Thousands Gather in D.C. to Demand Halt to Rise of Fascism
Impassioned demonstrators initiate ongoing protest on anniversary of 2024 election
Protesters gather at Sylvan Theater, facing Washington Monument, to rally and march for end to American authoritarianism
Washington D.C. (November 5, 2025) ‒ As several thousand impassioned critics of the second Trump administration gathered near one of the county’s most notable symbols, the towering Washington Monument, the mood was both festive and furious. Demonstrators had traveled here from across the country, as well as from local areas. Some activist organizations had been arranging chartered bus transportation for members who could not afford to travel to Washington on their own.
Like the “Hands Off” demonstration last April (also covered by Angular Views), this event took place at the outdoor Sylvan Theater. As we had on that occasion, we traveled from Chicago to D.C. via Amtrak.
Aggressively reckless actions and orders from the president and his cabinet members had been growing day after day, in both number and cruelty. In mid-October, millions had turned out to demonstrate at “No Kings” events across the country. Now, a different sort of mass protest was unfolding, at a single historically significant location.
Largely organized by Refuse Fascism, one of many national protest groups involved in demonstrations opposing the Trump administration, the “Trump Must Go Now” movement was planned as an ongoing occurrence, not a single-day event. Demonstrators were asked to assemble in the nation’s capital on November 5, the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s second election as president. But that would be just the beginning. Through the coming weeks and months, protesters would continue to gather regularly. Some would come for a day or two. Others might remain longer. As one group departed Washington after a series of protests, another might be arriving to do likewise.
Not until Donald J. Trump was removed from office would the sequence of demonstrations finally halt.
In mid-morning, protesters from around the country began to arrive, gradually, at the Theater, facing the massive Monument, which sits upon a hill. A particularly appropriate recording was playing on the sound system: “We Shall Overcome,” sung by the late, legendary folk musician and activist, Pete Seeger. A live rock duo was next: D.C-based guitarist and singer, billing themselves as Waking Stone. Like other songs performed sporadically through the morning, their second presentation, ”D.C. Stance,” was a chant. During each musical interlude that involved chanting, the audience eagerly chimed in, repeating the words that amplified their reason to be here today.
The two-hour program followed a familiar pattern: a series of speakers, interspersed with music. A march would follow, headed toward Stanton Park – a considerable distance. Tired legs kept us from completing that follow-up march, but we were able to cover about half the distance before dropping out.
What song issuing from the public address system could be more appropriate than “We Shall Overcome,” as sung by the late, legendary folk musician Pete Seeger.
Only a handful of Handmaids joined the group as the program began. More would appear later – some four dozen in all – lined up in a row ahead of the stage. Just about anyone who participated in protests a year or two ago will recall that subjugated women dressed in red – a sartorial style borrowed from the TV-series version of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, were a regular presence.
As always at recent demonstrations, many of the D.C. participants held imaginative, meaningful signs:
IMPEACH THE IDIOT
NO MORE ICE – NO MORE TERROR
QUE SE VAYA TRUMP YA!
LOVE AMERICA – HATE DICTATORS
ONE YEAR OF MOURNING OUR FALL INTO FASCISM
Most signs, however, were professionally printed by the Refuse Fascism group – the demonstration’s principal organized. Most of those read, simply:
TRUMP MUST GO NOW
One particularly tall fellow wandered among the group, dressed in colonial garb. His message was straightforward: I DISAPPROVE.
“Rise Up – Rise Up” was the next musical interlude, leading to the first words from Sam, serving as the event’s M.C. “Make some noise, beautiful people!” she urged. “Trump Must Go Now!” Those four words spelled out the overall theme of the entire program, taking place on the one-year anniversary of Donald J. Trump’s second election victory. We will “launch today the fall of the Trumpist regime,” she continued. We “will not stop until Trump is removed from power.”
The president is “shredding everything good,” Sam added. “We cannot rest on yesterday’s win.” (A reference to Democratic victories in several elections earlier that week, including Zohran Mandami as the next mayor of New York City. What matters “is the millions we will bring into the streets of D.C. … “When we refuse to go home. When we keep coming back.”
Reverend Bouie traveled to D.C. from Los Angeles to express his views on the Trump regime. “There is a sense of urgency,” he began. “We want them to leave NOW.” Twenty twenty-six will be too late” for ridding the nation of this “disastrous regime.”
His words, like those of every other speaker on this occasion, drew rousing, spirited reactions from the activist audience. “The people, united, will never be defeated,” he called out, echoing the presentation of those words on many occasions when people rose up in defiance. “I’m not giving up my freedom of speech. And neither are you…. If the job is going to be done, we’re going to do it.”
