‘Too Much to Protect to Go Away’: West Hollywood Joins Millions for No Kings Rally

The park was packed by 11. San Vicente lined with signs from Robertson down to the Pacific Design Center. Cars honking the whole length of the block without stopping.

West Hollywood was one of more than 3,300 rallies Saturday. Rome had one. Paris had one. Berlin, Madrid. Bruce Springsteen played a new song he wrote for the occasion at the flagship event in Minneapolis, where 50,000 showed up at the state Capitol. In New York, marchers filled Times Square. In Washington, they crossed Memorial Bridge on foot. Philadelphia put 40,000 in the streets. Organizers say it’s the biggest day of political protest in American history.

West Hollywood brought what it always brings. A full park. A fired-up crowd. And every member of its City Council to the stage.

The signs told the story before anyone spoke. “No Kings, No Camps, No Wars.” “Attacking Free Speech + Ignoring Due Process + Dismantling Rule of Law + Militarizing Our Cities = Destroying Democracy. 86 47.” “This All Ends When Enough of Us Say No.” One sign did the math simply: “Fighting Kings Since 1776.”

Councilmember Lauren Meister opened. She’s been organizing resistance rallies in this city since June 2018, when the Trump administration’s family separation policy was pulling children from parents at the border. She and her sister Debbie built this from scratch back then. Saturday felt like everything that work had been leading toward.

She ran through the list of what’s happened since — ICE operations tearing apart immigrant communities, health care stripped from millions, research shut down, an economy destabilized, a war in Iran. She said she was exhausted just reading it.

“But not so exhausted that I am willing to give up our freedoms, our constitutional rights, especially our right to vote, and our democracy.”

WEHOonline asked her before she took the stage why it still matters to keep showing up.

“Because we all still care. And it’s not stopping. He only knows Big Beautiful, right? So we have to be big, beautiful, and powerful for them to listen to us. There’s just too much to protect to go away. Or to be quiet.”

Mayor John Heilman has been on the front lines of this city’s fights since 1984. AIDS. Marriage equality. Civil rights battles that are now just the fabric of daily life. This is his last year on the council. He stood at the microphone Saturday and didn’t waste it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

WEHOonline asked him what he’d say to people with protest fatigue.

“Fighting for good things requires us to continue to show up. Women’s suffrage took 73 years. Marriage equality took a long time. Getting the federal government to address AIDS took a long time. Good things are worth continuing to show up for and continuing to fight.”

He connected West Hollywood’s presence Saturday to the thousands of events unfolding simultaneously across the country and around the world.

“We are one rally among thousands happening today. It is really an effort of people all across the country to fight back against this corrupt government. West Hollywood always is in the leadership, and I’m proud to be part of a city that always punches above its weight.”

Heilman noted the full council was present — Vice Mayor Danny Hang, Councilmembers John Erickson and Chelsea Byers — along with former mayors Steve Martin, Abby Land, and John Duran. He offered a disclaimer he said was now necessary: he was there as an elected official, not as a law school professor, because of the administration’s attacks on higher education and academic freedom.

What the crowd was fighting

What, exactly, are people pushing back against? The crowd’s signs laid it out. Measles cases topping 1,500 this year alone — a disease once eradicated — with RFK Jr. running health policy. Pete Hegseth sharing classified military intelligence on a group chat. Medicaid on the chopping block. ICE deployed to airports. A war with Iran. Federal funding threatened for cities across the country, including West Hollywood’s seismic retrofitting program. One sign in the park put the whole thing on a whiteboard like an equation, bottom line underlined: Destroying Democracy.

Councilmember John Erickson asked the crowd if they were angry. They were. He said he was too — about trans residents losing driver’s licenses in other states, about immigrants removed without legal process, about rights won at the ballot box getting dismantled from Washington.

“Trump cannot be bigger than a movement that is as beautiful, big, and as powerful as the movement I am looking out in front of me right now,” he said. “Not with those tiny fucking hands.”

Actor Mike Farrell — best known as B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H, and a longtime human rights activist — addressed the crowd from the podium. He made clear his thank-you had limits.
“I do not offer a thank you to anyone who might be here, perhaps out of uniform and unmasked, from the Gestapo — also known as ICE, or the Border Patrol, also known as brutes with guns — who might be here spying, looking for decent human beings who are unacceptable to them.”

Vice Mayor Danny Hang made it personal. His parents fled Vietnam as refugees. The American dream they came here for, he said, does not include ICE ripping families from their homes, their workplaces, their communities. Children left behind. Entire neighborhoods living in fear. He invoked Melania Trump’s jacket — the one that said “I don’t care” — and the crowd answered before he could finish the sentence.

“We do care,” he said. “And we’re not gonna be quiet about it.”

City Council candidate Kody Christiansen was in the crowd. He said No Kings is bigger than opposition to one person. “It is democracy for all,” he said.

Andrew Martino came from Ventura County. He drove out here just for this.

“We have to show up for each other,” he said. “Otherwise nothing’s gonna change.”

Gil Moreno has lived in this area his whole life. He said he’s embarrassed. He said he came to fight.

A young woman nearby wouldn’t give her name. She said she gets why people are worn out. But she wasn’t leaving.

“People start to lose hope,” she said. “It’s important to know there are people out there who don’t like what’s going on.” She paused. “It’s going to happen once we all rally together.”

West Hollywood has been part of this resistance since 2018 with Councilmember Lauren Meister showing the way. That first rally drew a packed crowd to this same park. The October event came together fast with people at the corner of “gay and gay” aka Santa Monica and San Vicente. Meister with a bullhorn leading the charge. 

Saturday, the park was full. The crowd was fired up. Councilmember Meister and Mayor Heilman still fighting the fight. 

Somewhere in Minneapolis, Springsteen was singing. In Paris and Rome, people were in the streets. In West Hollywood, they were too. This city has been standing up and fighting back against injustice since 1984. Saturday was no different. 

Speakers

Lauren Meister, West Hollywood City Councilmember; John Heilman, Mayor; Justin Leavitt, Constitutional Law Professor, Loyola Law School; John Erickson, West Hollywood City Councilmember; Mike Farrell, actor and activist; Danny Hang, West Hollywood Vice Mayor; Chelsea Byers, West Hollywood City Councilmember; John Duran, former West Hollywood City Councilmember; Adam Sieff, First Amendment and civil rights attorney, Davis Wright Tremaine; Kirsten Vangsness, actor and activist; Abbe Land, former West Hollywood City Councilmember, ROAR; Susan Grayson Stone, Indivisible West Hollywood. Music by Diane Hubka and the Sun Canyon Band.