BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 \u201cNo Kings\u201d protesters on Saturday afternoon filed into Rose Garden Park by the hundreds to share their disdain for President Donald Trump and his policies.<\/p>\n
Signs dotted the area outside the park bandshell: \u201cNOligarchy.\u201d \u201cWhere law ends, tyranny begins.\u201d \u201cDump Trump.\u201d \u201cNo thrones, no crowns, no kings.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was one of thousands of demonstrations across the nation Saturday \u2014 protests that Republican congressional leaders dubbed “Hate America” rallies.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem resident Debra Condon, 64, armed with a bubble machine and dressed in an inflatable chicken costume, said she found the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u201chorrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe grabbing of our neighbors and our friends, people who have been here and worked hard, and just gathering up them like they\u2019re some kind of herds of animals or something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
And she said if anything was to happen to Medicare, there\u2019s \u201cno way\u201d her mother suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s disease would get the care she needs.<\/p>\n
Costumes were in abundance: Buzz Lightyear, Cookie Monster, Patrick Star and Plankton made the rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe grabbing of our neighbors and our friends, people who have been here and worked hard, and just gathering up them like they\u2019re some kind of herds of animals or something.”<\/p>\n
Bethlehem resident Debra Condon, 64<\/p>\n
The demonstration included music, fellowship and reflection, with protesters leaving the Rose Garden and walking down Broad Street as they headed to Payrow Plaza outside City Hall.<\/p>\n
Protesters said it\u2019s do or die for the country \u2014 fight for something or lose everything, they said.<\/p>\n
Trump himself is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, just days after he declared the end of the two-year-long war between Israel and Hamas after Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say they\u2019re referring to me as a king. I\u2019m not a king,\u201d the president said in a Fox News interview Friday.<\/p>\n
This was the second “No Kings” rally organized by progressive organizations opposed to Trump’s agenda. The first was held in June in response to a military parade held on Trump’s 79th birthday.<\/p>\n
This one came on the 18th day of a federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh, who\u2019s also running for Lehigh County executive, attended the Bethlehem demonstration and said \u201chistory will judge who we are in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dThis country\u2019s lineage is toppling tyrants, beating fascism, saying \u2018no\u2019 to tyranny, oppression and murder,\u201d Siegel said. \u201cWe are peaceful, we are loving and together we are going to build a better America for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘100-percent trolling’<\/p>\n
A few minutes ahead of the march, a number of crowd members began booing and questioning Dan Meier, 39, of Northampton, as he paraded through the crowd with a \u201cLong Live King Trump\u201d sign and red Make America Great Again hat.<\/p>\n
Somebody in the crowd asked Meier, \u201cAre you a fascist?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, sure,\u201d Meier replied.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Meier told LehighValleyNews.com that he was \u201c100-percent trolling\u201d the protesters.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Long live the king.\u2019 It just sounds like something that\u2019d be fun to run around and chant and see how irritated I get [people].\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Meier, 39, of Northampton<\/p>\n
But he also said he likes the policy direction the Trump administration is taking on immigration, especially.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always see these protests and I finally was happy to see one happening here,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to come, you know, try to get a little laugh out of the day, have fun.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Long live the king.\u2019 It just sounds like something that\u2019d be fun to run around and chant and see how irritated I get [people],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
‘Hope that there can be change’<\/p>\n
Sullivan, 48, from New York City, said she was in town for the Bethlehem Running Festival and decided to check out the protest.<\/p>\n
She asked that her last name not be published and said she\u2019s \u201cnot happy with the Democratic Party right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocrats continue to play by rules that the party in power is not playing by.”<\/p>\n
Sullivan, 48, a Black woman from Manhattan, New York<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocrats continue to play by rules that the party in power is not playing by,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Veronica Reich, 26, of Bethlehem, said she wants better for women\u2019s health, voting rights and proper education access, including special needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing to protests like this gives me hope that there can be change, that there are a lot of people out there that want America to be better,\u201d Reich said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want our politics to be better \u2014 not just for the current generations but the future of our country, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 \u201cNo Kings\u201d protesters on Saturday afternoon filed into Rose Garden Park by the hundreds to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4235,153,4348,155,154,34,6603,5469,6604,5568,6605,6606,6607],"class_list":["post-7517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-4235","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-city-hall","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-lehigh-valley-protest","tag-no-kings","tag-no-kings-in-bethlehem","tag-oct-18","tag-oct-18-protests","tag-political-protests-in-bethlehem","tag-trump-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}