Amid a sea of upside-down American flags, signs decrying President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and allusions to fascist dictatorships real and fictitious, a series of speakers took the stage at the Civic Center Plaza Saturday afternoon to demand Trump and Musk unhand the federal government.
Thousands of people convened to hear them and chant at San Francisco’s “Hands Off” protest, one in a series of similar protests around the country.
As protestors thronged on Polk Street, directly in front of City Hall, a lone Tesla wove through the crowd, provoking profanities. It only added to the anti-Tesla ire on display, clear from signs about “swasticars” and “Cyber Schmucks.”
Protestors and counter-protestors alike wrote the president’s name with Tesla’s “T” logo, evidencing a bipartisan association of Trump and the electric car company.
“Trillionaires for Trump,” read one such sign held by a counter-protestor in a top hat. His companions, young women, held signs that said “Wealthcare not healthcare” and “Your social security will buy my Birkin bag.”
As far as this reporter could tell, protestors adhered to organizers’ instructions not to fight with provocateurs, and no skirmishes erupted. But there were interactions.
“I said, ‘How are the tariffs working out for you?’” said Rick Harrell, a San Francisco resident who runs a nonprofit that provides musical therapy for veterans, describing a conversation he’d just had with two men in MAGA hats who were filming and interviewing protestors. “He said what goes around comes around.”
Harrell added that he was at the rally to protest cuts to veteran benefits.
State Sen. Scott Wiener took the stage soon after, continuing his recent streak of imploring Americans and their representatives in government to resist Trump’s dismantling of the federal government.
“We either hang together or we hang separately,” Wiener said. “We need to scrape these psychos out of office once and for all.”
Other speakers included House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, and San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit.
Attendees gave various reasons for joining the rally, but the common thread was a fear that Trump was disregarding the laws and norms that are supposed to constrain national leaders. David Vandervoort, 55, said cuts to federal government programs were particularly troubling.
“I believe in institutions: we need them, or none of it works,” the coder and musician said. “The erosion of all that is a really terrifying prospect.”
Among those who dressed up for the event was Claudia, a German research scientist who asked to withhold her last name. With a black veil over her face and a spiky green tiara on her head, she was dressed as Lady Liberty in mourning.
“I honestly don’t know what else to do,” she said, adding that no matter how tired people were, they should continue demonstrating in the streets.
Claudia said that as a child in Germany, she took a class called “Psychology of the Third Reich” that explained how people could tolerate the slow erosion of rights, small liberty by small liberty. Now she sees the same thing happening in the United States.
“I drew that parallel in [Trump’s] first term,” she said. “It is so dangerous. You need to stand up every time.”
A sign in the distance showed Trump with a Hitler mustache.
Daniel Coshnear, 63, drove down from Guerneville for the rally. He held a sign that said “Hands off Khalil, Ozturk,” referring to recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts student Rumyesa Ozturk, foreign-born students who were detained by immigration officials because of pro-Palestine speech.
“The particular abuses happening on college campuses are really frightening,” said Coshnear, who teaches writing and works as a counselor in a group home. “It’s a new kind of fascism.”
Derek Allen, 22, milled through the masses handing out small flyers for an effort called Stop AI.
A speaker takes the stage. | Source: Carlo Velasquez for The Standard
“There used to always be one guy at the protest saying, ‘Legalize weed.’ Now I’m the one guy saying, ‘Stop AI,” Allen explained. He added that there was an inherent link between the technology and the targets of the protest, who have both boosted artificial intelligence efforts.
Allen said he quit his job and broke his lease in Indiana to move to San Francisco and volunteer for Stop AI, an organization with “well over 60 members.”
“This has become my life,” he said, adding that AI companies train their models on artists’ and writers’ work without license and that wider use of the technology would lead people to lose their jobs.
While protestors chanted and speakers railed against rights abuses, children at the Helen Diller Civic Center Playground went down the slide holding signs above their heads. Their parents stood on the play structure above them to get a better view of the crowd, until one of them noticed a man in the plaza wearing only a top hat and sunglasses, and went over to ask him not to face the kids.
The unclad graybeard, who identified himself only as “Bare P” and said he was “perpetually 39,” had the president’s last name written on his buttock for the rally. He said the message was up for interpretation.
“I’m nonpartisan,” he explained. “I’m just here because I’m a nudist and I love to be naked.”