Sign reads: “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” – John F. Kennedy. By: Josh Holton (10/18/25)
On Saturday, around 8 million people attended more than 2600 protests across the United States for “No Kings” demonstrations, and 100 of those were organized in Florida to protest what they see as a descent into authoritarianism under President Donald Trump. In Orlando, thousands of people gathered downtown in front of City Hall. For their No Kings rally.
Some demonstrators wore inflatable frog and banana costumes, while holding signs to show their disapproval of Trump’s use of ICE to implement mass deportations, his handling of the war in Gaza, and his party’s role in the ongoing government shutdown. Mason Rhody is with the Sunrise Movement, who said he’s also concerned with the Trump administration’s negative impact on the climate crisis in Florida.
“We have coral bleaching, we have sea level rise. We have massive increase in the pollution of our lakes. Florida is actually number one in the. Country for most polluted lakes. We are number two for most polluted estuaries. We are literally on the front lines of climate crisis and we have to respond to it, or else everything that we’re seeing the coral bleaching, the dying of the mangroves, the flooding of the Keys, all of that is only going to get worse.”
There is an upcoming town hall on climate impact this Saturday at the Downtown Public Library in Orlando at 1 p.m. on the 3rd floor in the Albertson room.