WASHINGTON: When Liz Gabbitas joined thousands of fellow protesters on Saturday in the US capital, she thought her message to the Trump administration would be best delivered through her homemade sign: a cardboard guillotine.

The 34-year-old librarian made clear she does not advocate violence, but nevertheless insisted that her one-metre (three-foot) sign, complete with tin foil blade, “communicated the visual language” of revolutionary fervor she longs for less than three months into Donald Trump’s presidency.

“It’s easy to be overwhelmed with all of the horrible things going on” under Trump’s leadership, she said at the base of the Washington Monument, just blocks from the White House.

“I’m worried that the separation of powers is dissolving,” she added, noting Trump’s dramatic expansion of executive authority. “And I do worry that people get into the trap of feeling like, well there’s nothing I can do.” Americans were taking action all around her, however, on the biggest day of national “Hands Off” protests since Trump returned to power.

Hand-scrawled “Resist” signs poked up from the crowd, which organisers said amounted to more than 20,000 people. Some protesters dressed in the red cloaks of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a popular novel and TV series about a totalitarian society.

Others carried American flags upside down, traditionally a symbol of distress or danger to the country’s liberties. “You did Nazi this coming,” screamed a sign.

Bob Dylan’s protest classic “Masters of War” oozed from a portable speaker. A larger-than-life paper mache model of Elon Musk, the billionaire whom Trump has tasked with slashing the federal workforce, cast a fascist salute.

“Because of Trump and Elon and DOGE, my project died and I was laid off,” said Annette, a 39-year-old from Oregon who recently lost her government contractor job in international development. While she fears a collapse in US-funded humanitarian work worldwide, “I’m really heartened to see so many people out here,” she said. But “this is not enough… Congress needs to get off their asses, I think,” she said.

“Unfortunately,” she added, “I feel this in my heart that people aren’t going to come out until it hurts them personally somehow.”

‘Coup’ by oligarchs

Half a mile away, Shelly Townley and her husband were making their way past the White House, provocatively holding an upside-down American flag and a sign reading “Stop the Musk Coup.” “I feel sad. This is the first time I’ve walked by here without crying,” Townley, a 62-year-old from North Carolina, said.

“I believe we’re under a coup right now, by oligarchs, much to my dismay,” and “the checks and balances of our government” are disintegrating, she added. Even though Trump was away in Florida, Townley found herself looking at the White House through tall metal fencing erected ahead of the rally. “I wish that instead of being at a golf tournament at Mar-a-Lago that he was in there and could see what was happening out here, that the people are out here” opposing his policies, she said.

Not everyone was comfortable openly protesting in public, especially given Trump’s executive order issued last week that approves the deployment of “a more robust Federal law enforcement presence” in Washington. A 51-year-old woman who represents an NGO said she was wearing a mask “to protect my identity.”

“I think they are using AI and different recognition technologies to out people and to then punish them,” she added.

“It’s all about loyalty with this administration,” she warned. “And if you’re disloyal, you’re at risk of losing everything.”

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2025