Several million people around the United States turned out to protest against the excesses of Donald Trump’s administration, as tanks and soldiers paraded through the streets of Washington, DC, on Saturday.
The protests, dubbed “No Kings”, took place at about 2,100 sites nationwide, from big cities to small towns. A coalition of more than 100 groups joined together to plan the protests, which are committed to a principle of non-violence.
This week, Mr Trump has deployed national guard and US marine troops to Los Angeles to crack down on protesters who have demonstrated against his ramped-up deportations, defying state and local authorities in a show of military force that has not been seen in the US since the civil rights era.
Interest in the Saturday protests rose as a result, organisers said, including at a site near Mr Trump’s south Florida Mar-a-Lago estate.
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No Kings organisers estimated the day’s events drew millions of people, with protests in all 50 states and in some cities abroad.
These included more than 200,000 in New York and over 100,000 in Philadelphia, plus some small towns with sizeable crowds for their populations, including the town of Pentwater, Michigan, which saw 400 people join the protest in their 800-person town, the No Kings coalition said.
The protests were largely peaceful, though some – in Los Angeles and Portland – were later deemed unlawful assembly by law enforcement and met with tear gas.
The tenor of the day was also marked by political violence. There were two early morning shootings of two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, one of whom was killed along with her husband, in what local officials called a politically motivated attack.
The state’s police and governor cautioned people to not attend demonstrations across the state “out of an abundance of caution”.
Many thousands of people still turned up at the main protest in Minnesota, at the state capitol, to make it clear that political violence would not silence them.
Crowds stretched for blocks as people carried signs against Mr Trump, and some that mentioned the names of the lawmakers who were shot. On the main stage, organisers mentioned the tragedy, saying how it strengthened their resolve and underscored the importance of gathering together.
In Texas, officials said they had “identified a credible threat toward state lawmakers planning to attend” a No Kings demonstration at the state capitol, the Associated Press reported.
In Philadelphia, meanwhile, thousands marched from Love Park in the early afternoon, holding umbrellas and signs.
In some Republican-led states, governors had pre-emptively signalled that law enforcement would quell any protests that they deemed violent.
Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, deployed his state’s national guard to manage protests ahead of No Kings and amid ongoing demonstrations against Trump’s immigration agenda.
In Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis said that people could legally run over protesters with their cars if they were surrounded. “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets. You have a right to defend yourself in Florida,” he said.
The No Kings protests at Georgia’s capitol unfolded without police confronting demonstrators, but police dispersed a protest with smoke and tear gas in a suburban neighbourhood that is home to a high concentration of Hispanic residents.
And in San Francisco, NBC News reported that a driver hit at least four demonstrators who reportedly suffered “non life-threatening injuries”, while in Virginia a man drove an SUV through a crowd and injured one protester.
Early in the day demonstrations gathered strength outside LA city hall, awash with American flags.
After a week of Trump administration officials and their allies seizing on the Mexican flags waved by LA street protesters and saying they were symptoms of a foreign invasion, many brought US flags from home, either waving them or wrapping them around their shoulders. Others took them from volunteers handing them out at sites across the rally.
Later in the day in Los Angeles, a crowd formed outside a federal building and started chanting, “Leave LA!” at the national guard members stationed outside and some reportedly threw objects at the building.
At 4pm the LAPD also declared ‘unlawful assembly’ for protesters who were outside the approved protest area, issued a dispersal order and began firing tear gas and foam rubber bullets shortly after.
Most of the crowd dispersed quickly. Unlike the morning protests, there were more masked protesters in the evening.
In Portland, Oregon, federal agents reportedly also used tear gas against demonstrators outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after they said the protesters attempted to breach the door.
The coalition did not hold a protest in Washington, DC – an intentional choice to draw contrast with the military parade and to not give the president an excuse to crack down on peaceful protest.
Asked about the No Kings protests during a White House event on Thursday, Mr Trump said: “I don’t feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get things approved.” – Guardian
