No Kings rally brings early voting message in the Philly suburubs

Signs catalogued a litany of grievances and criticism of President Donald Trump, his cabinet and hangers on at a No Kings event Saturday morning in the square outside the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, Pennsylvania.

The way to halt and reverse the erosion of rights under the Trump administration is to vote, speakers and performers told the crowd of several hundred who gathered in the chilly October weather. 

“We want our democracy back, and we want it much better than it used to be, too,” Neil Goldstein said as he prepared to lead a group of congregants from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County. 

They held signs showing milestones in voting rights from the removal of property ownership as a requirement to vote in the 1800s to the “evisceration” of the Voting Right Act in 2026. Near the end of the line Mardys Leeper of Radnor held a placard reading “This November Vote Like Your Rights Depend On It.”

“There’s a big move, a scary move to go back on voting rights. We think that’s exactly the wrong way to do it,” Goldstein said. “We want to make it much easier to vote … And the more people who vote, the more democracy we have, almost by definition.”

The rally in the Philadelphia suburbs was one of hundreds held around the nation Saturday, three weeks before the general election where voters will determine the makeup of Congress. The outcome is likely to shape the final two years of Trump’s second term. 

Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat representing the 5th District, encouraged voters to take advantage of Pennsylvania vote-by-mail provisions to cast their ballots. She noted it allows time to research candidates before choosing and that ballots can be returned to one of 29 drop off boxes around the county. 

Scanlon noted officials are discouraging the use of the U.S. Mail to return ballots, amid the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict voting by mail.

“We’ve heard a lot of people having fears about this election, and I just want everybody to know we’ve got this,” she said, noting local, state and federal officials are planning to ensure the election is secure.

Between speakers, musicians led the crowd in singing folk and rock protest anthems including Bob Dylan’s “The Times They are a-Changin’” and Patty Smith’s “People Have the Power.” In the crowd, rallygoers dressed as Spider-Man and Lady Liberty mingled.

Liz Russell, a U.S. Air Force veteran visiting from Spokane, Washington, said she’s attended No Kings events in several cities but not her hometown. 

“But I’m very pleased to be here today to support this effort,” she said. “I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to save ourselves. Nobody’s coming to the rescue. We have to save our democracy from these amateurs, grifters and clowns that comprise the Trump administration.”

Particularly galling as an ex-servicemember, she said, is Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth’s transformation of the armed services. 

“They are gutting all the experience out of the State Department and ruining the military,” Russell said. “I served 20 years with the Air Force and another 22 as a Department of Defense civilian, and like my sign says, I served for freedom, not fascism.”

The opening words of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution were on Keith Wooten’s mind as he waited for the rally to start. “What did they say? To make a more perfect union. We were going in that direction. Now we’re going in reverse,” he said.

Wooten, of Glenolden, said he’s worried about the effects of Trump’s policies that have driven up prices for families and decimated government institutions such as the U.S. Department of Education.  

“Soon we’re gonna have people in the street who can’t afford housing, who can’t afford to eat. Children won’t be going to school anymore. Everything will be eroded,” he said. “The 1% of people, they’ll be fine, but everybody else? What about everybody else? What about having decency for others?”

Stephen Bell of Aston held a sign with a portrait of Trump copied from a well-known photo of the president sticking his finger angrily in the air with a snarl on his lips, a collaboration with his former coworker Rachel Spina of Media. Bell said he came out because he believes it’s important for Americans to voice their opinions about the direction of the country under Trump’s presidency.

“I think it’s a sign of a healthy democracy that there are this many people around here, less than three weeks before the election, to get out the vote and remind people that this is their country,” he said.