Millions of Americans rally against Donald Trump
Charles Town, West Virginia: School teacher Chervon Grantham is 47 and attending her first protest. “I finally had enough and was brave enough,” he says. “I can no longer remain silent about what is happening in our country.”
Grantham holds a sign with lyrics from John Denver’s West Virginia anthem. Take Me Home, Country Roadsand wearing a T-shirt inspired by the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Being from West Virginia, I have had to deal with racism my entire life,” he says. “I choose to be here and live here because I love my community. But it’s hard, and I feel like it’s time to stand up so that everyone can be equal and everyone can be free.”
Grantham with her friend Nicole Sergent, a physiotherapist and veteran protester. “It makes me feel like there’s something I can do,” the 49-year-old actor says. “It feels hopeless when you can’t do anything.”
From big blue cities like New York and Chicago to small towns in red states like Charles Town in West Virginia, millions of Americans took to the streets Saturday to protest the Trump administration in one of the largest coordinated demonstrations the country has ever seen.
Organizers of the “No Kings” protests said more than 3,200 rallies were planned in all 50 states. Previous iterations of No Kings shows have also attracted millions of viewers.
As in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump easily won West Virginia in 2024, including Jefferson County, which includes Charles Town, and nearby Berkeley County, which includes the city of Martinsburg.
But on Saturday, hundreds of anti-Trump protesters lined up in front of the historic Jefferson County Courthouse at Charles Town’s main intersection; Here they held banners, chanted slogans and cheered loudly when a passing motorist honked his horn.
“We generally pay attention to our Ps and Qs and don’t discuss politics. Some people still cling to that mentality,” says Sergent of Martinsburg. “But I feel like there is some change happening in some people.”
Sergent argues that some traditional, non-MAGA Republicans and independent voters who support Trump are disturbed by the violence of federal immigration officials in Trump’s deportation crackdown.
Sarah Ward, 21, of Charles Town agrees. She also works in schools and says many families of color do not want their children’s names and photos to appear in yearbooks for fear of being targeted by ICE.
Ward says these are the kinds of things that raise doubts about the Trump agenda among the more conservative members of his family. So are oil prices, which have soared amid the ongoing war against Iran.
“Gas prices and the war really started to change people’s minds,” he says. “Because people here really care about their dollars. We have a lot of blue-collar workers.”
National polls show Trump’s approval rating has fallen sharply since the war began, falling to the lowest level of his second term. A new poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that the percentage of Americans who approve of Trump’s performance dropped from 40 percent to just 36 percent, while 62 percent disapprove.
On the corner outside the courthouse, a group of mostly elderly demonstrators stand in the first row, holding an extra-large sign: “We the people will not be governed by hate.” they sing This Little Light of Mewhich emerged from the American gospel songbook and became a civil rights anthem.
Across the street, a lone Trump supporter wears a red Make America Great Again hat under his royal crown and waves a pro-Trump flag. plays The Village People’s YMCA and Lee Greenwood God bless the USA – Trump’s anthems – from his iPhone to the speaker.
“I’m surprised there aren’t more of me here,” Jason Butler, 40, said later as the rally ended. “Maybe people are too afraid. But if you don’t stand up for what you believe in, what else do you have left?”
As we talk, a woman shouts from her car window: “Asshole!” Butler shrugs: “A lot of people get in my face.” He says people he’s known his whole life now think he’s a bigot or a Nazi. “At the end of the day, it’s a really bad assumption to make that assumption to people just because they choose one belief over another.”
Butler said he voted for Barack Obama but converted to Trump in 2016 after Obama “went downhill.” And there are still things the President says or does that he doesn’t agree with; The war in Iran is one of them.
“There are a lot of things he could approach and do differently, maybe be a little more diplomatic,” he says. “At the end of the day, he’s doing what he thinks is best… I’m sure there are a lot of things he knows he won’t tell us until later.”
Butler believes many of the Charles Town protesters are from elsewhere, either from Virginia or from Washington, D.C., about a 90-minute drive away. But everyone I talked to is a local or from another city nearby.
Organizers are intent on showing that opposition to Trump is not limited to America’s big, liberal cities.
“The defining story of this Saturday’s action is not just how many people are protesting, but where they’re protesting,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, which launched the No Kings movement last year and spearheaded planning for Saturday’s events.
In Washington, several marches converged on the National Mall, steps from the White House (Trump spent the weekend in Florida). One of the protests was directed specifically at Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, a key architect of the administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
The White House rejected the demonstrations. “The only people who care about these Trump Imbalance Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
The Iran war, now four weeks old, as well as the upcoming midterm elections, was a recurring theme in Saturday’s protests. Trump is demanding that Congress pass the Save America Act, a law that would require voters to show identification at the ballot box, among other things.
Experts say it is extremely rare for non-citizens to vote, but the move to impose an ID requirement has public support. However, it is unlikely to pass Congress with Democrats opposing it.
Last week, former White House strategist Steve Bannon said Trump’s decision to send ICE agents to airports to help with staffing shortages was a “test run” for deploying ICE to polling places in the midterms.
Lizz Winstead, host of Saturday’s St Paul and Minneapolis protest, told the crowd: “Every single person here today needs to participate to make sure our elections are not suppressed, that people can vote, and that everyone can vote in November to make the change we so desperately want to see.”
via Reuters
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
