How millions of Americans stood up to be counted over Trump

As tanks and soldiers paraded through the streets of Washington last Saturday, several million people turned out under the “No Kings” banner in about 2,100 sites around the US, from big cities to small towns, to protest against the excesses of Donald Trump's administration.

- By Guardian reporters

A coalition of more than 100 groups joined together to plan the protests, which were committed to a principle of nonviolence and took place as Trump watched a parade of tanks and soldiers in Washington DC.

Earlier this month the US president deployed national guard and US marine troops to Los Angeles to crack down on people demonstrating against his ramped-up deportations, defying state and local authorities in a show of military force that has not been seen in the US since the civil rights era.

Organisers said interest in last Saturday’s protests rose as a result, including at a site near Trump’s south Florida Mar-a-Lago estate.

The No Kings coalition said more than 200,000 demonstrators gathered in New York and more than 100,000 in Philadelphia. Small towns with sizable crowds for their populations included Pentwater, Michigan, population 800, where 400 people joined the protest, the coalition said.

The protests were largely peaceful, though some in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, were later deemed unlawful assembly by law enforcement officers and met with tear gas.

The day was also marked by political violence. After the shootings of two Democratic lawmakers, Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman, in Minnesota, the state's police and governor cautioned people to attend demonstrations "out of an abundance of caution".