Nadja Rutkowski said protest is her way of life: she immigrated to the US from Germany at 14 and demonstrates for fear fascist history could repeat itself.
She was among the thousands of New Yorkers who marched down Broadway from Times Square Saturday during mass anti-Trump protests, where demonstrators rejected what many referred to as the “tyranny” of today’s White House.
As pro-democracy chants rang out, Rutkowski voiced outrage over what she called the Republican president’s attack on human rights that includes an aggressive crackdown on undocumented migrants.
“I come from a country where what is happening now has happened already before in 1938,” she told AFP, her dog Bella — who is also a seasoned protester — in tow.
“People are being snatched up from the streets,” she said. “We know, we see it, it’s happening in real time. So we’ve got to stand up.”
The sentiment was an unequivocal theme of Saturday’s demonstration in New York, the city where Donald Trump was born and made his name — but where the majority of residents vehemently spurn him.
“I like my Manhattan straight up no ICE,” read one of many similar placards, referring to the whisky cocktail bearing the name of New York’s most prominent borough.
ICE is the federal enforcement agency that has been detaining undocumented migrants and even American citizens in escalating raids across the United States — and the target of fury from protestors.
“We are in a crisis,” said Colleen Hoffman, 69, citing “the cruelty of this regime” and its aura of “authoritarianism.”
“If we don’t stick together, if we don’t raise our voices, then we’ve surrendered to it. I refuse to surrender.”
– ‘This is our flag too’ –
Saturday’s peaceful protest in New York was among some 2,700 nationwide; there were multiple demonstrations just within the city’s five boroughs.
Demonstrators were fervent in message but jovial in spirit: colorful costumes included one person dressed as the Mr. Met baseball mascot, wielding a sign that said “No Kings But Queens” in a reference to the borough the beloved baseball team comes from.
Gavin Michaels is a 26-year-old actor currently in an off-Broadway play about the rise of Nazi Germany — in which he portrays a young soldier “easily seduced” by the promises of a job and health care.
He called the role in “Crooked Cross,” a dramatization of a prophetic 1930s-era novel, “terrifyingly relevant” to today’s America.
“You see the administration pulling health care away from people but offering sign-up bonuses if you join ICE,” he told AFP.
But Michaels said he was heartened by joining his fellow New Yorkers on the streets: “It’s exciting,” he said, to see “other people who care.”
“We spend so much of our lives inside or on the internet and it’s nice to actually see people in person willing to do something or say something or stand up for something.
Along with signs bearing anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-Trump messaging, many protestors wielded American flags.
Some even wore them: Mike Misner donned the Stars and Stripes as a cape.
“I want to say this is our flag too,” he told AFP, bemoaning the fact that conservative factions in the US have “made the flag theirs, as if they’re the only ones who could be patriotic.”
“Our country is under attack. Our democracy is under attack,” he said. “And this flag to me represents democracy.”
