New Yorkers declare they ‘won’t back down’ from opposing President-elect Trump at Manhattan march

Thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets of Midtown Manhattan Saturday to send a clear message to President-elect Trump: They will not back down in protecting the rights of immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ Americans, if and when he moves to attack them.

Organizers of the march say 5,000 people participated in the demonstration. More than 30 organizations put the event together, including the progressive Working Families Party, Make the Road New York, CWA Union, VOCAL NY, Citizens Action of NY, and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice.

Reviving a common sight in New York during Trump’s first four years in the White House, the marchers made it known that they were ready to spend the next four years working aggressively to protect their future from anti-immigrant, transphobic, misogynist, and classist attacks.

Carrying banners and signs that read “We won’t back down” and “New York Stands Together” while chanting “Not my President” and “Education, No Deportation,” protestors marched from Columbus Circle to Bryant Park, rejecting Trump’s policies, which the crowd deemed fascist.

Many attendees were still grappling with the election’s outcome. Trump won handily, garnering 312 electoral votes plus a majority of the popular vote, while Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris only won 226.

At his campaign rallies, Trump declared that he would implement “the largest mass deportation program in history.” He also plans to reinstate first-term policies like “Remain in Mexico,” end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and ban Muslims from certain countries entering the United States. Many immigrants are worried that they will get deported now that Trump has been re-elected.

Jose Lopez, executive director of Make the Road New York, the state’s largest progressive grassroots and immigrant-led organization, told amNewYork Metro that the march was intended to show a united front, protecting working families, immigrant families, and the transgender community.

“We’re here today with a simple message: We want to protect our freedoms, our families, our futures, and we’re hoping to send that message to all of New York today that we are going to we’re going to fight back, and we’re going to protect one another and stand in solidarity today, next week, next month and for the next four years,” Lopez said.

Lopez shared that Make The Road activists quickly turned their sadness and anger about the election outcome into action and mobilized.

“We’re happy that folks are starting to line up now, and we expect a lot of people to be here today, and then we’re going to march to show a united front,” Lopez declared.

Make the Road member Flora Lopez, from White Plains, was “sad” about the election and feared for the many hardworking immigrants who came to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

“I feel so sad about [the election] because [Trump] said very clearly that he doesn’t want immigrants. This country [is] mostly immigrant. I don’t understand what the people are thinking, but it’s very sad. I’m scared for my people, for anybody here,” Lopez said.

‘Chart a new course’

Progressive elected officials were also in attendance, including two mayoral candidates next year: City Comptroller Brad Lander and Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani. 

Lander told amNewYork Metro that Tuesday’s presidential election was both “less shocking and much more deeply depressing than 2016,” knowing that a majority of Americans voted for a “xenophobic madman.” Lander emphasized the need to protect immigrants but also acknowledged voter frustration.

“It seems to me clear on the one hand, we have to work harder to protect New York City and protect the New Yorkers that we know he’s coming for,” Lander said, “And we have to listen to what voters were saying that they’re angry about our failure to deliver on the bread and butt issues that really matter to people [like] cost of living, on affordability, on safety. So we have to both do the work to protect people and the work to deliver for people.”

Mamdani told amNewYork Metro his worst fear was that Trump would tear away the fabric of New York City and attack fundamental values.

“[Trump] has promised to tear our neighbors from their homes, and he has promised to increase tariffs across the board and heighten the level of despair that working-class voters feel in their day-to-day life, all while promising them a more affordable existence. It is up to us to chart a new course,” Mamdani said.

‘Our community is not alone’

Trump also wants to roll back legal protections for LGBTQI+ Americans, including Title IX civil rights protections for transgender students, and halt gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

Biney Garcia — a Make the Road community organizer for the transgender, gender non-conforming, intersex, and queer community — feared that anti-trans hate, which has already experienced a substantial rise in recent years, was going to get worse under Trump.

“[Trump] openly speaks about transphobia, putting a ban on trans people, and doesn’t want to see trans people [as] being just us. That really scares me,” Garcia told amNewYork Metro.

Garcia shared that they were scared during Trump’s first term but even more anxious, nervous, and scared with Trump’s second term around the corner.

“I’m afraid of massive deportations. That’s one of my biggest fears,” Garcia admitted. “But we are here as a community, and we are here to show that our community is not alone.”

Countering Project 2025

Jay W. Walker, an organizer with Rise & Resist and Stop the Coup 2025, told amNewYork Metro his worst fear was the implementation of Project 2025, drafted by the hyper-conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. While Trump tried to distance himself from the project in the months leading up to the election, in fact, many of the people who worked on it are connected to Trump.

The project calls for the elimination of the Department of Education, the slashing of environmental protection regulations, the elimination of 50,000 civil servants who will be replaced by Christian nationalists, a ban on abortions, and defunding schools that teach slavery and the slaughter of Indigenous Americans, to name a few proposals of the 900-page lengthy manifesto.

Walker said it was time for Democratic leaders to understand that these were unprecedented times.

“This is not the time for the standard issue functionality, the way the old guard always functioned. That’s what’s gotten us to this place right now,” Walker said. “The Democrats [need] to start fighting back hard using every possible tool they have, whether it’s a traditional tool or something that’s out of that, our democracy will be dead before we even have another presidential election, we may not even have one.”

A handful of Trump supporters, carrying Trump flags, walked alongside the marchers on the sidewalk. One managed to cross the barriers and tried to interrupt the march, hurling insults at the peaceful assembly, but was escorted away by NYPD officers swiftly.

amNewYork Metro asked one of the Trump supporters what the purpose of the counterprotest was since their candidate had won the election.

“It’s our [First] Amendment rights to counterprotest, we have the right to assemble, we have the right to freedom of speech. We have that right. So why shouldn’t we?” Ronen Levy responded.

Levy said his hopes for the next four years are for peace, freedom, unity, and democracy.