‘We, the people, will rule’

Demonstrators decrying US President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts, war in Iran and other policies took to the city streets on Saturday across the country in the third round of the “No Kings” rallies.

More than 3,200 events had been planned in all 50 states, after the two previous nationwide events attracted millions of participants.

Large rallies took place in New York, Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington, but two-thirds of No Kings events took place outside major cities, a nearly 40 percent jump for smaller communities from the movement’s first mobilisation last June, organisers said.

The first No Kings event, on Trump’s birthday, June 14, last year, drew an estimated 4 million to 6 million people across roughly 2,100 sites nationwide. The second mobilisation in October involved an estimated 7 million participants in more than 2,700 cities, according to sources.

The events come amid what organisers said was a call to action against the bombardment of Iran by the US and Israel.

Morgan Taylor, 45, attending the Washington protest with her 12-year-old son, said she was enraged by Trump’s military action in Iran, which she called a “stupid war.”

“Nobody’s attacking us,” Taylor said. “We don’t need to be there.”

In Minnesota, a flashpoint in Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, a massive rally was held outside the state capitol in Saint Paul. Many held aloft posters bearing photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, US citizens fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis this year.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, told the crowd that their resistance to Trump and his policies makes them “the heart and soul” of everything good about the U.S.

“They call us radicals,” Walz said. “You’re damn right we’ve been radicalised -- radicalised by compassion, radicalised by decency, radicalised by due process, radicalised by democracy, and radicalised to do all we can to oppose authoritarianism.”

US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Trump critic who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, also addressed the event in Minnesota. Musician Bruce Springsteen performed his song “Streets of Minneapolis” -- a ballad criticising Trump’s immigration crackdown and lamenting the deaths of Good and Pretti.

“We will not allow this country to descend into authoritarianism or oligarchy in America,” said Sanders, an independent. “We, the people, will rule.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee criticised Democratic politicians and candidates for supporting the rallies.

“These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left’s most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone, and House Democrats get their marching orders,” committee spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.

In New York, a crowd that police estimated at tens of thousands stretched more than 10 blocks in midtown Manhattan. Actor Robert De Niro, one of the organisers, said that no president before Trump has posed “such an existential threat to our freedoms and security.”

Holly Bemiss, 54, said she and other New York rally attendees were acting in the same spirit as her ancestors who fought in the American Revolution.

On the National Mall in Washington, the crowd chanted pro-democracy slogans and held anti-Trump signs. Outside a high-rise assisted-living centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a group of elderly people in wheelchairs held signs encouraging passing cars to “Resist tyranny,” “Honk if you want democracy”, and “Dump Trump.”

Thousands attended a Dallas event that had clashes between No Kings demonstrators and counterprotest groups, including one led by Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right organisation the Proud Boys.

Minor scuffles erupted when counterprotesters blocked streets. Dallas police eventually made several arrests.

Heading toward November’s midterm elections, which will determine the makeup of the US Congress, rally organisers say they have seen a surge in the number of people organising anti-Trump events and registering to participate in deeply Republican states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 36%, its lowest since his return to the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.