Thousands gather at Westchester 'No Kings' protests

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. - Thousands of residents across the Hudson Valley joined in the nationwide “No Kings Day of Action” this past Saturday to protest peacefully against what they see as an authoritarian overreach on the part of President Trump’s administration.

Locally, two of those demonstrations took place in the North Salem hamlet of Purdys and in Mount Kisco.

The former drew about 50 participants while the latter had between 1,500 and 1,800, according to organizers' estimates.

In both cases, they lined the roads holding aloft homemade signs reading things like “Make America think again,” “We love America,” “Unpaid protester,” “Resist,” and “The power of the people will always be stronger than the people in power.”

Speeches were made. Songs were sung. The American flag was proudly waved. And while the occasional person on the other side drove by with a large Trump banner on display or yelled something not-so-nice at demonstrators, most of the reaction from observers seemed to be positive. There was lots of supportive horn tooting, cheering, and flashing of peace signs.

Some Republicans have claimed that the protests are anti-American. But at both the local rallies, the American flag was proudly displayed and in Purdys, folks said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang “America the Beautiful.”