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About 300 protesters gathered Saturday at Palo Alto’s Stanford Shopping Center, holding signs rejecting the Trump administration’s domestic and foreign policies before joining a larger “No Kings” protest on the Peninsula. It was one of over 3,000 such demonstrations held nationwide on March 28.
“This is my third time attending the ‘No Kings’ protest,” said Libby Karolczak. “The biggest reason I am here is the environment.”
She said institutions protecting the environment and immigration were being “smashed” by the current administration.
“Everything the administration does is putting us backward,” Karolczak added.
Some onlookers showed support by cheering as protesters passed. No counterprotest was visible.
The crowd marched toward El Camino Real at about 2 p.m., where more protesters joined.
“No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings!” the crowd chanted as they marched down El Camino Real.
Organizers said demonstrators planned to line El Camino Real from Arastradero Road in Palo Alto to E. Remington Drive in Sunnyvale.
“I haven’t felt this bad about the country in a long time,” said Jesus Hernandez of Millbrae. “I usually don’t feel political, but everything is uneasy.”
Many marchers shared that sentiment, holding signs criticizing a lack of transparency around the Epstein files, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the war in Iran.
“I don’t know what we are doing there,” Hernandez said of the war.
On Friday, Dave Waksberg of Indivisible Palo Alto Plus said that, when including Peninsula protests in San Mateo County, an estimated 10,000 protesters were expected to line El Camino from San Carlos to Sunnyvale. Up the hill from El Camino, a “No Billionaire Kings” protest on Woodside Road in Woodside drew over 400 people, according to an organizer.
The Palo Alto and Sunnyvale protests were organized by Mountain View Voices for Peace and Justice, along with Together We Will and the Sunnyvale Democratic Club. The groups also organized a “No Kings” march last year.
“What began in 2025 as a single day of defiance has become a sustained national resistance to tyranny, spreading from small towns to city centers and across every community determined to defend democracy,” the group’s website stated.
The irony of a ‘No Kings’ protest being organized by billionaire-funded astroturf groups like Indivisible is hard to ignore. Since Indivisible gets funding from Reid Hoffman—who now ‘deeply regrets’ his past association with Jeffrey Epstein and insists visiting Epstein’s island was a ‘mistake’—the situation is simply too funny to ignore.
Of course, poor Mr. Hoffman is also ’embarrassed’ by many of the political astroturf, disinformation, and false flag operations he has funded (like Project Birmingham) because he was ‘not aware’ of the tactics they used. We are expected to believe this shrewd, savvy, self-made billionaire is really just a well-meaning patriot who happens to be getting very rich while spending lavishly to fight the ‘corrupting influence’ of money in politics.
While it’s great to see so many concerned Americans standing up for our democracy, it is deeply disheartening to see how naively they allow their energy to be harnessed by people like Dave Waksberg and Epstein-class-funded pseudo-liberal astroturf organizations like Indivisible.
@Bronstein. Really? Our neighbors, and people like them all over the country have been looking for opportunities to come together to protest the Trump regime’s domestic and foreign sins. Dozens of national organizations, including Indivisible, have publicized thousands of locally organized, genuinely grassroots events. While it’s possible that people richer than I am donated to some of those national groups, I receive numerous e-mail from such groups every day, asking for funds.
Next time we hit the streets, come talk to us. You will see that Mountain View Voices for Peace and Justice, other local organizations, and people with no affiliation are demonstrating because we care, and we know why we’re out protesting.
I wasn’t going to dignify this hater with a response, but OK. I brought my family to the protest, and not because any organization asked me to.
@Lenny, It seems obvious to me that, in the post-Citizens United world we live in, both major political parties have sold themselves to the Epstein-class and both are solely responsive to the wishes of their donors. The Republican Party—the offensive team—has been tasked with orchestrating the largest wealth transfer in US history from the bottom and middle to the top and with perpetuating the Forever Wars that keep taxpayer money flowing to the major defense contractors. The Democratic Party—who play defense—have been tasked with monopolizing all the space where a true opposition to the Republicans could form and diverting citizens’ legitimate frustration with an unresponsive political class into vapid, meaningless performative displays that provide some therapeutic relief without the risk of meaningful change.
Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries are funded by the same billionaire-class who have bought Trump. The most we can expect from them is that they will put up token resistance before yet again capitulating completely. Nobody is coming to our rescue; we need to do the hard work for ourselves, and we will never take our country back until we first take our party back. We need to put our faith in ourselves and not the elected officials who have failed us in the past, are failing us now, and will fail us in the future.
Anyone who wants to preserve the status quo is, definitionally, a conservative. They may call themselves “moderates” or “centrists,” but they are not, and only serve to get in the way of meaningful and necessary change. Let this be the year when we support the new generation of primary challengers and discard the old guard that gives us Democratic rhetoric with Republican policies. Otherwise, we will be standing along El Camino with silly signs for decades to come.