Thousands of protesters took to the streets of 1,400 cities across all 50 states this Saturday to protest against President Donald Trump and his top aide, billionaire Elon Musk, for their “hostile power grab” and attacks on rights and freedoms.
The rally, launched under the slogan “Hands Off!”, brought together protesters at state capitols, federal headquarters, congressional offices, Social Security offices, parks, and city halls across the country, according to CNN.
The protesters warned that “our communities are not going to pay for what the Trumps and Musks of the world earn.” “It’s not just about money, it’s about power.” “This administration is attacking everyone who isn’t part of its 1%: veterans, children, seniors, farmers, immigrants, trans people, and political rivals. All to consolidate its hold on power and reward its allies,” they added.
“If you’re mobilizing over attacks on our democracy, layoffs, invasions of privacy, or attacks on our public services, this is your moment. We’re building a massive, visible, and national rejection of this crisis,” read the leaflets distributed at some of the rallies.
Nearly 600,000 people have expressed their intention to participate in the marches, according to the organization Indivisible, one of the organizers along with civil rights organizations, veterans’ organizations, feminist groups, unions, and LGBTIQ+ groups.
Among the demands are “an end to the billionaire takeover and the rampant corruption of the Trump Administration” and an end to cuts in federal funding for health care spending in programs such as Medicaid and Social Security. They also call for an end to “attacks on immigrants, trans people, and other communities.”
In Washington, DC, politicians such as House Member Jamie Raskin spoke, denouncing Trump as having “the politics of (Benito) Mussolini and the economics of Herbert Hoover.”
“Our Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that does not begin with the phrase ‘We the dictators.’ The preamble says, ‘We the people’ (…). No moral person wants a dictator who ruins the economy, who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing,” he added.
Florida Representative Maxwell Frost also spoke, calling for public mobilization, mutual support, and participation in actions and strategies. “Throughout human history, authoritarians are never satisfied with the power they have, and they test the limits, push the boundaries, break the laws, and look to people to see if they will remain silent or protest,” he argued.
Frost, who hails from Florida, one of the states with the largest immigrant population, criticized the fact that “they tell us immigrants are stealing our jobs, but they are the ones taking jobs abroad and hiring lawyers to go after unions.”
“They say transgender people are a threat to our children, but they are the ones dismantling public education. They are the ones refusing to do anything about the national public health emergency posed by gun violence,” he continued.
Public worker unions were also present at the demonstration in Washington and criticized the fact that “the Trump administration is completely destroying public services in this country,” denounced Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “It’s a joke, people. It’s a cruel joke,” he lamented. “It’s the biggest attack on collective bargaining I’ve ever seen in this country,” he added.
The protest has also resonated in other cities outside the country, such as London, Paris, and Brussels.
