No Kings protests turned out thousands across Pa. in dissent to Trump regime

‘A big part of these kinds of protests is just people realizing that they’re not alone,’ organizer Stephanie Vincent said.

Tens of thousands across Pennsylvania spent Saturday proclaiming their dissent to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian regime in protests with a festive air but a gravely serious message.

“People fought and died for us to have the rights we have,” 61-year-old Tracie Benner of Juniata County said outside the state Capitol in Harrisburg, where between 5,000 and 6,000 people gathered. “And now for Trump and the Supreme Court and the Congress to just throw it away, we won’t stand for that.”

Since taking office in January, Trump’s government has slashed federal agencies and congressionally approved funding, indicted political foes and massively ramped up indiscriminate immigration law enforcement. And with a conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority secured by Trump’s three first-term appointments, the high court has repeatedly allowed administration policies to move forward through its shadow docket.

“If you ever look around and think, ‘Am I going mad? Is this really happening?’ You’re not crazy. You’re not alone,” said Justin Douglas, a pastor and Democratic Dauphin County Commissioner at a rally Saturday afternoon in Hershey. “We need moments like this right here where we’re out of social media, we’re in the real world, we’re standing in a park together in our community.”

Similar demonstrations were held in Pittsburgh, State College, the Lehigh Valley and deep red Butler County as part of the national No Kings movement, organized by a coalition of civil rights groups that claimed 7 million people participated nationwide.

An estimated 20,000 people gathered at Philadelphia’s City Hall and marched a mile on Market Street to Independence Hall, where the nation’s foundational documents were drafted, debated and adopted by delegates from the 13 original states.

Speakers included three of the Philadelphia region’s Democratic U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, Madeleine Dean and Mary Gay Scanlon; District Attorney Larry Krasner; and Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes.

On the Montgomery County Courthouse steps, protest leaders in Revolutionary War garb read passages from the Declaration of Independence and listed what they said are the Trump administration’s violations of the U.S. Constitution.

“Americans like their freedom,” Stephanie Vincent, a lead organizer of Community Change for Montgomery County, said. “It’s just getting to the point where people really need to know that they need to come out and stand up against it.”

Many of the estimated 1,500 people who filled the courthouse plaza in Norristown, seat of the commonwealth’s third-most populous county, were protesting for the first time, Vincent said.

“A big part of these kinds of protests is just people realizing that they’re not alone,” she said. “That there are other people that think like they do and care about the things that they care about.”

In Harrisburg and across the U.S., protesters arrived wearing inflatable dinosaur, cow and shark costumes in order to dial back tension and draw attention to violent police tactics used against protesters elsewhere.

One person dressed as the starfish character Patrick from the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants. Two strangers wearing similar pink and blue inflatable axolotl costumes hugged and danced together.

“Honestly, it just feels very American to me,” Amy, the woman wearing the pink axolotl costume, said. She declined to give her last name. “We’re just such a serious bunch, you know? We try our best to just fight for our rights and everything, but we still know how to have fun.”

Don Coleman, 69, said he attended the rally at the Capitol because he’s concerned about subversion of the constitution, especially with a Congress and Supreme Court that he views as beholden to the president. But beyond the actions of the U.S. government, he’s worried about polarization of the American people.

“My father was a veteran after World War II. My grandfather fought in World War I. I have friends who fought in Vietnam,” he added. “How did we get here? They didn’t fight for this.”