Hundreds of Middletown residents, including dozens of University students and faculty, gathered on Main Street to protest the new Trump administration on Saturday, April 5, 2025. The protesters began the march at 10 a.m. on the corner of Main Street and Washington Street, carrying signs and chanting as they made their way down Main Street before ending the march at Old Church Street.
They weren’t alone. Across the country, protesters gathered in over 1,200 locations across all 50 states in a nationwide day of action organized by the advocacy group Hands Off. The group estimated that over a million Americans attended affiliated protests.
The day marked the largest protest since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Since returning to office, Trump has wielded his executive power at a level that critics have labeled autocratic, making unilateral cuts to the federal bureaucracy, disobeying judicial orders, and imposing historic tariffs on nearly every nation without congressional approval.
“Even as students are increasingly at risk from illegal deportation and repression from the federal government for exercising their free speech, students are responding by raising their voices even louder,” Wesleyan Democrats member Brendan Barry ’28, who was in attendance at the Middletown protest, said.
In Middletown, posters and signs referenced Trump’s recent executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the Department of Education, as well as the economic effects of his tariff plan.
“This is what democracy looks like,” a group of protesters chanted as they walked down Main Street.
Students expressed excitement at the energy and size of the Middletown protest.
“The turnout at the march was overwhelming,” Aleyna Gungor ’27 wrote in a message to The Argus. “It was inspiring to be part of such a meaningful movement for change.”
President Michael Roth ’78 was also in attendance at the protest, clad in red and black University gear.
“Marching for democracy and freedom in Middletown #HandsOff…” Roth captioned an Instagram photo of him in the crowd.
Roth has been an outspoken opponent of the Trump administration, appearing regularly in the nation’s most prominent news outlets in the past months. He recently spoke directly to the University community in a Zoom discussion with Executive Director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life Khalilah Brown-Dean on “Meeting the Moment.”
“Everybody’s in favor of not fighting and having better dialogues, and I am, too,” Roth said in an interview with The New Yorker. “But I’m more in favor of people working on campaigns and learning about issues and getting things done. And in the last two months, it’s become painfully apparent that wanting to have nice conversations is not going to stop people who are bent on authoritarianism.”
Later in the day, thousands of Connecticut residents gathered in Hartford at the State Capitol for another protest affiliated with the day of action. The protest was attended by members of the Wesleyan Democrats, along with federal and state level legislators, including Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Congressman John Larson (CT-1), State Senator Matt Lesser, and State Comptroller Sean Scanlon.
“As someone who cares a lot about opposing Trump and his various attacks on civil liberties, it felt really powerful to be there,” Lane Joslin ’28, who was in attendance at both the Middletown and Hartford protests, said. “I think it’s easy to think that our feelings of anger and disappointment and despair are alone. But this event showed that there’s thousands, if not millions, of people out there who are equally as enraged.”
National and local organizers alike lauded the success of the protests, arguing that the protesters’ enthusiasm was a chance for the Democratic Party to capitalize on the Trump administration’s extreme actions.
“What we witnessed today was nothing short of extraordinary. Across the country and around the world, people came together to say: We will not be silent while our rights, our futures, and our democracy are under attack,” MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting, whose organization was affiliated with the protest, said. “This peaceful movement is powered by everyday people—nurses, teachers, students, parents—who are rising up to protect what matters most. We are united, we are relentless, and we are just getting started.”
Wesleyan Democrats chair Luca D’Agruma ’27, who was in attendance at both protests, concurred with Epting.
“This past Saturday, millions of Americans showed up to send a message to Trump and [Elon] Musk that they need to get their hands off our services, our communities, and our rights,” D’Agruma said. “I was proud to march with…Middletown residents against this administration’s incompetent, repressive, and reprehensible agenda.”
The protests capped off a week of resurgence for the Democratic Party, which had been widely seen to lack a coherent national message in the wake of an electoral cycle in which the Republican Party assumed control of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and presidency. Trump’s tariff plan, announced last week, shocked both global financial markets and Republican legislators, who had expected a far more measured set of actions compared to the across-the-board approach that eventually materialized. Additionally, Democrats and even some Republicans have argued that Musk’s unprecedented advisory role will prove to be an electoral liability for the GOP in the 2026 midterm elections. Many Democrats have honed in on Musk as the target of their political attacks.
U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) directly goaded Musk in December 2024, referring to him as President Musk in an interview. The Democrat Party’s official website refers to him by the same name in regular press releases. On Saturday, protesters shouted anti-Musk chants, going as far as to call for his deportation. Musk was born in South Africa and retains South African and Canadian citizenship but is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
“I think we hear a lot about people being exhausted with politics, with the Democratic Party, with resisting Trump, but if you happened to walk down Main Street on Saturday, you would have seen everything but exhaustion,” Barry said. “You would have been able to hear the chants of both Middletown residents and Wesleyan students uniting against the Trump administration’s attacks on the social safety net, civil liberties, immigrants, and higher education.”
Anabel Goode can be reached at ag****@******an.edu.
Miles Pinsof-Berlowitz can be reached at mp**********@******an.edu.
Leave a Reply