The opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk gathered in the United States on Saturday to protest government, business, human rights and other issues against the government’s measures.
More than 1,200 “Hands away!” Demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, unions, LBGTQ+ supporters, veterans and election activists. The Protests included the National Mall in Washington, DC, State Capitols and other locations in all 50 states.
The demonstrators stated the movements of the Trump government to dismiss thousands of federal workers, to prevent social security offices closely, to effectively switch all agencies, to deport immigrants, to scale protection for transgender people and to reduce federal financing for health programs.
Musk, a Trump consultant, the Tesla, SpaceX and the Social Media platform X, has played a key role in the government’s downsizing as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he saves taxpayers billions of dollars.
In the protest in Washington, Paul Osadebe, a lawyer of the US Ministry for Housing and Urban Development, and a trade union manager Trump, Musk and others in administration, because they did not evaluate employees to create “a baseline of economic security and the power of workers”.
“Billionaires and oligarchs appreciate nothing more than profit and power, and they certainly don’t appreciate them or their life or their community,” he said. “And we see that they don’t care who they have to destroy or who they have to hurt to get what they want.”
In Massachusetts, thousands of people in Boston Common Holding sign, including “Hands from our democracy”, “Hands from our social security” and “Inclusion of diversity that makes America strong. Hands!” In Ohio, hundreds gathered under rainy conditions in the Statehouse in Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a pensioner from Delaware County, Ohio, said at Columbus rally that he was formerly a Reagan Republican, but was eliminated by Trump.
“He tears this country apart,” said Broom. “It is just a administration of complaints.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, where he spent the morning at the club’s senior club championship. People lined both sides of the PGA Drive and encouraged cars to sing horns and sing against Trump.
Archer Moran von Port St. Lucie, Florida, said: “You have to keep your hands from our social security.”
“The list of what you need to endure your hands is too long,” said Moran. “And it is astonishing how quickly these protests have taken place since taking office.”
According to the White House, the President plans to make golf again on Sunday.
When asked about the protests, the White House said in a explanation: “President Trump’s position is clear: He always becomes social security, Medicare and Medicaid for beneficiaries. In the meantime, the attitude of the Democrats provides social security, medicaid and Medicare services for illegal aliens that are grown up by these programs.”
Activists have carried out nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk several times since Trump returned to office. However, the opposition movement has not yet produced mass mobilization such as the women’s march in 2017, which, according to Trump’s first inauguration or the demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter, which broke out in several cities after George Floyd’s killing in 2020, thousands of women to Washington, DC.
___
Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Fatima Hussein in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
