Thousands of people are expected to protest Saturday in Tampa Bay and across the nation to denounce the Trump administration and its policies.<\/p>\n
The protest will be the third national \u201cNo Kings\u201d demonstration, an initiative from a coalition of progressive groups. The movement has grown with each round of protests, according to organizers<\/a>. In June, more than 5 million people took to the streets; in October, about 7 million.<\/p>\n In Florida, dozens of demonstrations will take place, including in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota, Gulfport, Largo and Sun City.<\/p>\n The \u201cNo Kings\u201d movement has been openly criticized by Florida politicians, including U.S. Rep. Randy Fine and then-Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Last year, Patronis described the protest as \u201cthe Hate America Parade\u201d on his X account<\/a>, while Fine said<\/a>, \u201cWe have too many stupid people in America, and those are the people who are out protesting.\u201d<\/p>\n But for others, \u201cNo Kings\u201d has proven to be an opportunity to make their voices heard against ongoing federal immigration enforcement efforts, including in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.<\/p>\n People planning to participate this weekend say it\u2019s also a chance to criticize the government shutdown and the war in Iran.<\/p>\n Silvio Jos\u00e9 Delgado, a community leader and advocate in Pinellas, said \u201cNo Kings\u201d is about advocating for democracy and reminding others that one person \u201ccannot dictate the country\u2019s direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Delgado mentioned issues like unpaid airport security workers and the high cost of food and gas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are witnessing the direct result of our democratically elected representatives deciding that the public\u2019s well being matters less than that of their billionaire donors,\u201d Delgado said. \u201cOur country is better than this. We have the opportunity with this day of protest to show them how they work for us, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n Eric Harmon, a resident of North Tampa, attended the two \u201cNo Kings\u201d rallies held last year and other similar protests. He said the movement reflects broader public discontent.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople take photos at the rallies and share them,\u201d Harmon said, \u201cand if anyone has mixed feelings, it becomes more clear when they see thousands of average citizens taking the time out of their week to stand on a street corner with a heartfelt message.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, protesters took to the streets to criticize federal immigration enforcement raids, restrictions on press freedoms, federal cuts and conditions in immigration detention centers.<\/p>\n Ben Atherton-Zeman, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg, said his church is co-sponsoring the protest not for political reasons, but for moral and theological ones.<\/p>\n \u201cMy denomination believes in the democratic process as one of our cherished core values,\u201d Atherton-Zeman said. \u201cBut this administration has shown a complete disregard for the democratic process.\u201d<\/p>\n The zero-tolerance policies and the actions of immigration authorities have resulted in needless deaths and have terrorized immigrant communities, Atherton-Zeman said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we can do better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n All rallies are taking place Saturday:<\/p>\n Tampa: 2 to 4 p.m. at Tampa City Hall, 315 E Kennedy Blvd.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg: 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tyrone Square, 6901 22nd Ave. N<\/p>\n Clearwater: 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the Duke Energy Trail overpass; 10 a.m. to noon at Gulf to Bay and Park Place boulevards<\/p>\n Largo: 10 a.m. to noon at Seminole Boulevard and East Bay Drive<\/p>\n Gulfport: Noon to 1:30 p.m. at Clymer Park, 5501 27th Ave. S<\/p>\n Brandon: 1 to 3 p.m. at Clayton Plaza, 458-655 W Brandon Blvd.<\/p>\n Temple Terrace: 10 a.m. to noon at the former Boston Market, E Fowler Avenue and N 56th Street<\/p>\n Sun City Center: 10 a.m. to noon at State Road 674 between Pebble Beach Boulevard and Trinity Lakes Drive<\/p>\n Sarasota: 4 to 7 p.m. at Payne Park, 2010 Adams Lane<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of people are expected to protest Saturday in Tampa Bay and across the nation to denounce the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[94925,12831,8872,8356,9217,199,135,1526,137,136,94924],"class_list":["post-207065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-eric-harmon","tag-immigration-enforcement","tag-jimmy-patronis","tag-kings","tag-randy-fine","tag-st-petersburg","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tyrone-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}