More than 500 protesters gathered on the grounds of the North Carolina State Capitol to protest Donald Trump’s administration. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
Protesters dotted the North Carolina State Capitol grounds with picnic blankets and signs Tuesday as part of a people’s picnic organized by the 50501 movement — marking the third such protest just over a month into Donald Trump’s second term.
The demonstration, which began shortly after noon, featured more flags and signs supporting Ukraine than the movement’s two prior rallies in February, as attendees voiced outrage at the treatment of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to the White House last week.
At the sit down, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War Three” and berated him, according to CNN.
Graphic designer David Prusko of Clayton, who came to Tuesday’s protest bearing a “Slava Ukraini” sign, said Trump’s blow-up with Zelenskyy made him “embarrassed to be an American.” Helen McNeill, who said this was her first 50501 protest, said she viewed the clash as “a set up.”
“If he had shown up in a three-piece suit, they would have said he wasted money they gave him to buy the suit,” McNeill said. “Trump wants him to bend the knee and kiss his feet.”
The protest featured a number of musical performances, including songs by a protest music group known as the Piedmont Raging Grannies, who trace their origins to antiwar protests in Canada. Another speaker asked the crowd to join in and “if you’re unhappy and you know it, clap your hands.”
Shortly after 1 p.m., the picnic’s emcee belted out “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the play Les Misérables — a song intended to resist a king that the U.S. Army Chorus performed for Trump last month that many interpreted as an act of protest. “They protested you at your own event and you were too stupid to get it,” posted Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) after the performance.
Speaking out against DOGE cuts
Randy VanSlyke is a military veteran who spent 22 years serving in the army: 20 with the Michigan Army National Guard, and two in Germany in the early 1970s.
He’s appalled at the Trump administration’s move to cut funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs and subsequently benefits for veterans.
“I did 22 years for this country, and they’re going to take my benefits away that I put my life on the line for,” VanSlyke said.
VanSlyke, who donned a U.S. Army cap and a “Vets against Trump” sign, wore a shirt with a famous quote from Martin Niemöller following the Holocaust that reflects the speaker’s inaction with standing up for different groups.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
– Martin Niemöller
VanSlyke likened this with present times, pointing out how the administration is currently targeting immigrants. Afterwards, it’ll move on to other groups, he said.
With an eye toward events closer to home, protesters also voiced concerns over attempts to curb power from Democrats like North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson. Republicans in the state Senate filed last month a one-page bill to block Jackson from joining lawsuits against Trump’s executive orders.
“We can’t trust our elected officials to do what they were elected to do,” Stephanie Jolly said, carrying a sign saying “silence is complicity.”
Demonstrators gave voice to a backlash against layoffs of federal employees as well.
Laura Thomas, who held a balloon shaped like Trump wearing a diaper, said she and her husband were planning their first cross country road trip, which included stops at national parks.
“We stand with Ukraine, we stand with the federal workers, save our national parks,” protesters chanted at one point.
With the administration making cuts to the National Park Service and the president’s recent executive order to increase logging in national forests, she’s worried about access.
“We don’t know if the parks will be open. We have a motorhome, we’re hoping to camp at some of the parks,” Thomas said. “That’s a very, very small thing compared to what a lot of other people are going through, but the things that he’s doing, it’s a domino effect, it is going to affect everybody.”
Bombarding billionaires
While Trump and Vance received much of the blowback from protesters, many also called out billionaires both within his administration and those who support it from outside.
“Our government is handing over every last bite to the billionaire class,” said Graham Johnson, who proudly identified as a “queer, autistic, disabled citizen” of the U.S. “My message to the billionaire class and the government that is upholding it is: ‘Our pronouns are not a threat to you, our families are not a threat to you, our capacity for happiness is not a threat to you.’”
In remarks to the crowd, Meschia McKelvie called on protesters to remember a list of billionaires she prepared on a whiteboard — including Office of Management and the Budget director Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, as well as Republican megadonor Peter Thiel and blogger Curtis Yarvin, a proponent of monarchy in the U.S.
“These are names that are not being uttered, not nearly to the level that they should be,” McKelvie said. “The richest and most powerful men in America are in the final stages of a decades-long plan to kill democracy and turn your country into a monarchy ruled by tech billionaires.”
McKelvie wore a shirt reading “Delay, Defend, Depose” — words that were infamously inscribed on the bullets allegedly used by Luigi Mangione to kill Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Asked whether she was concerned this might be viewed as an incitement to violence, she replied, “I really don’t care.”
Crystal Free, standing with McKelvie, told NC Newsline about how her eight-year-old relative suffered severe brain damage after a traumatic car crash. After waking up from months in a coma, doctors wanted to send him to a rehabilitation facility.
But insurance wouldn’t cover the costs.
“This is actually a reaction to violence, because there are millions of people who lose their lives every day because of having insurance claims denied and delayed,” Free said.