Denver protesters against President Trump, Elon Musk decry immigration actions, mass firings

More than 2,000 people gathered outside the Colorado State Capitol Monday afternoon to protest President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk.

The crowd, which began marching shortly after 1 p.m., chanted anti-Trump slogans four weeks after the Republican president’s return to office, including one with an expletive that prompted a mom near the Capitol steps to cover her son’s ears. Attendees held signs that said, “I will not go quietly back to the 1950s” and “Hate never made anything great.”

Protesters spilled out near Lincoln Street and drew a near-constant cacophony of honks. The street was later closed to traffic, as was 14th Street as demonstrators moved through downtown. Some attendees sold American flags, distributed hand warmers to ward off the cold and dolled out pins.

As the crowd drifted toward the street, Deborah Helmers, 70, stood with a sign that said “Resist, persist.” She said she’d been at another recent Capitol protest before and had attended anti-Vietnam protests decades ago.

Helmers said she was mad at Trump but added that she was ever angrier at Congress “for allowing our democracy to be dismantled.”

“This will set us back decades,” Helmers said. She said she felt fine but was concerned about immigrants, transgender people and younger Americans.

“It really is too much,” she said.

Anti-Musk signs were just as numerous as those aimed at the president. They called on the billionaire to be deported and fired, and one accused Musk of “looting America’s future,” a likely reference to his urging of mass firings of workers and other federal cuts. One speaker called for a boycott of Tesla, the automaker he runs.

The event was organized by the Denver-based Common Ground People’s Collective and by 50501, a national group that coordinated protests across the country — including at the Colorado Capitol — on Feb. 5. That was the same day that federal immigration authorities raided several apartment buildings in metro Denver.

Demonstrations played out in other states on Monday, too, in protests dubbed “No Kings on Presidents Day” by the 50501 Movement, the Associated Press reported.

“Do you know who (50501) is?” one speaker, Jackie Burt, with a community group called Showupforgood, called to the crowd in Denver.

Scattered “No” replies sounded. “Me neither!” Burt said.

Former Denver mayoral candidate Lisa Calderón also spoke and received some mixed boos when she sharply criticized the Democratic Party and former President Joe Biden.

Several Democratic state lawmakers were in the crowd and spoke. Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat, carried a cardboard sign that read, “Tesla sucks.”

Rep. Chad Clifford of Centennial told the crowd they were the “pillars” of America’s three-part government.

“You’re here for us,” Sen. Lisa Cutter added. “This is a democracy.”