Tens of thousands of protesters to descend on inauguration

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday is expected to draw massive numbers of protesters, shattering previous demonstration attendance records at the swearing-in ceremonies for Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.
The National Park Service reported that 22 permits were issued for First Amendment events through Saturday. Permits have been granted for groups of 50 to 200,000.
“The permit applications we received this year are a considerable uptick,” Mike Litterst, public affairs officer of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, told reporters.
The largest protest is scheduled Saturday with at least 200,000 demonstrators participating in the Women’s March on Washington.
In contrast, an estimated 30,000 protesters descended on Washington, DC for President Richard Nixon’s second inauguration in 1973 and about 20,000 showed up for George W. Bush first inauguration in 2001.
In all, about 800,00 to 900,000 people are expected to attend Trump’s inauguration and protests, falling far short of President Obama’s ceremonies in 2009 that attracted 1.8 million people.
“It’s quite noteworthy. If they get those kinds of numbers, it will far exceed any previous inaugural protest,” Inaugural Historian Jim Bendat, author of “Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President, 1789-2013,” told the Washington Times.
DisruptJ20, which organized six months ago specifically to stage demonstrations at the inauguration, is determined to interfere in the event.
“The idea is to shut down access to the parade as much as possible and slowing it down to a crawl,” said DisruptJ20 organizer Legba Carrefour. “Then there’s the broader goal of shutting down the entire city around it and creating a sense of paralysis that creates a headline that says, ‘Trump’s inauguration creates chaos.’ “
Thousands of demonstrators also have vowed to shut down the inauguration, by closing off security checkpoints along the inaugural parade route.
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Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) are planning a mass #InaugurateTheResistance protest in Washington, D.C.
“It is critically important that we keep building a larger grassroots movement against war, militarism, racism, anti-immigrant scapegoating and neoliberal capitalism’s assault against workers’ living standards and the environment,” according to their statement, which said protesters will gather at Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 9th streets.
Supporting the president-elect is the relatively new group Bikers for Trump, which obtained a permit for 5,000 individuals. President Chris Cox told Fox & Friends last week that that his organization plans to put their bodies in the way of anti-Trump protesters.
“In the event we are needed, we certainly will form a wall of meat,” Cox told the Fox News anchors, which he said had grown as large as 200,000 members since it first formed 15 months ago.
“We’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and toe-to-toe with anyone,” he added.
In addition, anti-Trump protesters plan demonstrations in Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Boston, Nashville, Topeka, Des Moines and Minneapolis.
On Thursday documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and actors Alec Baldwin and Mark Ruffalo will lead a rally in front of the Trump International Hotel
“We are sending a message that we will fight, at every step, discrimination and harmful policies, today, tomorrow and every day,” Ruffalo said in a statement, according to AP.
He added that we “are coming together to stand up for one another, as we will do every day, to protect the values we hold dear.”
However, the biggest protest is planned for the day after the inauguration with an estimated 200,000 people expected to gather for the Women’s March on Saturday morning beginning at 10 at intersection of Independence Avenue and Third Street, Washington DC, near the US Capitol, and then start marching at 1:15 p.m.
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