PHOTOS: Thousands attend No Kings Rally in Old Town, Alexandria

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Alexandria leaders railed against the Trump administration at Alexandria’s Market Square on Saturday, just across the Potomac River from the military parade celebrating the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, which also coincides with President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.

Alexandria’s No Kings Rally was attended by thousands. The rally also comes as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is reportedly preparing to deploy tactical units to Northern Virginia and four major cities across the country.

U.S. Rep. Don Beyer encouraged the crowd to resist the administration.

“We will never give up,” Beyer said. “We will resist. We will prevail. No kings, no dictators, no tyrants.”

Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele Herring (D-4) said that the “spectacle” in Washington didn’t show strength as intended.

“On Flag Day, President Trump wants tanks in the streets and a made-for-TV display of dominance on his birthday,” Herring said. “This spectacle is meant to look like strength. Poor Donald, he knows no better. However, the real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.”

Herring continued, “Democracy is not easy. Democracy works best when all levels of government respect the rules and work together. We have institutions that tie us together and make sure there are no oversteps when a president throws. Goes all that to the wind in an unfathomable, incomprehensible need for attention and affirmation. When his party backs him up or uses federal agencies to intend to intimidate, kidnap or harm people in America, that means we know there are choices to be made. Making your voice heard like here today is the first step of righting these wrongs. But that is not enough.”

State Sen. Adam Ebbin read a story he wrote entitled, “Donald the Wannabe King.”

“Once upon a time, there was a land called America that banished kings in 1776, but a wannabe king named Trump tried to impose his will on the people,” Ebbin said. “Though he had wanted to have hair like Rapunzel, he had more in common with Pinocchio. He had a gaggle of fools who helped him. His jester, Elon Musk, who could only tell bad jokes, helped put thousands of Virginians out of work, and he wanted to cut Social Security. But soon jester Musk and wannabe King Trump got in a skirmish, and jester Musk was forced to leave the kingdom. Oh, well.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter also didn’t mince words.

“I’m not impressed with Donald Trump’s intellect,” Porter said. “I don’t think he’s very impressive at all. And while he’s the figurehead of that movement, he is not the font of the nationalistic ideas to tend towards fascism that we see over in D.C. Instead, unfortunately, he has a bevy of malignant actors like Stephen Miller, buttressed by a multitude of other nameless functionaries who have studied history and believe that they know how to activate the misguided enthusiasm of the masses that seem to support that kind of off-brand fascism they are crafting, and right now are implementing a shock-and-awe campaign that is designed to overwhelm a system that has always, to some extent, relied on a government that honored and did not disobey the rule of law.”

Mayor Alyia Gaskins said that the city deserves respect from the federal government.

“We are sisters and brothers, we are strangers and friends,” Mayor Alyia Gaskins said. “We are mothers and we are marchers. We are people who deserve respect. We are a community that welcomes our immigrants. We stand up for every single person in this city, and we say, go ahead, have your parades and your pomp and circumstance. We don’t care. We don’t pay attention to it, because at the end of the day, we know we are stronger than that, and that virtue and our values will always be on our side and cannot be broken.”