As was the case in Chicago last week, thousands took to the streets of New York City on Saturday to protest Donald Trump, and dozens more shut down a highway in Arizona at the same time.
The protests, though not officially linked, look like the new normal as groups join together against what many see as the real estate mogul’s dangerous ascent into politics.
In New York, the four-hour march began a stone’s throw away from the Republican presidential candiate’s iconic Trump International Hotel and Tower in midtown Manhattan, and Newsweek reports that the throng stopped at three of Trump’s properties, with at least two arrests.
The Manhattan march was reportedly organized by a group on Facebook called Cosmopolitan Antifascists and was joined by various immigrant-rights groups and other activists from across the city and state.
Newsweek reports that a colorful throng of people held signs and chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Islamophobia has got to go,” “Get up, get down, immigrants built this town” and “The people united will never be defeated.”
There was a heavy police presence along the streets of Manhattan, and one man tells Newsweek that he was pepper-sprayed by one officer while he was trying to help another participant stand up from the ground.
“The protesters at this point were not being physical. It really seemed like the police were instigating,” says the man, identified only as Harrison. “As we were lifting this person up, I was pepper-sprayed to my left … I wasn’t in any officer’s face. They just maced me on the side.” At least two people were arrested for disorderly conduct.
Meanwhile, at about the same time in Arizona, protesters shut down highways for at least two hours in protest of a planned Trump rally there, leaving hundreds of cars stuck on Shea Boulevard or forced to drive into oncoming traffic to get around the barricade.
Protesters stood in front of the cars chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” and several cabled themselves to their cars to keep them from being towed, but were arrested. The Arizona Trump rally went on as planned.
Read more at Newsweek.