Protestors took the streets across Long Island to express their dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump – particularly in response to his recent tariffs.
The organizing group Hands Off held numerous protests in both Nassau and Suffolk – Mineola, Riverhead, Patchogue, Sag Harbor, Port Jefferson Station, Greenport, East Hampton, and Farmingville.
The protestors’ chants – and the honking horns of support and opposition – dominated major roadways.
At the Port Jefferson Station protest, hundreds gathered across the intersections of County Road 347, Route 112, and Canal Road.
“The history of our country is to support its citizens, and that is what we are hoping will happen,” Judy Black of the North Brookhaven Democratic Club said at the Port Jefferson Station protest. “These are peaceful protests across New York State, across Long Island, across the country, and we really want our government to work for the people that it represents. It is not to represent the very wealthy.”
In addition to Trump, protestors took aim at Elon Musk, Trump’s senior advisor and de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
“The people who bought Teslas like myself, are people who all support the environment,” protestor Ken Rosenblatt said. “We’re environmentalists. We’re doing things for clean air. It was great. What he did at that point in time was fantastic, but somehow or another, he went off, whether it’s a mental thing or whatever it might be, he went off to the crazy side. The people who are working for Tesla are good, working American people. But what [Musk] is doing to this country is just the opposite of all the people who supported him, who bought stock in the company and all the rest. He has turned his back on the people who got him to where he is today.”
Others pointed out the rapid pace the Trump administration appears to be moving at to implement its agenda.
“More than 50% of the American voting population did not vote for Donald Trump, and every day he does more and more damage to the great nation that we are,” Dee Hansen, president of the North Brookhaven Democratic Committee, said. “And we’re out here to say, no, we don’t believe in his policies. We want them to change. We want them to stop. Not only does it hurt individuals, it hurts families. It hurts the nation.”
Various other groups arrived at the Port Jefferson Station protest to show their support, including the Islip-Smithtown Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
“We don’t like the way the direction of the country is going at this point,” Joe Lescinski, a member, said. “The idea of so many rights being ignored, being taken away, people losing their jobs, people being deported without legitimacy, including the poor man that’s sitting in a jail down in Central America wrongly Yes, and and the other things – the wholesale cuts in education, the Environmental Protection Agency, we’re just concerned we’re going down a direction we should not be moving in, and it’s certainly not reflective of the democratic values in this country.”
A noteworthy attendee at the Port Jefferson Station protest was Dave Calone, who ran for Suffolk County Executive in 2023 as a Democrat, losing to current County Executive Ed Romaine. Calone called for Romaine to stand up against the national Republican Party.
“He’s the kind of person who understands what’s happening,” Calone said of Romaine. “I know he understands that families are being squeezed here on Long Island and in Suffolk County because of the Trump tax policies and because of these tariffs. And I would love to see him stand up and hold his own party accountable for this. I think he he knows it, and I think he can do it, and his voice would be respected and heard.”
