Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the Laurel Branch Library Oct. 18, waving signs and chanting about change in the government during a local No Kings event, one of dozens held across the state of Maryland.
Compared to a previous No Kings rally June 14, which drew approximately 250 people, the Oct. 18 event attracted more than 560 participants according to Laurel Resist, the progressive group that organized the event, which the organization deemed a success.
Amy Knox, who founded Laurel Resist in 2017 to educate and mobilize residents around political issues, said the group believes that essential rights and public services have been stripped away under the Trump administration. Members want to restore those rights.
“‘We the People’ is all the people. It’s not just billionaires and oligarchs,” she said.
Many at the rally said the current administration is becoming more authoritarian and less democratic. They expressed concerns about the erosion of democracy and threats to free speech and civil rights. The No KIngs movement endorses peaceful protests and civic unity as essential to countering growing political oppression.
Anastasia Smith, 53, a 20-year resident of Laurel, sees the level of animosity toward the Trump administration as intensifying. She would like to see Congress invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and the Cabinet to declare the president unable to perform the duties of the office.
“Donald Trump has no concept of reality, [he] cannot differentiate between reality and AI that’s being disseminated to him,” she said.
Brian Wenk, 53, a social studies teacher at Laurel High School, has attended numerous similar events over the years, including a protest in January 2017, after Trump was first elected president.
“Democracy only works when people hold the government accountable,” he said. Wenk compared what’s happening in the U.S. today to Adolph Hitler’s takeover of Germany before World War II. Wenk’s primary concern is due process for all citizens in the country.
“We the people, not we the citizens … All undocumented immigrants have the right to due process before they’re deported,” he said.
Deborah Tudor, 66, attended the rally because she also worries that the country is on a path to Germany’s during Hitler’s rise to power. “I don’t want to be like Germany, where the Germans just kind of rolled over,” she said. Tudor is also concerned about the country’s standing, as the Trump administration is “making the U.S. a laughing stock.”
“I want a government I can be proud of again. I am so ashamed,” she said.