“They don’t understand anything about the fact that we all are kings and not him.”
That’s part of why George Atkinson, a former high school government teacher, felt compelled to join a protest in downtown Houston on Saturday. The 89-year-old affixed a sign to his walker that read, “The clothes have no emperor! He’s all hat and no cattle!”
Atkinson told CNN he’s been “opposed to fascism all my life.”
“I was a high school government teacher, and these people’s kids would have failed my course, the people who support Trump,” he said.
The event was one of more than 2,000“No Kings”rallies held across the country on Saturday, protesting what organizers call “authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy.”
Tens of thousandsof people showed up for the rallies –including more than 50,000 in New York and more than 20,000 in Los Angeles, officials in those cities said. The events coincided witha military paradein Washington, DC, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army, which was also President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.
The protests were largely peaceful, and many were planned and permitted with local authorities. They follow over a week ofprotests against immigration enforcementin Los Angeles, which prompted the president to take the rare step of federalizingthe National Guardand deploying Marines. Similar demonstrations have since popped upacross the country.
CNN field teams spoke with attendees at rallies across the country. Here’s what protesters had to tell us:
At demonstrations across the country, protesters emphasized the importance of democracy – an institution they fear is eroding with Trump’sattempts to expand executive power.
“What’s happening right now is the beginning of a long slide into autocracy,” Stephen Nunez told CNN at a protest in New York.
“For years, people have been saying we’ve been overreacting, and we’re not overreacting,” he said. “This is what’s happening. We can see it. There are people being assassinated. There are Democratic legislators being arrested. We have Marines in the streets in Los Angeles doing things that they’re not supposed to be doing.”
“And enough is enough,” he went on. “We have to make a stand right now.”
In Atlanta, crowds chanted “No kings in America!” and carried American flags and signs, including one that said, “Our vets did not fight for fascism.”
In Philadelphia, demonstrator Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “On this day, where we celebrate the flag, where we celebrate America, we are fighting for democracy.”
“The throughline in America is that the people are governed not by a king, not a tyrant, not nobility, but the people.”
Weingarten said Philadelphia was a particularly meaningful location for the march because of its historical importance as the city where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.
“That’s why I wanted to be in Philadelphia today, because we have to summon up what the framers and the founders said so many years ago when they said, ‘No taxation without representation’ and ‘No, no King George, you don’t rule us,” she said.
Debbie Whaley, a protester in Los Angeles, told CNN she moved to the United States from London when she was 10.
“I came from a country of kings,” she said. “I didn’t come here for another one.”
Whaley said she’s been participating in protests since she marched against the Vietnam War in 1960s. “I’m here for democracy,” she said. “I’m here because I’m frightened of how we are traveling in this country. But my anger supersedes my fear.”
One attendee chose to make his message clear with style: Dennis Hannan attended a demonstration in Philadelphia dressed as Elvis, saying he’s “the only American king.”
“We’re here to downplay the other kings,” he said. He added attending the rally was important to him because “I’m a father of three girls. I’m a grandfather of four boys and a girl, and I want them to be brought up in America, where they have equal rights, equal say.”
Many demonstrators called out the military parade itself, criticizing the use of taxpayer dollars for the event – which is estimated to have costaround $45 million.
“We need that money in other places,” said Renee Hall-George, a social worker who attended a protest in Atlanta. “How about funding education? How about feeding people? How about offering health care?”
Alizah Brozgold, who braved the rain to attend a rally in New York, said, “The military parade disgusts me.”
“It’s a huge amount of wasted money,” she told CNN. “I hope it pours on his parade.”
There was some light drizzling at the Washington event, although the proceedings didn’t seem to be affected. The president had said the parade would go on “rain or shine.”
Others decried the apparent message of the event, which saw a massive amount of military hardware and personnel paraded through the nation’s capital, including 28 Abrams tanks — weighing 70 tons each.
