Why do [Vice President JD] Vance and Donald Trump go to the Capitol but not forget Palestine?” A Toman, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, protester, texted on Bluesky
In cities all over the US and around the world, there are gatherings to protest a power grab by President Donald Trump and Musk. Civil rights groups and labor unions are among the organizations who have put on these in more than 1200 locations.
Jessica Toman, who went to the protest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, texted the above image to me. A person posting images of the same protest on Bluesky guessed that protesters numbered in the thousands.
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. The FBI has created a task force to investigate individual acts of vandalism against the company while Musk has threatened to go after the company’s critics.
The many messages and movements converging in Washington mostly seemed to coexist easily, with the occasional exception. The protesters urged people to come to the Capitol at 1 pm after the main event started, just an hour after I stood on the street corner. A man who supports the pro-Palestine protest told one of their supporters that he worried about alienating people from the central protest. He wanted people to not leave 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.”
In front of the Washington Monument, a woman named Susan was draped in blue pool noodles festooned with signs that flapped in the wind: “DOGE is a SCAM,” said one, “Stand with Ukraine,” another. The government should keep its hands off of law firms, universities and many federal agencies, according to a third list. “There are so many things that Trump has done — and Musk and [Vice President JD] Vance — that are outrageous,” she told me. On a daily basis, there are four or five things. Whether it’s snatching people off the street, cutting agencies that perform really vital functions — things that may make sense to somebody wielding a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel.” Susan, who did not give her last name, said she chose the pool noodles because of the peacefulness of the event. “This is a non-violent movement, and unlike the January 6th insurrectionists who brought flag poles and other things to use as weapons, everybody who’s here is here to peacefully protest.”
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. The event was deeply personal for many people who attended. One person who works for the Office of Management and Budget, but did not want to give her name, said that Russell Vought said that they wanted to put us into trauma and they were delivering on that promise every day. Since January 20th it has been a nightmare for 3 million federal employees.
Leonard Bailey, a retired Department of Justice worker, crafted an enormous figure of a man in a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cap out of chicken wire and expandable foam. Speaking to me while holding up his sculpture from the back, Bailey said that it really “pains” him to see how the colleagues he spent 33 years working with are being treated by Musk’s DOGE. “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 pre-planned retirement in January, and while he says “people keep telling me what great timing, I’m nursing a case of survivor’s guilt.”
Being among other federal workers brought some solace to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) enforcement attorney Doug Wilson, a member of the agency’s union. The CFPB has had a rocky couple of months, with Acting Director Vought ordering employees to stop working, until a judge recently ordered them to return while a broader case is pending.