- Thousands flood streets protesting threats to reproductive rights, pledges of mass deportations
Protests against President-elect Donald Trump erupted in the US on Saturday as thousands of people on both coasts took to the streets in frustration about his re-election and return to the White House.
In major cities, including New York City and Seattle, thousands of people demonstrated against the former president amid his threats against reproductive rights and pledges to carry out mass deportations at the start of his upcoming presidency.
In New York City on Saturday, demonstrators from advocacy groups focused on workers’ rights and immigrant justice crowded outside Trump International Hotel and Tower on 5th Avenue holding signs that read: “We protect us” and “Mr President, how long must women wait for liberty?” Others held signs that read: “We won’t back down” while chanting: “Here we are and we’re not leaving!”
Similar protests occurred in Washington DC, where Women’s March participants demonstrated outside the Heritage Foundation, the rightwing think tank behind Project 2025. Pictures on social media on Saturday showed demonstrators holding signs that read: “Well-behaved women don’t make history” and “You are never alone”. Demonstrators also chanted: “We believe that we will win!” and held other signs that read: “Where’s my liberty when I have no choice?”
Crowds of demonstrators also gathered outside Seattle’s Space Needle on Saturday. “March and rally to protest Trump and the two-party war machine,” posters for the protests said, adding: “Build the people’s movement and fight war, repression and genocide!” Speaking to a crowd of demonstrators, some of whom dressed in raincoats. In contrast, others wore keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, one demonstrator said: “Any president that has come to power has also let workers down.”
On Friday, protesters gathered outside city hall in Portland, Oregon, in a similar demonstration against Trump. Signs carried by demonstrators included messages that read: “Fight fascism” and “Turn fear into fight”.
“We’re here because we’ve been fighting for years for health, housing, and education. And whether it was Trump, or [Joe] Biden before this, we have not been getting it and we want to push to get that realized,” Cody Urban, a chair for the US chapter of the International League of People’s Struggle, said, KGW reported.
Also on Friday, dozens of demonstrators in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, gathered in Point Start Park to protest Trump’s election victory. People carried signs reading: “We are not going back” and “My body, my choice”.
“We are afraid of what’s coming, but we are not going to back down,” Steve Capri, an organizer with Socialist Alternative, told WPXI TV. “Trump is an attack on all of us so we need to unite, we need to get organized, join movements, study and learn together.” – With The Guardian report
