One of over 1300 “50501” protests took place at Tampa City Hall in Tampa, FL. Thousands showed up, the sidewalks were already packed 1/2 hour before the published start time.
The sidewalks on both sides of the street were lined with wall to wall protesters. Such chants as “No Trump, no KKK no Fascist USA” and “Lock him up” filled the air. The crowd included huge numbers of mainstream liberals who might have never been at a protest before, reinforced by seasoned veterans of activism. As always at these, Elon Musk was singled out for his extremist assaults on social programs, and Teslas were called Swasticars in signs carried by some of the protesters.
Security teams kept an eye out for any trouble from the far-right, well aware that police will NOT defend protesters from assaults by car and maybe not from being shot at. There had been direct threats by the Proud Boys to infiltrate 50501 protests and “instigate” violence statewide but they chumped out. They might have somehow found enough brains not to start something they could not finish. Trump may want this as an excuse for civil war, but it’s the Proud Boys not Trump who would be at the bottom of any resulting pile.
There were single-digit numbers of other fash at Kissimmee, and maybe 20 forced-birthers in Tallhassee who soon left as thousands showed up there too.
Nationally, it seems any moderate size or larger city got over 1,000 protesters, and the DC protests (there was a Hands off DC protest and a Palestine protest that marched on ICE) got anywhere from 40K to over 100,000 depending on whose reports are correct.
