Are people protesting more than usual? 'Jaw-dropping' number planned on Trump's birthday
Are people protesting more than usual? 'Jaw-dropping' number planned on Trump's birthday
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'Hands Off' anti-Trump protests organize across US - - and the world
The 'Hands Off' protests across the country are expected to be the largest anti-Trump demonstrations since he began his second term. This video misspelled the White House press secretary's name. The correct spelling is Karoline Leavitt.
Around 2,000 communities nationwide plan to protest against the Trump administration on June 14th, coinciding with Trump's birthday and the Army's 250th anniversary.
Data suggests protests in 2025 have increased compared to previous presidencies, with a notable focus on immigration.
Trump's deployment of the military in Los Angeles is a 'wild card' in American protests.
June 14 may be President Donald Trump's birthday and the 250th Army anniversary parade. But for those wanting to demonstrate distaste for the president, it will be "No Kings" day.
Approximately 2,000 communities across the U.S. plan to hold protests or demonstrations to oppose what they consider a power grab by the Trump administration. This is the third round of major nationwide protests in three months under Trump's second presidency, following the 50501 movement and the "Hands Off!" protests.
Organizers are expecting this to be the biggest yet, and crowds could be bolstered by Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles.
Trump's first few months back in office have brought an onslaught of controversial directives, but are people actually protesting more than usual? Here is what we know.
'No Kings' protest locations: See where demonstrations are planned
Protests in 2025 compared to previous presidencies
The Crowd Counting Consortium is a joint project between the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut. (Harvard and the Trump administration are in a fierce legal battle; this project was started long before that.) The consortium project collects publicly available information from political crowds in the U.S. at marches, protests, riots and more.
Here is how 2025 compares to Trump's first year in office and Biden's first year in office, by the number of gatherings:
Jan. 1, 2017 - May 31, 2017: 4,641 protests
Jan. 1, 2021 - May 31, 2021: 10,933 protests
Jan. 1, 2025 - May 31, 2021: 14,713 protests
The Crowd Counting Consortium has not published movements since May 31. USA TODAY reached out to a researcher for this story.
Protests shift to focus on immigration this year
"The number of protests that they're saying they're going to have is absolutely jaw-dropping," says Dave Clark of the No Kings protests. Clark is a professor of political science at Binghamton University who collected global mass mobilization data funded by the Political Instability Task Force. (His research did not cover the U.S., which he says is hard to track due to the country's size and political diversity.)
But Clark said the consortium data suggests protests this year have intensified in frequency, in how nationalized they are and in their focus on pro-immigrant sentiment.
"To the extent that we could call the protest regarding immigration as a movement ... it has the hallmarks of success," Clark said. "Where success really means that it's not going away. It's going to persist, it's going to stay in the public eye and remain in our public dialog, whether that will have policy consequences or not remains to be seen."
Anti-immigrant protests were uncommon under the Biden administration and nearly non-existent under the Trump administration, Clark said.
'Using the military for civil control is the wild card here'
On June 8, Trump sent in the California National Guard to quell largely peaceful protests over immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles, without the governor's consent or invitation. He later sent 700 Marines to the city, some of whom are set to guard federal property and personnel. "No Kings" organizers believe these moves may prompt even more people to show up on Saturday, and Clark said it could change how the country reacts to the protests.
"I would say that using the military for civil control is the wild card here," he said, explaining there is little relevant precedent for it in the U.S. "In many cases, the move to authoritarian kinds of tactics will actually bring out more protesters."
Trump had said that any protester may be "met with very heavy force," though the White House later walked it back to say he is fine with peaceful protests. The "No Kings" movement does not have a planned event for Washington, D.C.
But Clark said that a review of news reports from protests over the last week, after the last reported consortium data was released, shows a much higher number of arrests than usual.
"We don't usually see huge numbers of arrests in protests in Western democracies, particularly in the U.S.," Clark said. "And God knows we have a lot of protests in the U.S."
Contributing: Kathryn Palmer, Joey Garrison, Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
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