Some people boarded the buses early in the morning. Some people flew from across the country or drove through the night with foggy eyes. No matter how they arrived in Washington on Saturday, they shared a common goal. It was a protest against President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Just two days before Trump's inauguration, thousands of people participated in the People's March on Washington. Despite Saturday's damp and chilly weather, demonstrators opposed Trump's hard-right plans for the country and expressed support for causes including civil rights, racial justice, immigration and gun violence prevention. I was dispatched to do so.
“I'm angry and frustrated,” said Jillian Wheat, who came from Columbus, Ohio, to march with her 14-year-old daughter Emma. “I'm worried he's trying to dismantle our democracy.”
It was a sequel of sorts to the 2017 Women's March, which was also held around Inauguration Day. The protests took place shortly after Trump was inaugurated for his first term, and the protests focused on women's reproductive rights. But in this iteration, the march has been rebranded and expanded to include more people and a broader range of issues. Various sponsors sponsored Saturday's event, including the Sierra Club and the anti-authoritarian group Time to Act.
Demonstrators called Trump a felon, an oligarchy and a danger to democracy, and held signs that read, “It's such a tragedy that even your grandma would have to take to the streets to resist.” They shouted chants such as “Stand up!” Please fight back! And he occasionally injected expletives into the chant: “No justice, no peace, no Trump.”
Many, if not most, attendees said they had more money to cherish than during Trump's first administration, when he nominated Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. He said he was nervous that they might try to roll back his rights. They expected him not to strip away climate protections and LGBTQ rights, and to follow through on his threats to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Debbie Pierce, a gerontologist in Tampa, Florida, wiped tears from her eyes as she held up a photo of a young relative who had recently been told she might be a lesbian.
“I'm here for her,” Pierce said of her relative. “With this new administration, we don't know if she's safe.”
Alana Eichner, co-chair of the local chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, marched with more than a dozen women who work as caregivers for children and the elderly. She said she hopes Trump understands that domestic workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, are essential to the U.S. economy and help the country function.
“We are here to make sure these workers are protected and valued,” she said, and the women who came with her nodded in agreement.
At the dawn of Trump's second term in office, marches were held in other cities including New York, Nashville and Portland, Oregon, with hundreds of people gathering in each city and at least 1,000 in Manhattan, taking part in demonstrations. People marched holding similar placards. Chant and energy level similar to Washington.
Demonstrators across the U.S. also singled out billionaire Elon Musk in their protests, calling it a path to oligarchy. In Washington, Ellen Marcus from Hoboken, New Jersey, urged people to boycott companies owned by billionaires like Musk.
“Mr. Musk is the guy who bought Twitter and now he's buying the president. He shouldn't be anywhere near the White House,” Marcus said.
At the march in Portland, physical therapist Jen Sellers At the 2017 March on Washington, she warned that so many freedoms may be at risk under the Trump administration, including the freedom she was exercising Saturday: the freedom to assemble and speak out against the government. He said he remembered that.
“We know that the last time Trump was president, he used violence against protesters,” Sellers said. “I think this is one of the big problems, not just with our democracy.”
Although many of Saturday's protests drew large numbers of participants, they paled in comparison to the Women's March eight years ago. In 2017, an estimated 470,000 people packed into the nation's capital after Hillary Clinton's surprise defeat, ready to fight and energized. The protest turned into a sea of pink as many participants wore pink knitted hats in solidarity.
This time, the crowd in Washington was smaller and the pink hats sparse.
Mary Griffin, who flew from Seattle to Washington for both Saturday's march and the 2017 march, said she was troubled by the low turnout, remembering how people were squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder at the first march. He said he was there. He said Vice President Kamala Harris' voters may still be shocked and “apathetic” about how to show resistance to the new administration.
“We need to rejuvenate,” said Griffin, a 63-year-old lawyer. “If Mr. Trump starts moving in the direction that I think he's going, the pendulum will swing back and people will become energized again.”
Nate Schweber Contribute to the report from New York, jamie mcgi From Nashville Kimberly Cortez Originally from Portland, Oregon.
