On Saturday, as a Segway tour guide snapped a photo of his seven guests outside the White House, he cautioned them: Their ride to the Washington Monument was going to be more congested than usual.

The traffic on the National Mall came from a sea of thousands of protesters holding signs with messages, like “2025 to 1933 in One Election,” cars honking in support of the crowds and chants of “Where is Congress, do your job.” The throngs of marchers were gathered as part of the “Hands Off” D.C. rally, one arm of a nationwide protest against President Donald Trump and his administration.

One man clad in an American flag suit stood in front of the Washington Monument, carrying a sign that read: “Democracy not Trumpocracy.” Others hoisted and waved American flags, and one protester carried a poster depicting the Statue of Liberty in tears.

Below a flag at the Washington Monument where a shark-shaped kite was stuck — debris left behind from the previous weekend’s kite festival — Bob Doubek looked out at the thousands of signs comparing Elon Musk to historical dictators and soaked in his first protest.

Doubek, a Vietnam War veteran who wrote a book about the design of the Vietnam War memorial, said he decided to protest for the first time because he was upset over how the president had ignored the rule of law and placed sweeping tariffs on foreign goods.

He said a friend advised him to take part in the protests as a tool of political dissent, and since he was worried he’d been politically inactive since Trump’s election, he decided to take part in the demonstration to inspire others to take to the streets.

“I have friends on Facebook, and I know people and to let other people know that I’m doing this, I think may encourage some other people to follow my lead,” he said.

A few steps from Doubek, as a man in a pink hat led chants of “Donald Trump has got to go” echoed from the masses, three GW graduate students stood in masks waving miniature American flags.

One of the students, who requested to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation from right-wing watchdog groups, said they were waving the stars and stripes to reassert America’s foundational ideas of democracy — the “most American thing you can do.”

“Now is the time to remember that this flag is about supporting that constitution and saying no to fascists,” they said.

One of their compatriots, who requested anonymity for the same reason, said they saw their message resonating across the rally, where people with upside down flags, blacked out flags and other iterations of the flag turned the area around the Washington Monument into a gaggle of banners, using the iconically American symbol to point out contradictions in the country’s present versus its promises.

“We’re here to reclaim the symbol of the American flag because it stands for the will of the American people, not the will of the government, not the will of those who want to control us completely,” they said.

Below the Washington Monument, amid a beach ball surfing its way across the crowd and a “Free Luigi” sign, Gretchen, a retiree from southern New Jersey who declined to give her last name due to fear of surveillance, held a sign with pictures of Benjamin Franklin and his friend, the Philadelphia socialite Elizabeth Powel.

On the sign, Powel was pictured asking Franklin “What have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin’s response: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Gretchen said she thought the nearly 250-year-old warning rang true to the present “creep towards authoritarianism.”

“Ben tried to warn us all the way back in 1787, hands off our democracy,” she said.

Atop her sign, a large American flag billowed in the wind. She said she wanted to bring a flag with her to reassert a claim on patriotic symbols for the political left, a set of ideas right-wing Americans have often made their own.

“The American flag is everybody’s flag, and we are all Americans, and we are, in my opinion, incredibly great patriots being out here, representing our country and trying to save our democracy,” she said.

A few steps down the mall, in the middle of a crowd that couldn’t decide if they were chanting “Defend the Constitution” or “Protect our Constitution,” Meg Roy, an occupational therapy assistant, stood directly between the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

She was holding an umbrella with a middle finger and the initials “F.U.D.T.” — f**k you Donald Trump — on it. She said she came down from Manhattan for the protest because she wanted to be around a large group of people who shared her ideas, and “it just feels iconic to do it in D.C.” 

“It’s been really beautiful to see a lot of different groups coming together,” she said.

Protesters marched around the Washington Monument and their chants melded with guitar riffs. Steven Wilhelm — a Marxist from Kentucky who drove to D.C. the night before — strummed his mahogany red guitar as he faced the monument with the National Museum of African American History and Culture behind him.

Wilhelm said his grandfather persuaded him to embrace the political power of music after saying music was a factor in American protests against the Vietnam War as singers, like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, elevated the movement’s profile through songs they made about the war. 

“I think he’s right, so I think that music, even though it can’t always convey a specific idea, it moves people,” Wilhelm said. “The words will speak to people, and for those who might be on the fence, or whom are gonna take the time to listen to the lyrics, it can really change your mind.”

A few feet away, protesters sang Wilhelm’s vision into reality. A group holding large red signs that said “Socialism Defeats Fascism” led others across the mall in a performance of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”

“This land was made for you and me,” the protesters sang while American flags waved in the background. The crowd knew every lyric.