US Politics
Flashmob protesters block New York’s 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower on Presidents Day
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Hundreds of New Yorkers marked Presidents Day by gathering outside Trump Tower on Monday to raise their middle fingers against Donald Trump.
According to videos and local media reports, demonstrators filled 5th Avenue just after 1 p.m. Monday and apparently blocked vehicle traffic, while banging drums, playing music, and changing “f*** Trump!”
Photos showed marchers with signs branding Trump a “TRAITOR”, and a wannabe dictator, as well as a huge banner calling for him to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.
A spokesperson for the NYPD told The Independent that “multiple people” had been arrested, but could not say how many or what they had been charged with.
The protest was organized by Rise and Resist, a direct action group, and 50501, the loose anti-Trump network behind last year’s No Kings demonstrations, according to an Instagram post by Rise and Resist.
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It was one of numerous small protests and rallies organized around the country for Presidents day, ranging from California’s Coachella Valley to New England and upstate New York.
“He’s violating every principle that we believe he should be upholding, and that the Constitution requires,” one demonstrator in Waterville, Maine, told the Morning Sentinel.
“We don’t claim Trump as our president. He’s not representing us in any sort of way that anyone would want to be represented,” another in Concord, New Hampshire told InDepthNH.org.
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Numerous chants and signs focused on Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, his attempts to centralize power under the office of the president, and his mass detention and deportation campaign against immigrants.
On Saturday, an investigation by Reuters found more than 4,400 cases in which the Trump administration was ruled by a judge to have detained immigrants illegally.
Polls show that Trump has become deeply unpopular across a wide range of U.S. voters, with four separate polls on Monday registering the lowest approval ratings of his term so far.
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Trump was not present in Trump Tower on Monday. Still, the protest there reportedly had a “party-like atmosphere”, with loudspeakers playing music and some protesters dancing, according to the amNewYork newspaper.
“There’s no reason for ICE to be in the streets, for them to be undercover, for them to take citizens unwillingly and put them into camps, essentially, and stealing them from their families,” protester Elaine Wong told the paper.
“It is my duty as a citizen… to protect my neighbors, my friends, and all my family. They deserve to be here just as much as anybody else.”
The White House and the New York City mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
