STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Protesters gathered at locations across this country. They criticized President Trump and presidential aide Elon Musk. So what, if anything, do weeks of protest add up to? NPR's Juliana Kim is on the line. Good morning.
JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What exactly happened over the weekend?
KIM: So the main protests were part of the 50-50-1 movement, which stands for 50 protests in 50 states and one movement. Organizers say their focus is to defend democracy and the Constitution. And they also said there were over 900 rallies and other events this past weekend. At the same time, there was the Tesla Takedown campaign. According to organizers, they had over 100 demonstrations, and these protests were largely held outside of Tesla dealerships to call out billionaire Elon Musk and his role in the Trump administration.
INSKEEP: I guess we should note sometimes there have been Tesla cars vandalized or burned or whatever, and in other cases, people are just standing around outside of Tesla dealerships with signs. How does this wave of protests compare to what we would have seen eight years ago, early in Trump's first term?
KIM: You know, I think a hallmark of this protest movement is that demonstrators are joining together with a long and varying list of grievances. You know, it's immigration. It's federal funding cuts, foreign policy. It's too soon to tell how long the momentum will last. But researchers at Harvard's Crowd Counting Consortium said in a Guardian op-ed that between January 22 and the end of March, street protests have more than doubled compared to the same time frame eight years ago.
INSKEEP: Oh, that's very interesting because there has not been a single massive event like the massive event after Trump's inauguration last time, but you're saying people are out there, at least according to the surveys. How does that compare with what you see on the ground?
KIM: Yeah, you know, each time I go to these rallies, I meet people who say they've never really protested before, but now they're coming out regularly because they're really concerned about the future of the country. To give one example, on Saturday in Washington, D.C., I met a couple, John and Suzanne Casahna (ph), and Suzanne told me during Trump's first term, she would have to twist her husband's arm to get him to the Women's March. But these days, he doesn't need much convincing.
JOHN CASAHNA: Now, this is new. I mean, the times are unprecedented. This is not my normal modus operandi. You know, we're conventional suburbanites. But the things going on with our government are so crazy, it's hard to even keep up with them. So we had to do something.
KIM: A big part of why they came out was to protest to funding cuts to science and medical research and USAID.
INSKEEP: Does it matter that the protesters don't seem to have one single issue or one single change that they're demanding?
KIM: Yeah, you know, my colleague Emma Bowman asked that question to David Karpf, a professor who studies political communication at George Washington University, and this was his answer.
DAVID KARPF: It's kind of OK to have another rally every weekend that has people who are complaining about Tesla and also people complaining about how we're no longer doing cancer research. Because what they're all saying is not, hey, political elites, we have this one simple demand. It's more mass outrage saying nobody voted for this.
KIM: Karpf said in normal times, having different names and different purposes can weaken a movement. But he also added that we're not living in ordinary times.
INSKEEP: Juliana, thanks so much.
KIM: Thank you.
INSKEEP: NPR's Juliana Kim.
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