Washington: Tiffany Flowers still remembers how stunned she felt when she learnt Donald Trump had won a second term as president.
On the night of his resounding victory against Kamala Harris, Flowers, who heads a voting rights coalition that defends elections, was in a “war room” with other community leaders, working non-stop to keep voters and poll workers safe.
Demonstrators make their feelings clear ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.Credit: AP
“I was so busy that I didn’t actually sit down in front of a television to watch the results until almost 10 o’clock,” says Flowers, who was one of thousands of people protesting in Washington on Saturday ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
“When it became clear he’d won, I just kind of went into shock. Truly. It didn’t even occur to me that it would be a shellacking like that. It just felt so gross, as somebody who truly does believe in the possibility of America and what we could be.”
Lillian Fenske, who also attended Saturday’s rally, had an even more visceral reaction.
“I threw up,” she says. “I really did. I mean, the stuff that he stands for, and the stuff that he wants to do, is going to strip rights away from so many people in America. It’s not a country I want to live in if it’s going to be like that, you know?”
With the Washington Monument in the background, demonstrators protest against the incoming administration at the Lincoln Memorial.Credit: AP
With two days until Trump is sworn into office as the nation’s 47th president, thousands of people attended “The People’s March” to make their voices heard.
Some wore the knitted pink “pussy” hats that became a hallmark of the Women’s March after Trump was inaugurated in 2017 for his first presidency. Others were dressed as repressed women from The Handmaid’s Tale, or carried banners emblazoned with phrases such as “We won’t back down”; “RIP USA”; and “United For Change”.
Lida Jones carrying the old, framed photo of her with her maid.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
As protesters marched towards the Lincoln Memorial chanting, “We’re not going back,” one elderly woman, Lida Jones, carried an old, framed photo of a black woman standing in a garden with a young white child.
“She was my maid while I was growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, and that’s me,” Jones says, pointing to the smiling girl in the photo. Asked why she was at the rally, she replied: “Because I’m fighting for rights for everybody to have the privilege that I have as a white woman.”
The turnout was considerably smaller than the 470,000-strong Women’s March that took place after Trump’s first inauguration, in what was the largest single-day of protest in US history.
But organisers say the event is nonetheless part of a longer-term resistance strategy to oppose the policies of the new administration, which include a mass deportation program to get rid of undocumented immigrants and the repeal of many of Joe Biden’s climate change initiatives.
At Farragut Square, 70-year-old Kathy Betzhold from upstate New York carried a sign saying “No Tech Oligarchy”, a reference to Biden’s warning this week that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy”.
“I’m really concerned about the money they have used to purchase power and the rise of big data and intrusion into individual privacy,” she said.
Eric McKenzie was concerned about what the second Trump presidency would mean for action on climate change.
Eric McKenzie at the Washington rally.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
“Nothing that the Trump administration has ever said leads me to think that they take the problem seriously at all,” the 51-year-old from Greenbelt, Maryland, said. “They don’t seem to think that it is a threat [or] that the science is real.”
And 15-year-old student Willow, who did not wish to give her surname, said she feared her rights as a young woman would be at risk under the new administration.
“We’ve been fighting for years when really we should just be being kids instead of fighting for our basic human rights – and that’s just not fair,” she said.
Placards at the rally, which organisers say is part of a longer-term resistance strategy to oppose the policies of the new Trump administration.Credit: Getty Images
The rally was a mostly peaceful affair, with law enforcement on high alert across the streets of DC for the next three days. One man in a MAGA hat carrying a large military-style backpack tried to provoke the crowd by placing himself at the front of the march but was escorted out by police as he told reporters: “This is a new transformation – God has appointed Donald Trump and whether we like Biden or Trump, we have to honour that.”
The rally took place as festivities for Trump’s inauguration began in earnest on Saturday with a reception and fireworks display set to kick off at Trump’s Sterling Golf Club in Virginia, followed by a “victory rally” in downtown DC on Sunday and a candlelight dinner for the president later that night.
The swearing-in ceremony – which has now been moved indoors due to extreme weather – will take place at noon on Monday, followed by a signing ceremony in the Oval Office and three gala balls: The Commander in Chief Ball, focused on military service members; the Liberty Inaugural Ball, in which Village People will perform for Trump’s supporters; and the Starlight Ball, which is geared towards high-dollar donors.
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