Retired government worker Peggy Cole of Flint, Michigan, noticed that her 70th birthday fell on the same day as the “No Kings” protests. So she and her friend Janet decided to drive all the way from Michigan to Washington, DC, to mark the milestone. “I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate it,” she said.
“I had to be here,” she said. “We could’ve protested in Michigan … but this was special.”
Cole said she feels it’s a “scary time,” citing President Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward Democrats, arguing that he should be a president for all Americans.
“It seems to me, (Trump is) taking our government, our democracy, and dismantling it piece by piece, slowly, but surely. If we sit by and don’t do anything about it,” Cole said.
“I think our democracy is at risk, and I think that that’s extremely distressing, and that’s why we’re here,” Elizabeth Nee, 25, from Maryland, told CNN.
Nee, a social worker, said she’s seeing an impact at the psychiatric hospital she works at in Baltimore.
“We have a lot of people who are coming in and they’re unhoused, a lot of people on Medicaid. Everything’s at risk right now. So not only it’s the people I serve, but he’s tearing apart anything that has to do with supporting mental health, which is the field that I work in,” she said. “It’s scary, it’s scary to think about.”
