At least a thousand anti-Trump demonstrators thronged downtown Savannah on Saturday to demand that the Trump administration cease cutbacks in federal programs and stop what they say are assaults on their rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Chanting “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Trump and Musk got to go,” the gathering of protesters, which was made up of at least as many people over the age of 40 as under it, snaked from the bandshell at Forsyth Park up Bull Street to City Hall.
Along the way, the protesters passed curious springtime tourists crowded into trolley cars or dining at outdoor tables. Upon arriving at City Hall, they spread on the curb along Bay Street, where they continued their chanting and sign-waving to the honks of approval of dozens of passing cars.
The protesters’ agenda was strictly domestic. Their main message was “hands off” democracy — an apparent reference to President Trump’s efforts to circumvent the courts in pursuit of cost-cutting, agency-slashing agenda — and “hands off” libraries, personal data, veteran services, and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
The protest was peaceful, with no immediate reports of violence or vandalism. There were no calls by the protesters to storm Tesla dealerships and — except for single Palestinian and a single Ukrainian flag — not a single reference to foreign wars involving the U.S.
“Hands off” was also the main theme for some 100 protesters who gathered Saturday in Brunswick at the corner of U.S. 17 and the F.J. Torras Causeway. They, too, chanted “Hands off public health,” “Hands off our democracy” and “No kings.”
Saturday’s protests in Coastal Georgia were part of a nationwide day of protest organized by Indivisible, which claims more than 1,300 local chapters nationwide. It has encouraged members to protest at the offices of their members of Congress, regardless of political party.
How Saturday’s protesters think Trump and his billionaire lieutenant Elon Musk can be pushed aside was unclear. But amid no evidence of efforts by local Democratic Party leaders and groups to organize opposition to the administration, the turnout for Saturday’s protest was a sign that there’s a section of the public ready to be rallied.
For Matt Henning the stakes are high. The 56-year-old Savannah resident said he was participating in the demonstration because his wife, Jill, is alive thanks to a federally funded cancer treatment program at Emory University in Atlanta.
“Medical research is important to us, so we want to keep that going,” he said.
Glynn County reporter Jabari Gibbs contributed to this report.