Hands Off! Pro-Palestine rallies and protests against the Trump-Mucana agenda in Washington, D.C., reported Common Dreams
Millions of people flooded the streets today at over 1,300 “Hands Off!” peaceful protests in all 50 states, the U.S. territories and a dozen locations worldwide asking for an end to authoritarian overreach by Trump and Musk
Indivisible gave an estimate that was in line with MoveOn’s, according to the report by Common Dreams, which said that the crowd exceeded their estimates at nearly every event. From Common Dreams:
Last weekend, “Tesla Takedown” protests targeted Tesla showrooms around the country to show disapproval for Musk, its CEO, who has spearheaded an effort to carry out mass federal workforce layoffs and hollow out government agencies. As Tesla’s sales have plummeted this quarter, Musk has threatened to “go after” the company’s critics, while the FBI has created a task force to investigate individual acts of vandalism and other actions aimed at the company.
The movements and messages were mostly unaffected by each other in Washington. A few protesters outside the National Mall called for people to join them for a pro-Palestine rally at the Capitol just an hour after the main event began. A man holding a federal worker union sign interjected, telling one of the pro-Palestine protesters that while he supported their message, he worried about diverting people from the central protest. He urged people to stay in the main rally. The pro-Palestine protester adjusted her message. “Join the Palestine rally at whatever time carries your spirit,” and “go to both rallies but do not forget Palestine.”
Susan, dressed in blue pool noodles with signs that flapped in the wind, stood in front of the Washington Monument. A third bore a long list of things the government should keep its “hands off”: law firms, universities, and many federal agencies. “There are so many things that Trump has done — and Musk and [Vice President JD] Vance — that are outrageous,” she told me. “Every single day, there are four or five things. Whether it is snaring people off the street, cutting agencies that perform vital functions, or both, it’s something that may make sense to a sledgehammer wielder. Susan, who declined to give her last name, says she chose the pool noodles to underscore the peacefulness of the event. People are here to peacefully protest, not like the January 6th insurrectionists who brought flag poles and other things to use as weapons.
Some organizers arranged buses to help people travel to the nation’s capital for the rally, though many people showed up closer to home at the events spread across the country (and, thanks to protests in several major European cities, the world.) New York City reportedly had a similar turnout to DC — which is a much smaller city — and protests cropped up in stereotypically deep-red states like Idaho and West Virginia. But for many who attended the DC rally, the event was deeply personal. One person who identified herself as a federal worker, but did not give her name, said that Russell Vought said that they wanted to put us into trauma and they are delivering on that promise every day. “And it has been nothing but a nightmare since January 20th for 3 million federal employees.”
The figure of a man in a Department of Government Efficiency cap is made out of chicken wire and foam by Leonard Bailey, a retired Department of Justice worker. Bailey said that it really pain his to see how his coworkers are treated by Musk while he was a part of it. “My experience with the colleagues I’ve worked with over that time were these were people who worked well into the night, through the weekend, through family vacations to keep the American public safe,” he says. He started his retirement in January and is sick of people telling him how good it is.
Being a member of the agency’s union made Doug Wilson feel better, as he was among other federal workers. The acting director of the agency ordered employees to stop working, until a judge ordered them back in, despite the case still being pending.
HANDS OFF THE DRINKS OF THE DODGE: The GROUP’S SMALL EFFECTIVE MINIMUM
The social media accounts of 5050, a movement that sprang up in reaction to Musk’s actions as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, have been listed as the most specific number reported so far. The group posted late yesterday that “over 3 million people across the country stood up to say HANDS OFF our democracy.”