Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican’s first weeks in office.
“Hands Off!” demonstrations were organized for more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and election activists.
From the National Mall and Midtown Manhattan to Boston Common and multiple state capitols, thousands of protesters assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk‘s actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights. In Seattle, in the shadow of the city’s iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like “Fight the Oligarchy.”
Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Democratic State Senator Brad Hoylman, a candidate for Manhattan borough president, was among the throngs marching along Fifth Ave. in New York City in the rain. Shouting into an electric bullhorn, he called for support for everything that Trump is trying to shut down, as his supporters cheered each one in turn.
“Let’s hear it for gender-affirming care!” Hoylman cried. “Let’s hear it for scientific research! Let’s hear it for organized labor! Let’s hear it for our teachers! … Let’s hear it for transgender children! Let’s hear it for D.E.I.!” he yelled, putting extra emphasis on “D.E.I.” “Let’s hear it for affirmative action! Let’s hear it for due process.”
Assemblymember Tony Simone, another West Side Democrat, marched with the Hell’s Kitchen Democrats political club. Posting on Facebook, he wrote, “The people of our great nation must rise up & demand the felon in the WH @realDonaldTrump, his oligarch boss @elonmusk & his minions be held accountable for their crimes against our democracy! … [O]nly through collective action can we defeat the MAGA agenda destroying our govt. to fund tax cuts for the oligarchs & billionaires & implementing tariffs to destroy the global economy. People power will destroy the authoritarian demagogue.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, criticized the administration’s treatment of the LBGTQ+ community at the rally at the National Mall, where Democratic members of Congress also took the stage.
“The attacks that we’re seeing, they’re not just political. They are personal, y’all,” Robinson said. “They’re trying to ban our books, they’re slashing HIV prevention funding, they’re criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives.”
“We don’t want this America, y’all,” Robinson added. “We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us.”
In Boston, demonstrators brandished signs such as “Hands Off Our Democracy” and “Hands Off Our Social Security.”
Mayor Michelle Wu said she does not want her children and others’ to live in a world in which threats and intimidation are government tactics, and values like diversity and equality are under attack.
“I refuse to accept that they could grow up in a world where immigrants like their grandma and grandpa are automatically presumed to be criminals,” Wu said.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, was one of hundreds who rallied at the Statehouse in Columbus. He said he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
“He’s tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting anti-Trump slogans.
“They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security,” said Archer Moran of Port St. Lucie.
“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it’s amazing how soon these protests are happening since he’s taken office.”
The president planned to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said, in a statement, “President Trump’s position is clear: He will always protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump and Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But before Saturday the opposition movement had yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis in 2020.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women’s reproductive rights.
“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what’s going on today, what’s happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. “It’s disgusting, and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They’re not listening to the people.”
With Lincoln Anderson
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