Anti-Trump Jan. 20 Protests in DC Fall Flat

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Left-wing groups opposing Donald Trump’s second presidency had plans to “fight back” with thousands of protesters in Washington, D.C., on Monday—but that’s not what happened.

The Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition and the People’s Forum, who were behind anti-Israel riots last summer in the nation’s capital, organized Inauguration Day rallies that led local law enforcement to expect around 10,000 people across the town, starting at Malcolm X Park. The Daily Caller News Foundation, however, observed a different scene: a crowd of dozens standing in the snow, a pile of unused megaphones, and complaints about the icy weather.

“We are here on a day that is so cold that they decided to put the inauguration indoors,” one speaker said at a podium. “But for us, we’re saying that we will be here no matter what, no matter how cold it is!”

Protesters filled roughly half of the park to decry the new president’s conservative agenda while making radical demands such as the release of Palestinian criminals in Israel, labeled “political prisoners,” and “the abolition of police, prisons, and cages.”

Standing with the anti-Trump protesters was, ironically, a Trump supporter wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and a Make America Great Again hat.

“I’m here to protest Israel using America,” New York resident Hugh Casey told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I don’t like what [Trump] does with Zionism, but I do like the rest of his movement and what he’s about,” Casey said.

Pointing to his keffiyeh, Casey told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “I like to show that Republicans can be for the Palestinian people, and we don’t need to just bend tail to Israel every single time.”

A masked man with a wooden guillotine managed to turn some heads. The structure had fake blood and the words “come get sum” inscribed at its base. The guillotine and signs from the Malcolm X Park gathering were later seen among protesters marching through the streets, surrounded by law enforcement.

After Trump was sworn in at noon, the Daily Caller News Foundation observed a separate demonstration at Lafayette Square in front of the barricaded White House by a group of around two dozen who called themselves revolutionary communists. Protesters held signs of Trump in a Ku Klux Klan hood and called the president a “bag of feces.”

The scenes stood in contrast to the riots against Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 that brought clashes with police, tear gas, fires, vandalism, and more than 200 arrests in Washington. The first Trump administration dropped dozens of protesters’ charges.

No arrests of protesters were reported Monday.

The communist protesters talked about forming a “massive” nationwide resistance against Trump’s “fascism.” But there were ultimately more Make America Great Again hats than Marxist symbols at the square as Trump supporters passed by, heckling, grinning, filming or ignoring the group.

“No one cares!” one man shouted in a sing-song tone.

Andi Shae Napier and Myles Morell contributed reporting.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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