‘Not my president’: Anti-Trump activists plan more protests across US

Protesters in Chicago outside Trump hotel, chanting: ‘No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA’

Thousands of demonstrators march in cities across the US to protest against the election of Donald Trump, blasting his controversial campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups. Video: Reuters

A second round of protests was planned across the US on Thursday - a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of big cities after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

An anti-Trump rally was planned at New York City's Union Square Park for a second straight night and organisers urged demonstrators to join events in Washington DC, Baltimore, the University of Wisconsin and elsewhere.

There were protests in at least 10 cities on Wednesday, including one that filled streets in midtown Manhattan with demonstrators marching to Trump Tower, the president-elect’s gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Many chanted “Not my president!” and blasted his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

A Donald Trump pinata is burned by protesters in downtown Los Angeles. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
People march in downtown Los Angeles, California US. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, said the demonstrators were "a bunch of spoiled cry-babies".

READ MORE

‘Left-wing loonies’

“If you’re looking at the real left-wing loonies on the campus, it’s the professors not the students,” Mr Giuliani said on Fox News on Thursday. “So these are the ones who are more influenced by the professors.”

He said he would encourage Mr Trump to listen to these voices and tell them to wait a year.

“Calm down, things are not as bad as you think,” Mr Giuliani said.

More demonstrations are planned heading into the weekend, according to organisers’ online posts. One urged protesters to rally in Washington, DC, on Inauguration Day, January 20th.

On Wednesday night, protests in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, each drew several thousand people. More than a dozen people were arrested by Los Angeles police when demonstrators tried to block a major highway intersection, a local CBS affiliate reported.

The Oakland demonstrators also blocked traffic, threw objects at police and smashed store-front windows. Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness.

Protesters also gathered in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, late on Wednesday.

Some 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago, shouting slogans including “No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA.”

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators’ path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there.

‘Really terrified’

"I'm just really terrified about what is happening in this country," said 22-year-old Adriana Rizzo in Chicago, who was holding a sign that read: "Enjoy your rights while you can."

In Seattle, police responded to a shooting with multiple victims near the scene of anti-Trump protests. Police said it was unrelated to the demonstrations.

Protesters railed against Mr Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday evening, and organizers planned rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said.

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: “It is time for us to come together as one united people.”

Earlier this month, his campaign rejected the support of a Ku Klux Klan newspaper and said that "Mr. Trump and his campaign denounces hate in any form."

Liberal politics

Earlier on Wednesday, some 1,500 students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, in a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its liberal politics, before marching toward the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students also walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other Bay Area cities - Oakland, Richmond and El Cerrito.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but boisterous rally.

Chanting in Spanish “the people united will never be defeated,” the group held signs with slogans such as “Not Supporting Racism, Not My President” and “Immigrants Make America Great.”

Many of those students were members of the “Dreamers” generation, children whose parents entered the United States with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

"A child should not live in fear that they will be deported," said Stephanie Hipolito, one of the student organizers of the walkout. She said her parents were US citizens.

There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence.

Wednesday's demonstrations followed a night of protests in the San Francisco area and elsewhere in the country in response to Mr Trump's victory against heavily favoured Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Demonstrators smashed storefront windows and set garbage and tires ablaze late on Tuesday in downtown Oakland.

Reuters