Hundreds of protesters – including Americans living abroad – took to the streets across major European cities in a show of defiance against Donald Trump’s administration, agency reports said.
A report published by the Guardian said that: Protesters rallied in Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, London and Lisbon, all in a united show of opposition against Trump’s policies.
Jamie Raskin, the Democratic representative of Maryland, addressed the crowd in Washington DC, saying: “We’ve got the right to protest for what is right without being arrested, deported or fired. We’ve got the right to read the books we want … We’ve even got the right to call the president deranged from crashing our economy, destroying $6tn of wealth … and the press has the right to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico.”
Maxwell Frost, Florida’s Democratic representative, also addressed the crowd in Washington DC, saying: “This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives.”
Demonstrators from as far afield as New Hampshire and Pennsylvania gathered at Washington DC’s national monument. In overcast conditions, protesters displayed a vast array of placards and, in some cases, Ukrainian flags, expressing opposition to administration policies.
In addition to large US cities, anti-Donald Trump protests took place throughout the US’s smaller towns, including in red counties. Photos posted on Bluesky showed demonstrators in St Augustine, a small town in Florida of 14,000 people in a red county. Many waved signs that read: “The king of corruption!” and “Make lying wrong again!”
About 600 people registered for an event, billed as a “Hands Off” rally, at the Ventura Government Center on in Ventura, California. Signs indicated protesters were worried about a range of issues: racism, national parks, healthcare, the environment, veterans’ benefits, grocery costs and more.
Several hundred vociferous anti-Trump demonstrators converged on a traffic circle in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale suburb of Hollywood Saturday morning to vent their rejection of the 47th president’s policies and myriad executive orders. Chanting “hey, hey, ho, ho, Trump and Musk have got to go”, the predominantly white protesters jeered motorists in Tesla Cybertrucks and hoisted a variety of colorful placards that left little doubt as to where they stood on the topic of Donald Trump.
Also speaking in Washington DC was Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March.
Carmona said: We are exercising the People’s Veto on Musk, Trump, Zuck – all these broligarchs – who want a country ruled by bullies to benefit billionaires. And they don’t care what – or who – they have to bulldoze to make it happen.
But here’s the thing: we are the majority. Workers. Students. Parents. Teachers. Activists. We are the backbone of this country. Not the elites. They’re scared that a movement this large can threaten their power.
But despite all the nonsense they’ve put us through, we’re still here and our numbers are growing.
What I know is true about Women’s Marchers, and what I suspect to be true about everyone here today is that we are not afraid of hard work. That’s who we are: regular people who stepped up when there was work to be done … We are enough, and I believe that we will win.
The strength of a movement isn’t measured by our easy wins, but by the hard days when we showed up anyway. And that’s what we need to do. Work hard. Work together. That is true people power. That is how we win.”
Speaking in Washington DC, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Martin O’Malley, told demonstrators: You and I are different. We do not believe, as Elon Musk believes, that you only have value as a human being in our country if you contribute to his economic system that makes him wildly rich.
No, you and I are different. Elon Musk thinks that the greatest waste and inefficiency are people that don’t contribute to his economy. Therefore, the elderly who can’t work, people with disabilities who can’t work, they’re the wasteful inefficiency. Elon Musk is going after you and I.”
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