Tens of thousands throng US streets against ‘king’ Trump

NEW YORK: A giant orange balloon depicting President Donald Trump in a diaper towered over one “No Kings” protest Saturday, as tens of thousands thronged streets across the United States to decry the president’s policies.

Protest organizers expected rallies in all 50 US states, calling them the largest since Trump returned to office in January, with the aim of “rejecting authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy.”

Wielding signs with messages like “No KKKings!”, “No crown for the clown” and “The Trump fascist regime must go now!” the protests stood in stark contrast to the massive military parade planned in Washington later Saturday.

That parade is meant to commemorate the founding of the US Army, but also falls on the president’s 79th birthday.

“I am here today to tell the world that we don’t have kings in America. In America, the law is king,“ Ilene Ryan told AFP at a demonstration in Boston.

In New York, tens of thousands of people, wearing raincoats and carrying colorful umbrellas, marched down Fifth Avenue in the downpour to the sound of drums, bells and crowd chants of “Hey, hey, oh, oh, Donald Trump has got to go!”

Actors Susan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo were seen getting drenched among the protesters.

‘Outraged’

A few blocks away, Polly Shulman was preparing to join the march with her “Protect the Constitution” sign.

“I’m miserable and outraged about how this administration is destroying the ideals of the American Constitution,“ the 62-year-old museum employee told AFP.

The most shocking thing, she said, was “the illegal deportations of law-abiding residents.”

They are “being kidnapped and disappeared and sent to torture prisons in foreign countries.”

In March, the Trump administration expelled more than 250 Venezuelans to a mega-prison in El Salvador after accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which it has declared a terrorist organization.

At least four protesters were arrested at a separate, smaller protest against Trump’s immigration crackdown at New York’s Federal Plaza Saturday, police said.

‘Mad as hell’

“I think people are mad as hell,“ Lindsay Ross, a 28-year-old musician, told AFP, urging the masses to show “the administration that we’re not going to take this.”

Bill Kennedy, a retired psychologist from Pennsylvania, was in Washington protesting a few hours before Trump’s big parade there.

“I’m tired of the current administration. I think they’re a bunch of fascists,“ he said, describing the Trump parade as “ridiculous.”

Suzanne Brown in Boston also lamented the money spent on the parade “for one man’s vanity.”

Massive “No Kings” protests were also underway in Los Angeles, which in recent days has been rocked by demonstrations over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, as federal agents carried out brutal arrests of even law-abiding people without papers.

On Saturday, protesters gathered in front of federal buildings shouting “You are not welcome here” at some of the 4,000 National Guard members and 700 US Marines that Trump dispatched to the city against the wishes of city and state authorities.

With a giant orange Trump-in-a-diaper balloon towering above them, thousands filled the city streets, sporting slogans like “No faux-king way” and “Impeach Trump”.

Members of Russian feminist protest and performance art group Pussy Riot held up a large red banner in front of LA city hall warning: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia.”

Iris Rodriguez, 44, explained that her family arrived in the United States without papers.

“I find it really, really personal… If this was my mom, if this were the 80s, this would be happening to her,“ she told AFP.

“I was a little scared, but I refuse to be too scared to not come.”

The country-wide demonstrations overwhelmingly took place peacefully and without incident.

But in Culpeper, Virginia, police said a man had “intentionally” rammed his car into a group of protesters as they left the event.

The man, identified as 21-year-old Joseph R. Checklick Jr., “intentionally accelerated his vehicle into the dispersing crowd, striking at least one person with his vehicle,“ police said, adding that he had been arrested and no injuries had so far been reported.