April 5 rallies against Trump/Musk nationwide!!

Jack Metzgar – Oak Park, Illinois

While there was a massive protest in Chicago’s Loop, there were impressive smaller ones in more than a dozen suburbs and small Illinois towns.  The one in our leafy inner-ring suburb drew more than a thousand.  I could not go for health reasons, but my 80-year-old wife reports a varied crowd from kids to seniors filling a public park in our downtown, angry but in high spirits.

Mike Johnston – Watsonville, CA

In Watsonville CA over a thousand people showed up at a rally in the main Plaza for a rally with speakers from the Labor Council, Barrios Unidos, the Day Labor Center and others. It closed with a rousing speech in English and Spanish from Dr. Faris Sabbah, the elected County Superintendent of Education, about growing up under an authoritarian regime in Iraq, reminding those present that all of what we have here was won through a revolution followed by years of struggle, not gifted, and emphasizing the need to unite behind all of the communities that are being attacked to fight  back.

Josefa Simkin – Augusta, Maine

About 3,000 people showed up in Augusta, Maine, which has a population of 20,000. They heard from a Palestinian whose family came to the US in 1948 and who is now a US citizen who spoke and quoted history of the Resistance on the island of Mayorca, Spain when Italy’s fascist dictator tried to take over in the 1930’s. He said their motto was: ‘No Pasarán!’. And they won.

Alongside him was a representative from Jewish Voices for Peace, who emphasized that opposing Israel’s war on Palestinians was not anti-semitism. There were also state representatives, people representing trans rights, people representing the perspective of youth, people that were representing the Latino workforce and community that do a lot of labor for the main industries of blueberry picking, lobster industry. It was a chilly 37 degrees which did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Ted Cocheau – Santa Cruz, California

It was a beautiful warm spring day when as many as 5,000 people, most holding creatively derogatory hand-made signs, gathered in front of the Santa Cruz County courthouse at noon.  Those who couldn’t fit on the crowded lawn lined up along Water and Ocean streets waving their signs and cheering at the cacophony of horns from passing cars. The crowd was energetic in a happy-mad sort of mood. Happy to be there with a very large crowd of like-minded citizens expressing their outrage, angry about Trump, and his destructive and heartless policies, while also getting after Elon Musk in equal measure. A series of speakers talked loudly into the PA system to be heard over the noisy crowd and the drum banging of none other than Crazy George. The MC got the crowd involved having the crowd loudly yell “Hands OFF! after each of his prompts, including, “What do we want Trump to do with our Social Security? Our Medicare? Our universities? Our libraries? Our scientific research, Our foreign aid? Our allies?…” Most of the crowd stayed for a few hours, happy to be amongst their friends and neighbors with a renewed sense of a moral community, then started drifting off to the parking lots still waving their signs as passing cars honked loudly and feeling happy they had an opportunity to express themselves. One perplexing observation was how few young people participated, especially being in such close proximity to the university, and this same observation was relayed from a friend attending her local rally in Santa Rosa.

Erica Terence – Orleans, California

About 25 Orleans residents assembled in tiny, rural Orleans, California, joining “Hands Off!” protests organized across America and the globe today. Protestors walked across the Orleans bridge to acoustic guitar folk songs, joined by a local dog and cow when they got to the other side!

Peter Olney – San Francisco, California

Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco was filled to overflowing today with demonstrators participating in the “Hands Off!” rally against Trump and Musk. “Hands Off!” is a national coalition resistance effort ofIndivisible, Move OnandThird Act among other forces. The most exciting aspect of this gathering was the creativity and multiplicity of signs and visual artifacts created by individual protestors. My friend Salvo Leonardi from Italy commented that you would not see such variety and creativity in signage in Italy. There would instead be large contingents with organizational – often union – banners and signs. I said that reflected somewhat the weakness of our resistance as we would benefit from tighter and more disciplined participation. I did not see a large and visible contingent for instance from labor although there were many unionists in the crowd. Nevertheless this was a big step!

The “Hands Off!” coalition advertised 11 separate rallies throughout California and many in other states. And “Hands Off!” is only one of many organizations powering the fight back. Keep our marching shoes on as these are only the opening salvos…!!

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More from “Hands Off” demos around the country Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday