Throngs of protestors circled the Arizona State Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, calling on lawmakers to stand up to a Trump administration that flouts the rule of law while a docile Congress — including Arizona’s leaders — barely flinches in response.
From noon till the evening, hundreds of people chanted “Sí se puede!” and “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” while drivers smashed car horns, all part of a coordinated day of national protest. Families waved signs: “Stop the Coup,” “Dump Trump,” “Fuck Fascism.” Protestors called on Arizona's leaders to take action as they denounced Elon Musk’s carte blanche access to the Treasury Department and ICE’s violent raids.
“Musk and his cohort, they were not elected,” said Roger Rilar, a 75-year-old retiree from Sun City who was among the protestors. “They’re not government officials. No one has vetted them. I cannot just stand here, sit here, anywhere, and watch what’s going on.”
Laura Heindenreich, of Mesa, held a baby Trump balloon — popularized by protests in the U.K. — and wore a shirt that said: “MAKE TREASON WRONG AGAIN.” She had come to the capitol after protesting Sen. Ruben Gallego’s local office earlier on Wednesday, urging him to vote against the confirmation of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought.
In Gallego and Mark Kelly, Arizona has an all-Democrat delegation in the Senate who are voting nearly in lockstep with Republicans to confirm even Trump’s least-qualified cabinet nominees. Democratic voters naturally wonder what exactly was the point of electing Gallego and Kelly.
“I’m pissed off at them,” Heindenreich, 67, said. “Pretend you’re Mitchell McConnell. Look at what he did. I hate that guy, but we need to get that way. We’re losing our Democracy.”
How Arizona's capitol protest was organized
Arizona’s protestors were part of a national day of protests at the state capitols under the banner of 50501, a movement that called for direct action against the Trump administration on Wednesday. Redditors organized the nationwide protest; in Phoenix, the movement was grassroots. Individual organizers and organizations such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation Phoenix brought together protestors from across Phoenix’s Valley and the state — including Tucson, Tempe, Anthem, Payson and Sun City.
Among the crowd was Jonna Alley, a Tucson mother marching alongside her 7-year-old daughter, Hannah. She held a sign with a marker-drawn image of Trump’s side profile with seven bolded words written across his face — SUPER CALLOUS FAGILE RACIST SEXIST NAZI POTUS — a parody of the quite atrocious “Mary Poppins” tune.
“In reading Project 2025 and knowing that my daughter could potentially have fewer rights than me and my mom is appalling,” Alley said. “We’re moving backward.”
Alley, a research development administrator at the University of Arizona, used a vacation day to spend the afternoon in Phoenix. She coordinates federal funding grants for planetary researchers and has already felt firsthand the chaos Trump has sown across the country. Among his first actions in office were federal funding pauses and work-in-office orders that threw American scientists into confusion. Alley has already watched Trump's actions upend colleagues’ lives and halt vital research.
“Nobody knows what’s going on,” Alley said. “Everything is unstable. And I feel like that is the intention, to create this instability.”
At around 4:30, protestors stopped making laps around the Capitol grounds and aimed straight for the Capitol, chanting “we pay your taxes!” and “do your job!” before moving to the Arizona State Capitol Museum between the State House and State Senate.
Signs with pop culture references against Musk and Elon were plentiful. Audrey Brockaus, 43, held an “Elon Doesn’t EVEN GO HERE!” sign. A 34-year-old woman who gave her name only as Becky held a sign reading “F-E-L-O-N T-O G-O TRUMP REGIME HAS GOT TO GO.” (Shout out to Chappell Roan, who said in a viral summer TikTok video, “Fuck Trump for fucking real, but fuck some of the shit that has gone down in the Democratic party.”)
Immigration was another clear concern for many protestors. Mario and Tania Chavoyo brought their three sons and several signs, including one with the MAGA acronym changed to “Mexicans Aren’t Going Anywhere” and another reading “Fighting for Basic Human Rights.”
“Want to show them (their kids) that this is something that everyone should do even if it’s not your demographic — you should stand up to people,” Mario Chavoyo said.
Tania Chavoyo chimed in that their family is proud to be Mexican American. “We should constantly try to fight for our rights,” she said.
“You should fight for everybody’s rights,” their son Arturo replied.
See more images from the protest:
