Protests against Trump are growing nationwide. Boca demonstrators say there's more where that came from.

Over 1,100 protests surge across the country on Thursday May 1, or May Day, rallying workers, seniors and activists in a united stand for democracy, healthcare and social security, the outgrowth of growing national resistance to the Trump administration and its policies. 

Boca Raton’s local “Hands Off!” protest on April 5 – one of three such local protests that took place over April –  contributed to this growing national wave of activism. Thousands gathered that day at Boca Raton City Hall and along Palmetto Park Road, chanting “Hands Off!” and “Donald Trump has got to go!” 

Robert Allan, a protester at the event, explained how important the voice of the public can be.

“These kinds of rallies are critical to the future of our country because logic and sanity no longer prevail and it’s only the loudest voice that’s really going to be heard in this political environment,” Allan said. “If we get loud enough and we get squeaky enough maybe we can undo some of the damage that has been done.”

In 80-degree weather, Boca Raton citizens lined Palmetto Park Road from Crawford Blvd to Dixie Hwy wearing homemade and printed T-Shirts reading “Do unto others as if you are others” and “LOVE TRUMPS HATE, KEEP AMERICA GREAT.”

As some Americans grapple with the impact of Trump’s tariffs on their retirement savings and 401(k)s, Boca Raton resident and flight attendant Laurie Mosher joined the protest with her colleagues to voice these concerns.

“Everything that I've had in my life is pretty much taken away by this man. My social security is in danger, I’ve worked 48 years as a flight attendant, my 401(k) is down the tubes, my social security, what's happening to it? My Medicare, what's going to happen to it?” 

“And it’s very hard for this country to be led by someone who's a dictator and who has been a felon 37 times,” said Mosher. “I used to be really upset, and now I’m just embarrassed and upset."

Concerns about retirement security were widespread. Many longtime workers expressed fear that their savings and security nets are being dismantled.

Boca Raton resident Mary Ann Greenawalt said, “I just feel like everything the country has worked for in the last 200 and something years...is just being ripped out from under us.”

Greenawalt also voiced concern about the lack of news coverage at such a large protest for the city of Boca Raton, “There’s no news people here. It's weird: no drones, no helicopters.”

While an estimated 2,500 citizens gathered for the protest, it wasn’t unnoticed that the age demographic was lacking younger activists.

“I have been doing this since the 60s, and I really am glad to see the turnout, but I wish there were more young people here. It was the young people who really turned out against Vietnam and they need to turn out against this,” said Allan. 

Retired nurses Lynne Dumphy, Kay Edwards, and Marlaine Smith expressed concerns about what the healthcare and research community is facing. 

“The National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR), one of the institutes in the NIH (National Institutes of Health), is in grave danger of being dismantled. The director of that institute has been fired, and the plan is to close it and at best combine it with other institutes. This action will have a serious impact on the quantity and quality of nursing research,” said Smith, a professor emerita in Florida Atlantic's College of Nursing.

“I mean, it’s devastating because nursing research contributes to a comprehensive understanding of health and wellbeing, the human experience of health and illness, and the science of care. This unique area of research may be lost,” said Smith.

Edwards worries about the future of research centers under the Trump administration.

“I guess the other thing is the loss of funding to federally qualified health centers,” she said. "FAU actually has a federally qualified health center, and that center, we will lose that center if things continue as they are.”

With a new season of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” being released, viewers have been quick to relate the book-turned-show to the present political climate. Alexandra Cirland arrived at the “Hands Off” protest dressed in a floor-length red robe and white bonnet, replicating the outfit of a handmaid. 

“Honestly, it’s the concerning similarities between what’s going on in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and everything in the country you know, it’s the marginalization of immigrant groups and just the similarities with Nazi Germany and everything. It’s absolutely terrifying and it’s disgusting,” Cirland said.

Many protesters joined Indivisible and heard about the protest that way, while others are getting involved through a recently formed group called 50501, named for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.” Indivisible Boca Raton is holding its next meeting May 5 at 6:00 p.m. where they will be joined by guest speaker Steve Bosquet, Opinion Editor and Columnist at the Sun Sentinel.

As he closed out his first 100 days in office this week, most polls indicated deep frustration with the president. Twice as many people said Trump deserves an F than said he deserves A, according to a poll released this week by NPR/PBS News/Marist. A Fox News poll showed that 55% of Americans disapprove of the job he’s done so far.

With national unrest mounting, Boca’s protesters say they are committed to keeping up the pressure on the president who, when not in Washington, lives just up the road in Palm Beach.