After nearly seven million people attended the nationwide “No Kings” rallies on Saturday — making them one of the largest single day protests in American history — President Donald Trump denounced participants as “not representative” of America.
“I looked at the people,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.
“They’re not representative of this country, and I looked at all the brand new signs paid for. I guess it was paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics,” he said. “It looks like it was worth checking out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective and the people were whacked out. When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country.”
A survey of the Washington, D.C. protesters published by Axios suggests the President’s perception was inaccurate.
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“The typical attendee at the D.C. protest was an educated white woman in her 40s who heard about the event either through friends or via Instagram, according to preliminary data collected by American University researchers who track protest movements,” the news outlet reported. “The median age of participants of Saturday’s protest in D.C. was 44 years old.”
Nearly half (47%) identified themselves as “left.” Thirteen percent as slightly left, and 29% as “very” left.
Some of Trump’s allies spent last week alleging the protests were actually “hate America” rallies.
Ahead of the rallies, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), the House Majority Whip, had said last week that the protesters were “the most radical, small, and violent base in the country.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson last week said participants at the rallies would be “the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people, they’re all coming out.”
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Despite the millions in attendance at rallies across the country, there were few if any reports of violence by the No Kings protesters (although there were reports of “MAGA agitators” being violent.)
Overall, 86% were white and nearly six in ten (57%) were women.
“They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump had said, but the president was the number one motivating factor that drove people to come out and protest in D.C. Eight out of ten named Trump as their top reason.
Immigration was the second driver, motivating 74% of attendees.
Politics and voting came in a close third (70%).
The federal workforce reduction and the funding freeze came in fourth at 69%, followed by racial justice/systemic racism (66%), social welfare including health care (62%) and LGBTQ+ rights (59%). Income and wealth inequality tied with women’s rights at 58%. Reproductive rights came in at 56%.
Dana Fisher, a professor at American University’s School of International Service, told Axios, “she’s surprised … that women’s rights and reproductive rights are no longer leading factors the way they were during Trump’s first term.”
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Image via Reuters