Hundreds of thousands of United States (US) citizens took to the streets on Saturday (5/4) across the country to protest the policies of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the technology entrepreneur who now serves as a senior advisor and heads an unofficial agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
DOGE played a major role in the massive move to streamline the US federal government. The protests carried the main slogan “Hands Off.”
The nationwide protests were held in nearly 1,000 locations, including major cities such as Washington, DC, New York City and Boston. Organizers said the crowds reached hundreds of thousands.
Protesters carried signs with messages such as “Fascism has no place here,” “The US is not an empire,” and “Leave our democracy alone.”
Many protesters explicitly highlighted the roles of Trump and Musk, with signs reading “Nobody voted for Elon Musk” and “No need for Kings, Dictators, Fascists, or Muskrats.”
The action was initiated by a movement called 50501, which refers to their mission: “50 protests, in 50 states, in one movement.”
Through social media, they called for resistance with the message: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They are taking everything they can and challenging the world to stop them.”
“If we don’t fight now, there will be nothing left to save,” reads one of the movement’s campaign materials.
Other posters also voiced issues such as: “Leave social security, Medicare, schools, and our allies alone,” and “Leave Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Haiti alone.”
Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin spoke at the rally in the US capital, calling on the Trump administration to “renounce” its claims to independent nations such as Canada, Greenland and Panama.
“The press has the right to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, criticizing the government’s move to rename the region the “Gulf of the Americas” and force the media to follow that narrative.
The action was the fourth national demonstration held by the 50501 movement, after previously holding protests on February 5, February 17, and March 4, 2025.
According to Kay Evert, one of the movement's founders, 50501 began as a discussion on Reddit before gaining support from established activist organizations. The subreddit r/50501 now has more than 246,000 members.
Source: Anadolu
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