REUTERS: More than 2,600 “No Kings” protest events are scheduled to take place on Saturday in all 50 US states, a mass mobilization against President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, education and security that organizers say are pushing the country toward autocracy.
The protests — big and little, in cities, suburbs and small towns across the US — follow similar demonstrations in June and will gauge the frustration level of opponents of a conservative agenda that has rolled out quickly.
Since Trump took office 10 months ago, his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement, moved to slash the federal workforce and cut funding to elite universities over issues including pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, campus diversity and transgender policies.
Residents in some major cities have seen National Guard troops sent in by the president, who argues they are needed to protect immigration agents and to help combat crime.
“There is nothing more American than saying ‘we don’t have kings’ and exercising our right to peacefully protest,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, a progressive organization that is the main organizer of the No Kings marches.
Trump has said very little about Saturday’s protests. But in an interview with Fox Business aired on Friday he said that “they’re referring to me as a king — I’m not a king.”
More than 300 grassroots groups helped organize Saturday’s marches, Greenberg said. The American Civil Liberties Union said it has given legal training to tens of thousands of people who will act as marshals at the various marches, and those people were also trained in de-escalation. No Kings ads and information have blanketed social media to drive turnout.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat, have backed the marches along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump. An array of celebrities also has backed the movement.
In June, over 2,000 No Kings protests took place, mostly peacefully, on the same day that Trump celebrated his 79th birthday and held a military parade in Washington.
