WASHINGTON: When Liz Gabbitas joined thousands of fellow protesters on Saturday in the US capital, she thought her message to the Trump administration would be best delivered through her homemade sign: a cardboard guillotine.

The 34-year-old librarian made clear she does not advocate violence, but nevertheless insisted that her one-metre (three-foot) sign, complete with tin foil blade, `communicated the visual language` of revolutionary fervor she longs for less than three months into Donald Trump`s presidency.

`It`s easy to be overwhelmed with all of the horrible things going on` under Trump`s leadership, she said at the base of the Washington Monument, just blocks from the White House.

`I`m worried that the separation of powers is dissolving,` she added, noting Trump`s dramatic expansion of executive authority. `And I do worry that people get into the trap of feeling like, well there`s nothing I can do.

Americans were taking action all around her, however, on the biggest day of national `Hands Off` protests since Trump returned to power.

Hand-scrawled `Resist` signs poked up from the crowd, which organisers said amounted to more than 20,000 people. Some protesters dressed in the red cloaks of `The Handmaid`s Tale,` a popular novel and TVseries about a totalitarian society.

Others carried American flags upside down, traditionally a symbol of distress or danger to the country`s liberties. `You did Nazi this coming,` screamed a sign.

Bob Dylan`s protest classic `Masters of War` oozed from a portable speaker. A larger-thanlife paper mache model of Elon Musk, the billionaire whom Trump has tasked with slashing the federal workforce, cast afascist salute.

`Because of Trump and Elon and DOGE, my project died and I was laid off,` said Annette, a 39-year-old from Oregon who recently lost her government contractor job in international development. While she fears a collapse in US-funded humanitarian work worldwide, `I`m really heartened to see so many people out here,` she said. But `this is not enough... Congressneeds to get off their asses, I think,` she said.

`Unfortunately,` she added, `I feel this in my heart that people aren`t going to come out until it hurts them personally somehow.

`Coup` by oligarchs Half a mile away, Shelly Townley and her husband were making their way past the White House, provocativelyholding an upside-down American flag and a sign reading `Stop the Musk Coup.` `I feel sad. This is the first time I`ve walked by here without crying,` Townley, a 62-year-old from North Carolina, said.

`I believe we`re under a coup right now, by oligarchs, much to my dismay,` and `the checks and balances of our government` are disintegrating, she added. Even though Trump was away in Florida, Townley found herself looking at the White House throughtallmetalfencingerected ahead of the rally. `I wish that instead of being at a golf tournament at Mar-a-Lago that he was in there and could see what was happening out here, that the people are out here` opposing his policies, she said.

Not everyone was comfortable openly protesting in public, especially given Trump`s executive order issued last week that approves deployment of `a more robust Federal law enforcement presence` in Washington. A 51-year-old woman who represents an NGO said she was wearing a mask `to protect my identity.

`I think they are using AI and different recognition technologies to out people and to then punish them,` she added.

`It`s all about loyalty with this administration,` she warned. `And if you`re disloyal, you`re at risk of losing everything.`-AFP