A rolling wave of \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests swelled through America\u2019s small towns and big cities Saturday, with crowds gathering to blast President Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns, the war in Iran and high gas and food prices. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s demonstrations were expected to draw millions of people nationwide, including thousands for a downtown Los Angeles rally. More than 40 protests were planned for L.A.,<\/a> Orange and Ventura counties, part of the national \u201cNo Kings Day of Nonviolent Action.\u201d <\/p>\n No Kings Coalition organizers were hoping that turnout for the rallies in all 50 states could combine to form the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. They pointed to growing anger over the country\u2019s direction, including fatal ICE shootings and troops dispatched to the Middle East, since the first \u201cNo Kings\u201d demonstration was held last June.<\/p>\n On Saturday morning, hundreds gathered around the reflecting pool at Pasadena City College. A band rolled through with a fascism-themed parody of Johnny Cash\u2019s \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d Sign-toting protesters lined Colorado Boulevard, drawing a constant stream of honking from the cars driving by. For many, the Iran war was top of mind.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time we protest, there\u2019s something completely new, which speaks to the chaos of the Trump administration,\u201d Cindy Campbell told The Times. \u201cICE raids last year, Epstein files a few months ago. Now, war.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration doesn\u2019t serve us. It serves billionaires,\u201d said Kent Miller, of Monrovia, who participated in the Pasadena protest. \u201cWar with Iran is only making life harder for working people.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller pointed to a Chevron gas station advertising gas for $6.45 per gallon. <\/p>\n \u201cSee?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n National coordinators said there has been increased interest in smaller communities, including Republican bastions, with higher-than-expected attendance during Saturday\u2019s protests. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m out here because I\u2019m disgusted with what I\u2019m seeing,\u201d said Kersty Kinsey, a mother who was protesting near the Beaufort, S.C., City Hall. \u201cPeople are suffering, and he\u2019s playing golf. People are suffering, and he\u2019s going other places and blowing things up.\u201d<\/p>\n In Beaufort, an antebellum city founded in 1711, an estimated 3,000 people turned out \u2014 a marked increase over earlier \u201cNo Kings\u201d rallies, said Barb Nash, one of the coordinators. Amid the moss-draped live oaks and blooming pink and white azaleas, a person in a purple Barney dinosaur costume held a sign reading: \u201cDino\u2019s for Democracy.\u201d A young girl handed out homemade \u201cResistance Cookies.\u201d <\/p>\n Los Angeles coordinators said they expect more than 100,000 people at the local events, which were being planned for Beverly Hills, Burbank, West Covina, West Hollywood and Thousand Oaks. One group planned a \u201cRoad Outrage\u201d car caravan to motor through Mid City with flapping flags calling for \u201cNo War,\u201d and \u201cICE Out of LA.\u201d At a Torrance gathering, cars honked, protesters waved flags, and a person in an inflatable green cow costume hoisted a large American flag. <\/p>\n The White House, in a Saturday statement, dismissed the protests as a \u201cTrump Derangement Therapy Session.\u201d<\/p>\n Organizers said they have been particularly encouraged by the surge of interest from groups in rural communities that wanted to join the loose-knit No Kings Coalition and hold protests. <\/p>\n Jaynie Parrish, founder of the Arizona Native Vote project, started planning a protest for her tiny town of Kayenta, on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona, only earlier this week. <\/p>\n \u201cMy dad, who\u2019s a [military] veteran and an elder, said: \u2018We should go,\u2019 and I said, \u2018OK,\u2019\u201d Parrish told The Times. <\/p>\n \u201cOur folks don\u2019t always protest for things, but this was very important,\u201d Parrish said. \u201cA lot of our families are feeling the impacts right now of higher prices and things being cut. A lot of our healthcare benefits are being cut … and our tribal sovereignty is being threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n Upbeat Midwestern activists withstood whipping winds to form a line of protesters stretching nearly three blocks of Burlington Avenue in Hastings, Neb. Under the crisp blue skies, one of the protesters, Drew Fausett, told The Times in a phone interview that he is a registered Republican in the decidedly red state.<\/p>\n \u201cMy politics haven\u2019t really changed \u2014 but the party around me has,\u201d Fausett said. \u201cIt used to be the two parties were two sides of the same coin, and they would work together \u2014 but not anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n He and his wife, Becky, have attended \u201cNo Kings\u201d and other protests because \u201cit\u2019s the only way to show that people have different opinions,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are out here speaking for their families and their neighbors. That\u2019s what this is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s policies are hurting many in Nebraska \u2014 including farmers, said Debby Thompson, one of the Hastings organizers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to urge our representatives in Congress to not just rubber stamp whatever Trump wants because it\u2019s really hurting rural folks and farmers,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cThe tariffs and huge increase in prices on fertilizer are hitting farmers really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cNo Kings\u201d campaign sprouted in June as an act of defiance on Trump\u2019s 79th birthday. He wanted a military parade in Washington to mark his milestone, and anti-Trump protesters came out in force \u2014 an estimated 5 million people around the country \u2014 with their own display. At the time, Trump\u2019s second-term policies were coming into focus, including ramping up immigration raids, deploying the National Guard to L.A. in response to protests, and mass firings within the federal government. <\/p>\n A subsequent event in mid-October drew even larger crowds, with an estimated 7 million people protesting around the country.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s event coincided with a dip in Trump\u2019s approval ratings. A Reuters\/Ipsos poll<\/a> last week found 36% approve of Trump\u2019s job performance, marking the lowest level since his return to office last year. In a separate Fox News Poll<\/a> released last week, 59% disapproved of his job performance.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the last \u2018No Kings,\u2019 we\u2019re seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there\u2019s an illegal war in Iran,\u201d national organizer Sarah Parker of the organization 50501 said during a Thursday press briefing. \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen our neighbors executed \u2014 American citizens executed.\u201d<\/p>\n Widespread protests and candlelight vigils<\/a> followed January\u2019s fatal shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis of Renee Good<\/a>, a 37-year-old mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defining story of this Saturday\u2019s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting \u2014 but where they are protesting,\u201d Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, said during the press briefing. She said two-thirds of the RSVPs to national organizers came from outside of major urban centers.<\/p>\n The Los Angeles event was organized by the local chapter of 50501 (short for \u201c50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement\u201d) and other progressive groups, including the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible and Public Citizen, as well as labor unions such as Unite Here Local 11 and the Service Workers International Union.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an affordability crisis in this country \u2014 people can\u2019t afford groceries or healthcare,\u201d Joseph Bryant, SEIU executive vice president, said in a statement. \u201cBut this administration is focused on expanding its power, starting unnecessary wars that benefit billionaires, and targeting immigrants and citizens who dare to stand up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rolling wave of \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests swelled through America\u2019s small towns and big cities Saturday, with crowds…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":688613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2332,9958,9204,288750,83,21132,2961,224,5337,10999,3546,1809,4532,19127,5395,637,277,131],"class_list":["post-688612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-car","tag-country","tag-farmer","tag-high-gas","tag-iran","tag-king","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-million","tag-people","tag-protest","tag-protester","tag-rally","tag-saturday","tag-times","tag-trump","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116308594119088166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}