ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Chants of “this is what democracy looks like” and loud car horns filled the air as the “No Kings” protests returned on Saturday in Ann Arbor.
The protests happened across the country for the second time in four months in protest of the Trump administration’s policies and actions, which protesters say threaten everyone from immigrants to women, to people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community, along with American democracy itself.
Hundreds of people, young and old, waved American flags during the protest that started near Veterans Memorial Park and stretched as far away as Michigan Stadium.
Most carried signs and banners, while some brought their kids and their dogs, and others wore costumes.
While there was a lot of fun being had, the message of the rally was serious business.
“Had there been something like this in Munich in 1937, the world might have been very different” Jim Pierson of Ann Arbor said. Pierson was there with his wife, Cindy, and said that they have lived through times like this as children
“We’ve lived long enough to know what the McCarthy area was,” he said. “We are feeling very threatened in our democracy that we choose to live in. We’re going to do whatever we can as a couple to help protect it.”
The protesters, a number of them being war veterans, also fought back at the narrative pushed by Republicans that these protests are paid for by unnamed outside groups and that they are “anti-American.”
“Serving in the Navy, I fought for everybody’s rights,” Christina Baisden, of Allen Park, said. Baisden, who was carrying a sign demanding funding for PBS, served eight years in the Navy and said the presence of the American flag at the protest is a way of reclaiming it.
“I defended everybody’s constitutional rights and their right to freedom, their right to freedom of speech,” she said. “[The flag] is about freedom.
“It’s not about mistreating others or shutting other people’s voices down,” she added. “That’s what it’s being treated as right now.”