“Trump is doing it just to make himself feel bigger and better and to also threaten us, like to have the military go through the streets of our country,” Lyn Stubbs, a social worker who attended a protest in Atlanta, said. “It feels like a threat to me, like he’s saying, ‘don’t speak up. Don’t stand out.’”
Jon Cutler, a veteran who said he served 32 years in the Navy, said the parade made him feel “very angry.”
He compared the display to military parades in Korea and Russia.
“Even Eisenhower said we will not have these military parades after World War II, because, again, the law is above any individual,” he told CNN at a demonstration in Philadelphia, wearing his Navy uniform. “I think it sets a bad precedent.”
Many protesters connected their attendance to the ongoingimmigration crackdownand the federal government’s forceful response to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
Maria Rodriguez told CNN she is a “Dreamer” – a beneficiary ofan Obama-era policythat protects undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
“I love everything that America represents, and I know that what’s going on right now, this is not the definition of America,” Rodriguez told CNN at a demonstration in Los Angeles. She came to the United States when she was 5, she said. “I know I am an American.”
She added she was particularly inspired to join the day’s protest after seeing the arrest ofDavid Huerta, a California union leader, at a protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles, as well as seeing US Rep. Maxine Waters bedenied accessto an immigration detention facility when she went to speak with Huerta.
“Everything needs to stop to be here, to fight for what’s right, to stand up for our rights,” she said. “We all need to be here to speak up and to let Donald Trump know – and everyone that supports Donald Trump – that this is not right.”
Victoria Carfi, a college student visiting Philadelphia on vacation, told CNN she was motivated to attend because her parents are immigrants. The ongoing federal immigration blitz is “really stressful,” she said.
“It makes it a lot more personal for me, because a lot of people who don’t have immigrants in their family feel a bit more removed from it,” she said. “It could be my parents. It could be your neighbor. And I really wish people were a bit more compassionate to that.”
She held a sign that said “Ice in my margarita, not my streets,” an attempt to bring “a little bit of, like, a light-hearted take” on a “very serious topic.”
Hannan, the demonstrator dressed as Elvis, called immigration the “most important issue right now.”
“I think Donald Trump has lost his mind with immigration,” he told CNN. “You know, without immigrants, we wouldn’t all be sitting here today.”
Daniela Palma-Saracho, a self-described daughter of immigrants, held a sign reading, “You can’t admire the flowers and ignore the hands that harvest them” at a protest in Los Angeles.
“To me, that’s powerful, because a lot of people want to admire our community, our culture, and don’t want to recognize the people that (are) actually making things happen,” she said. She attended the rally alongside her parents and said it was their first time at a major protest.
Rigo Ortega, another protester in Los Angeles, told CNN he was there to “support the people without voice, people who cannot vote, people who is being deported, leaving kids alone in their houses.”
“The way Trump is doing his ICE raids is not fair to my point of view,” he said. “So we’re trying here to support the people who cannot be here because they’re afraid to do it.”
Other protesters spoke about the importance of protecting marginalized populations who they say are under attack.
John Nicks told CNN he was “tired of Trump destroying Medicaid and all social services to hurt the marginalized and disabled people like myself.”
“There’s so much stuff in this big bill, ‘beautiful bill’ that he calls it, that’s going to hurt disabled individuals like myself,” Nicks told CNN at a rally in Houston, referring to agiant domestic policy billthat has attracted criticism for its proposed cuts to Medicaid and other social services.
Nicks uses a wheelchair and experiences multiple disabilities, he told CNN. “What Trump wants to do … is mess with everything for the disabled and marginalized,” he said.
Marta Schaaf-Gloria, who attended a protest in New York, said she was motivated by what “we’ve seen that Congress has done with regard to regulation of environment, regards to drilling and financing of fossil fuels, subsidies and tax dollars going to the fossil fuel expansion.”
“I think it’s really important that we show this regime, this administration, that the American people are against the authoritarian power,” she said.