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The last time a Republican was elected president after losing the popular vote, George W. Bush’s inaugural parade turned into a tunnel of boos and rude signs, as eggs – and some protesters – flew over security fences toward the motorcade.
Organizers anticipate even more visible dissent when Donald Trump rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House on Jan. 20.
One major faction plans an orderly but large demonstration along the parade route. But a more radical effort operating under the tagline “no peaceful transition” seeks to block major roads into the nation’s capital and prevent foot traffic from reaching security checkpoints along the route.
“So, we’re going for what I’d generally term a clusterf--k,” says Legba Carrefour, a local anarchist handling press for the more radical protest-organizing network DisruptJ20, which has more than 1,700 Facebook group members.
“We are planning to shut down the inauguration, that’s the short of it,” he says. “We’re pretty literal about that, we are trying to create citywide paralysis on a level that I don’t think has been seen in D.C. before. We’re trying to shut down pretty much every ingress into the city as well as every checkpoint around the actual inauguration parade route.”
Carrefour says more than 200 people attended an organizing meeting at a local church Sunday on short notice. Photos show supporters representing a range of ages and interests. A member of the antiwar group Code Pink posed with a sign, as did people upset about Trump’s comments on Muslims, women and policing.
“Rapists deserve hell, not the White House,” one woman’s sign said.