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<\/p>\nPeople carrying signs with slogans such as \u201cNothing is more patriotic than protesting\u201d or \u201cResist Fascism” packed into New York City\u2019s Times Square and rallied by the thousands in parks in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators marched through Washington and downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside capitols in several Republican-led states, a courthouse in Billings, Montana, and at hundreds of smaller public spaces.<\/p>\n
Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as \u201cHate America\u201d rallies, but in many places the events looked more like a street party.<\/p>\n
There were marching bands, huge banners with the US Constitution\u2019s \u201cWe The People\u201d preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n
It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programmes and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A \u2018No Kings\u2019 against US president Donald Trump’s policies in Times Square in New York City yesterday. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n
In Washington, Iraq War Marine veteran Shawn Howard said he had never participated in a protest before but was motivated to show up because of what he sees as the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cdisregard for the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said immigration detentions without due process and deployments of troops in US cities are \u201cun-American\u201d and alarming signs of eroding democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fought for freedom and against this kind of extremism abroad,\u201d said Howard, who added that he also worked at the CIA for 20 years on counter-extremism operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now I see a moment in America where we have extremists everywhere who are, in my opinion, pushing us to some kind of civil conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, meanwhile, was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say they\u2019re referring to me as a king. I\u2019m not a king,\u201d the president said in a Fox News interview that aired early Friday, before he departed for a $1 million-per-plate MAGA Inc. fundraiser at his club.<\/p>\n
A Trump campaign social media account mocked the protests by posting a computer-generated video of the president clothed like a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Demonstrators at a ‘No Kings’ protest against US president Donald Trump in Los Angeles. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n
In San Francisco hundreds of people spelled out \u201cNo King!\u201d and other phrases with their bodies on Ocean Beach.<\/p>\n
Hayley Wingard, who was dressed as the Statue of Liberty, said she too had never been to a protest before. Only recently she began to view Trump as a \u201cdictator.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually OK with everything until I found that the military invasion in Los Angeles and Chicago and Portland \u2014 Portland bothered me the most, because I’m from Portland, and I don’t want the military in my cities. That’s scary,\u201d Wingard said.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Portland for a peaceful demonstration downtown.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, tensions grew as a few hundred protesters and counterprotesters showed up at a US Immigration and Customs enforcement building, with federal agents at times firing tear gas to disperse the crowd and city police threatening to make arrests if demonstrators blocked streets.<\/p>\n
The building has been the site of mostly small nightly protests since June \u2014 the reason the Trump administration has cited for trying to deploy National Guard troops in Portland, which a federal judge has at least temporarily blocked.<\/p>\n
About 3,500 people gathered in Salt Lake City outside the Utah State Capitol to share messages of hope and healing after a protester was fatally shot during the city\u2019s first \u201cNo Kings\u201d march in June.<\/p>\n
And more than 1,500 people gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, evoking and the city\u2019s history of protests and the critical role it played in the Civil Rights Movement two generations ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like we\u2019re living in an America that I don\u2019t recognize,\u201d said Jessica Yother, a mother of four.<\/p>\n
She and other protesters said they felt camaraderie by gathering in a state where Trump won nearly 65% of the vote last November.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so encouraging,\u201d Yother said. \u201cI walked in and thought, \u2018Here are my people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBig rallies like this give confidence to people who have been sitting on the sidelines but are ready to speak up,\u201d Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A woman wears a handmaid’s costume while attending a “No Kings Day” protest on Presidents Day in Washington, in support of federal workers and against recent actions by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk yesterday. Photo: AP<\/p>\n
While protests earlier this year \u2014 against Elon Musk’s cuts and Trump\u2019s military parade \u2014 drew crowds, organizers say this one is uniting the opposition.<\/p>\n
Top Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders are joining what organizers view as an antidote to Trump’s actions, from the administration’s clampdown on free speech to its military-style immigration raids.<\/p>\n
More than 2,600 rallies were planned Saturday, organizers said. The national march against Trump and Musk this spring had 1,300 registered locations, while the first \u201cNo Kings\u201d day in June registered 2,100.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here because we love America,\u201d Sanders said, addressing the crowd from a stage in Washington. He said the American experiment is \u201cin danger\u201d under Trump but insisted, \u201cWe the people will rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans sought to portray protesters as far outside the mainstream and a prime reason for the government shutdown, now in its 18th day.<\/p>\n
From the White House to Capitol Hill, GOP leaders called them \u201ccommunists\u201d and \u201cMarxists.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said Democratic leaders including Schumer are beholden to the far-left flank and willing to keep the government shut to appease those liberal forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI encourage you to watch \u2014 we call it the Hate America rally \u2014 that will happen Saturday,\u201d said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see who shows up for that,” Johnson said, listing groups including \u201cantifa types,\u201d people who \u201chate capitalism\u201d and \u201cMarxists in full display.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many demonstrators, in response, said they were meeting such hyperbole with humour, noting that Trump often leans heavily on theatrics such as claiming that cities he sends troops to are war zones.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of what we\u2019ve seen from this administration has been so unserious and silly that we have to respond with the same energy,\u201d said Glen Kalbaugh, a Washington protester who wore a wizard hat and held a sign with a frog on it.<\/p>\n
New York police reported no arrests during the protests.<\/p>\n
Democrats have refused to vote on legislation that would reopen the government as they demand funding for health care.<\/p>\n
Republicans say they are willing to discuss the issue later, only after the government reopens.<\/p>\n
The situation is a potential turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats and their allies were divided and despondent. Schumer in particular was berated by his party for allowing an earlier government funding bill to sail through the Senate without using it to challenge Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,\u201d said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People carrying signs with slogans such as \u201cNothing is more patriotic than protesting\u201d or \u201cResist Fascism” packed into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,23,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-133024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latest-news-ticker","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}