By Scott Brinton and Christina Arlotta
An estimated 2,400 protesters gathered on the green outside the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola Saturday afternoon to project a singular message for the Trump administration: “Hands off our democracy!” What precisely the slogan meant depended on with whom you spoke.
Protesters adorned the sidewalks with American flags and “Hands Off!” signs, chanting at passing cars on Old Country Road as they urged President Trump and Elon Musk to rescind funding cuts to the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (which oversees Medicare and Medicaid), cancer research, library services and public education. As well, they called on the administration to reverse its hardline stance on immigration.
Engage Long Island and Show Up Long Island organized the demonstration, one of roughly 1,200 such events that took place in all 50 states on Saturday in what is considered the largest mass protest against the second Trump administration’s policy to date, according to The Associated Press. Other Long Island rallies happened in Patchogue, Port Jefferson Station and Sag Harbor.
“People are fired up and really angry about what’s happening right now,” Rachel Klein, an Engage Long Island organizer, said.
Marty Salzberg, of Oceanside, stood resolute with the crowd, despite the rain causing the ink on her sign to run. “People care about their rights, and we’re here fighting for them,” Salzberg said.
Many, like 70-year-old Franklin Square resident Susan Kaye, came to voice their anger over recent cuts to the Social Security Administration workforce, which has lost 7,000 employees at the direction of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Kaye said she worries Social Security benefits will be reduced, despite assurances from the Trump administration that they will not.
“This is money we worked for,” Kaye said. “I don’t ever get enough to survive for a month. This is money we put into a system. It’s not an entitlement.”
Kaye said she works part-time as a cashier at an entertainment concession to supplement her Social Security benefits, which she started receiving at age 62. After all bills are paid, she ends each month with less than $100.
Others, like 67-year-old Rolander Prince, of Douglaston, Queens, said they were protesting the Trump administration’s attempts to “whitewash” American history by removing people of color and their accomplishments from federal government websites and documents.
“They’re erasing our history,” said Prince, a retired HBO vice president of programming and operations.
Sisters Joan Koenig and Jane Colgan had Koenig’s adult children in mind while protesting. Koenig, 66, of Valley Stream, has two sons, ages 34 and 32. One is transgender and the other non-binary, meaning his sexual identity is not exclusively male or female.
“LGBTQ rights are being taken away left and right,” Koenig said.
Suffolk County Republican Chairman Jesse Garcia told Newsday on Friday that the Hands-off rallies were “the continuation of the far-left Democrats to protest, to yell, to scream, to dance, to sing without offering any solutions.” The Trump administration, he said, was working to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Gail Limmer, 57, of Old Bethpage, is an organizer with Engage Long Island. She attended the Mineola protest with her 22-year-old daughter Danielle. “We’re regular, everyday people standing up for our democracy,” Gail said.
Protesting is “the only thing we could do,” said Danielle with a sigh of exasperation. “We all feel kind of helpless.”
Halle Brenner-Perles, a co-founder of Show Up Long Island, told the crowd through a microphone, “This is a moment in history that requires all people of good conscience to show up for each other.
“We don’t want to wonder one day where we were and what we were doing when they came for Social Security and Medicaid and veterans’ services and national parks,” Brenner-Perles said. “We don’t want to wonder when they came for crucial medical research and disease prevention, or our immigrant neighbors or trans kids.”
“We’re making good trouble,” she said.
“We don’t want to wonder one day where we were and what we were doing when they came for Social Security and Medicaid and veterans services and national parks.”
Halle Brenner-Perles, Show Up Long Island
In unison, the crowd chanted “good trouble,” an allusion to the late John Lewis, a civil rights leader turned U.S. congressman who often used the phrase to describe the act of protesting.
Long Island’s Lee Zeldin, a former congressman who was appointed Environmental Protection Agency administrator by Trump, was the subject of one speaker’s ire.
Fred Harrison, of Merrick, a volunteer with the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, said, “Zeldin is moving to repeal dozens of environmental regulations that limit toxic pollution. He’s recently terminated a program designed to address long-standing contamination in Louisiana’s cancer alley. He doesn’t give a hoot about communities of color who have long suffered that contamination.”
Dr. Mary Anne Trasciatti, of Long Beach, director of labor studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, followed Harrison. “I’m a mom, I’m a grandma, I’m an educator, I’m an organizer, and I’m a pissed-off Long Islander!” she yelled into the microphone.
“Hands off our jobs!” Trasciatti continued to cheers.
“The U.S. Constitution,” she said, “begins with three words: ‘We the people.’ Well, my friends, we are the people. Government is supposed to work for us, but this government has targeted us, the people, hard-working people, as the enemy.”
Don Munro, 65, and Charles Cal, 54, both of Floral Park, moved through the crowd waving a large LGBTQ rainbow flag. Munro, who is gay, said, “I’m disturbed by the targeting of trans people and gay people by this administration. I’m disturbed, to put it mildly.”
Cal, a nursing professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, said, “I do believe we need to stand up for the oppressed voices who are unable to stand up for themselves.”
