Millions across all 50 US states march in No Kings protests against Trump

Americans across all 50 states marched in protests against the Trump administration on Saturday, aligning behind a message that the country is sliding into authoritarianism and there should be no kings in the US.

Millions of people turned out for the No Kings protests, the second iteration of a coalition that marched in June in one of the largest days of protest in US history.

People in communities big and small came together nationwide with signs, marching bands, a huge banner with the US constitution’s preamble that people could sign, and inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance beginning in Portland, Oregon.

The rallies are a turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats seemed at a loss as to how to counter Republicans’ grip of the White House and both houses of Congress after stinging national election losses.

“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group, told the Associated Press. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”

In Chicago, at Grant Park’s Butler Field, at least 10,000 people assembled, many with signs opposing federal immigration agents or mocking Trump. TV stations with feeds from protests warned viewers they could not be responsible for the language used in the signage. A later crowd estimate by the Chicago Tribune put the number at 100,000.

Some of them said “Hands Off Chicago”, a rallying cry that began when the president first announced his intent to send the national guard into the city. Others read “Resist Fascism”, but many others used language unsuitable for broadcast.

The crowd erupted in chants of “Fuck Donald Trump” when Illinois representative Jonathan Jackson took the stage.

Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, told the crowd the Trump administration had “decided that they want a rematch of the civil war”, which the white supremacist Confederacy lost to the Union in the 19th century.

“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit,” Johnson said. “We do not want troops in our city.”

On Saturday, Ginny Eschbach joined her 42nd protest since Trump’s inauguration in January.

The 72-year-old came to the No Kings rally in Los Angeles dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants, her second choice after not being able to find an inflatable frog costume.

“I wanted to be whimsical, because I think that lets them know, when we’re here, we’re serious, however, we are not dangerous and we are not violent,” she said, referring to Republicans’ efforts to paint the rallies as dangerous and un-American. “We are just not happy.”

For Eschbach, who drove in from Thousand Oaks, a city north-west of Los Angeles, and carried an American flag, the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech has been particularly alarming.

“I personally am not happy with the erosion of our first amendment rights,” she said. “This is my gravest concern, as they attack universities, the media, law firms and now our very own freedom of speech and threaten our ability to peacefully assemble.”

More than 200,000 Washington DC-area residents rallied near the US Capitol. In many cities, protesters wore inflatable animal costumes – a Dada-esque theme created during immigration enforcement protests in Portland, Oregon, to counter the administration’s narrative of a city under the grip of lawlessness and chaos.

While the main protest march in downtown Portland, Oregon, was peaceful and local police officers helped block off streets and bridges for the marchers, a smaller protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city’s south waterfront neighborhood was met with force by federal officers.

Suzette Smith of the Portland Mercury reported on Bluesky that federal agents hurled gas canisters at protesters who gathered at the facility before a scheduled 5pm protest.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, costumed characters included unicorns, chickens and frogs. “It’s about the absurdity of it all,” resident Amy Adler told the Santa Fe New Mexican while wearing a lobster suit she described as an ode to Portland.

On FoxLive, national security analyst Lt Col Hal Kempfer debated whether the costumes were for defensive purposes “I don’t discount that they are just showing off the costumes but any costume like that could provide a certain amount of defensive protection from pepper balls and stuff. But you have to weigh against that. You can’t move very fast and you can’t see as well.”

In Georgia, at least 10,000 people had filled the field of the Atlanta Civic Center in preparation for a march to the state capital by mid-morning.

“I heard an American president stand up the other day and say to generals in our military that we’ve got to stand up against the enemy within,” said the US senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

(The Guardian)