Not being a state, Washington D.C. has no conventional representative the U.S. Congress. Oye Owelewa has been the city’s shadow representative for the past five years. Not only the president, but “Trump’s enablers must also go now,” he insisted. “We have non-violence on our side.”
Because attacks by ICE officers -- attired in the manner of masked, armed thugs – have topped the new this fall, a representative from one of the most seriously affected neighborhoods in the country was especially appropriate. “Buenos dias!” was the greeting from Balthazar Enriquez, head of Little Village Community Council. Chicago’s Little Village area houses a large number of families originally from Mexico and other Latin American countries, and has experienced a number of aggressive ICE roundups.
“El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.” Mr. Enriquez began, repeating a line from a famous Chilean protest song: “The people, united, will never be defeated.” When he arrived in Chicago as a child, he recalled, “the first thing I learned was the Pledge of Allegiance.” Now, he is “shocked, disgusted, heartbroken…. My community, Little Village, has lived with terror.” ICE officers, he asserted, are the “modern-day Nazis,” coming to virtually kidnap suspected undocumented persons. Among other atrocities, he has “seen a six-year-old child handcuffed. It’s proof of a racist, fascist regime.”
Nonviolence is the rule for the current protest movement, but that doesn’t mean the victims of ICE are taking the assaults lightly. “We will fight, fight, fight every day of our lives,” Mr. Enriquez declared. “If you bring a hundred, we will bring a thousand.” In Little Village and other Chicago neighborhoods, for instance, residents have been effectively blowing whistles to warn frightened neighbors that ICE agents are on the way. “This is how we blow the whistle on them,” he concluded, demonstrating what “courage can do.”
Waking Stone then returned to the stage, with an appropriate lyric: “On with the fight for the cause of humanity.” Outernational, a “revolutionary” New York rock band, also performed. “We know that it’s upon us, the millions,” sang one musician. “No human being is illegal.” Until then, “we are all illegals.”
President Trump “tweeted out that he intended to defy the courts,” said Sunsara Taylor, a co-initiator of Refuse Fascism. Even some of the police, she added, “are condemning ICE…. This country is split wide open.”
Many Americans are frightened about the future of the nation, Ms. Taylor warned. But they “are not willing to confront.” We must convince them, because “his atrocities will multiply.” She ran through a rather lengthy list of atrocities that have already been committed by Donald J. Trump and his associates. “He is coming for everything that is moral, decent, and good.”
Echoing the opinion of a growing number of observers, she insisted that “we cannot rely on the elections,” whether in 2026 or 2028. “He has already threatened to deport the new mayor of New York City…. Trusting Trump is like trusting Dracula to guard the blood bank.”
Perhaps anticipating possible criticism of the turnout at this event in Washington, on the grounds that far more active opponents of the Trump administration are needed, Ms, Taylor suggested that “the fact that we are thousands and not millions” is okay. What’s important is that he “must be non-violently driven from power. We did not come here to make a statement. We are here to make history.” Furthermore, “future generations will look back and judge us.”
Over and over through the two-hour presentation, the participants engaged in chants. One simple four-wor chant serves as the overall theme: “Trump Muar Go Now.”
Several students had been invited to speak. One 19-year-old said he had “hopped on a bus” in Connecticut the night before, to be present at this crucial demonstration. “This doesn’t end today,” he advised,… and get that damn freak Miller out of here, too.” (Presumably referring to Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller.) All along, organizers had been explaining that this would be an ongoing protest, not a single-day event, lasting as long as Donald J. Trump remained in the White House.
Also appearing onstage were two activists with specific perspectives on the current danger to democracy and to the country. Michael Fanone presented a powerful case for action. A former D.C. police officer, Mr. Fanone risked his life defending the Capitol on January 6, 2021, only to see President Trump pardon 1,500 rioters and, most recently, give the same consideration to officials who tried to overturn the 2020 elections.
Kim Villanueva, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) focused on the Trumpian actions that most affect women and girls. Two days after the November 5 demonstration, several hundred protesters would gather at the Supreme Court as the Justices considered the prospect of revisiting same-sex marriage.
While in Washington, Angular Views also covered that event, and a report will be posted shortly. We will also take a closer look at the likelihood for success of this ambitious, ongoing protest. How can organizers induce more organizations (and individuals) to participate? (One major protest group, Indivisible, had a presence at D.C. events, but others appeared to be absent.) What additional actions might – or should – be taken to hasten the departure of Mr. Trump from the national and world stage?
What’s next if “Trump Must Go Now” doesn’t proceed as hoped and planned? Or, if it does, yet the president continues to intensify his authoritarian antics, magnifying the current chaos.
© All Contents Copyright 2025 by James M. Flammang (Tirekicking Today)
Image Source: James M. Flammang