To those of us crammed in the Red Line carriage at Metro Centre, the passing figure was like an apparition. She walked, head bowed and face obscured, in the ankle-length loose red dress and white bonnet made famous by the television series of Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
A thicket of people carrying signs and slogans, all bound for the National Mall for the lunchtime protests, parted as she made her way through the crowd along the platform. Then the doors closed and the train shuddered into life.
Of all the symbolic gestures of the masses gathering to express their fear and loathing of the direction in which the United States is travelling at speed, there was something disquieting about that vision.
Saturday was the first true attempt at a cohesive, national protest voice against the radical agenda of president Trump's administration since the election. Some 1,300 rallies, organised by 150 distinct groups across 50 states, drew vast crowds to the major American cities.
DC police were planning for around 20,000 people to gather at the National Mall and for a separate Pro-Palestine protest close to the Capitol. The estimated number ranged from 60,000 to 100,000. The hilly verge around the National Monument had the expectant air of a mass concert festival in that lull time between acts.
There were speakers, led by Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin. But it was clear that people made the effort to be there simply to gather and form part of the swell of human opposition. It was the same in Chicago, Boston and New York, where the crowd on Fifth Avenue reportedly stretched for 20 blocks.
“Disgust. I don’t know what else to say” said Cathy O’Donnell when asked what had compelled her to fly in from Ohio for the event. She was there with her sister Alison and their friend Jenny.
“I’m gonna be seventy soon,” O’Donnell explained.
“The only thing I want for my birthday is for him to be gone. This is not ok. My father fought in World War II against the fascists. All of what they are doing – destroying the government, taking things from people, it makes me sick. I can’t sleep at night. It’s just terrible. I have been protesting in Columbus and I thought, well, the place I want to be today is in DC.”
The trio are long-time friends. As we talk, fears for the future of US education – “They are banning books, telling teachers what to teach,” said Alison – the integrity of elections and the right to simply participate in future protests emerge as their chief concerns.
“I used to think it was hyperbole,” her sister said.
“But I can’t imagine that I am living in a story from the history books. I am actually afraid whether or not we will still be voting in 2026. And America is not just the United States. There is talk about stuff like this, about them bringing in anti-protesters to invoke violence so that they can use the insurrection act.”
“Some people think that will be soon; by the end of April,” agreed Jenny.
From the vantage point of the National Monument, the Mall was a river of people and placards running as far as the Capitol Building. The slogans were funny, profane, despairing, defiant, and the vast majority were devoted to protests against perceived attacks on the constitution, Elon Musk‘s shadowy role, the ineffectiveness of Congress and innumerable signs and sketches portraying president Trump in Nazi Germany regalia.
The absence of any reference to the ongoing global alarm over Trump’s newly unveiled tariff policy was striking. It was as though, for this crowd, the prospect of higher prices and plummeting pension plans was the least of it.
The Smiths flew in from Montana to be in Washington. They were there specifically to give voice to what they see as the appalling treatment by the Trump administration of Canada.
“We love Canada,” was Byron Smith’s simple explanation.
“We have had nothing but goodwill from them and to them. It’s just ridiculous and insulting and horrible that we are treating them that way.”
“We get all our good booze from Canada!” chips in Kelly Smith. “Which comes from Europe. Which is way better than America’s. Sorry America!”
We chat about life in Montana – the global popularity of the modern western show Yellowstone; the mind-blowing landscape, the brutal winters. The Smiths have been living in a cabin built by Byron’s father half a century ago. The lifestyle there is sublime, remote, tough and intensely local. Montana is, in presidential elections, a tick-box Republican state now. Since 1948, it has returned only Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton as Democrats in elections for the White House.
“My grandfather was a miner in Butte, Montana,” Byron said.
“They were abused and that’s when the state was solidly Democratic. And I am not against outsiders at all but when people come in with a lot of money, such as our new senator...”
“Because people come with a lot of money and just buy it,” Kelly said.
“People are out there driving their tractors and they are listening to these shows – it is not like BBC; it’s just some station they can get out on the field ... and they get brainwashed.”
About a 15-minute walk away, Laura Loomer, the prominent far-right Trump loyalist and podcaster whose meeting with the president led to the immediate firing of six National Security Council members on Friday, spent her afternoon posting videos of details of the bus companies “used today to bus Muslim and radicals leftist protesters into Washington”.
The president himself, meantime, was at his golf course enjoying an elite tournament in Doral, Florida, seemingly unmoved by the smoke billowing from the stock exchange mechanisms whose buoyant health he traditionally regarded as a symbol of popularity.
There will be little trace of the crowds and slogans when he returns from his weekend. But after what has been a chastening week for the Republican administration – a comprehensive defeat in the high-profile Wisconsin supreme court election followed by the unnervingly severe stock market response to the roll-out of the tariff-inspired ‘Liberation Day’ – the president cannot be unaware of Saturday’s demonstrations.
The sudden re-emergence of national anti-administration feeling was a jolting reminder of the deep opposition and fear among tens of millions of Americans as Donald Trump’s second term enters its third full month in office.
“It may not make a difference,” Cathy O’Donnell said.
“But it’s better than staying home.”
