttering social security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid – all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They’re handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don’t fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.”
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The protests come after the stock market plummeted this week following Trump’s 1 April announcement of tariffs. Despite the economic fallout, Trump said on Friday: “My policies will never change.”
Trump’s approval rating this week fell to 43%, his lowest since taking office, according to a Reuters poll.
After Trump was first elected to the White House in 2016, at least 470,000 people – three times the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration – joined the Women’s March protest in Washington DC, and millions more rallied around the country, making it the largest single-day protest in US history.