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In Los Angeles, a woman dressed as a character from dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” waved a large flag with the message: “Get out of my uterus,” a reference to Trump’s anti-abortion policies.

In Denver, Colorado, one man in a large crowd of protesters held up a placard reading “No king for USA.”

The rallies even extended to some European capitals, where demonstrators voiced opposition to Trump and his aggressive trade policies.

“What’s happening in America is everyone’s problem,” Liz Chamberlin, a dual US-British citizen told AFP at a London rally.

“It’s economic lunacy... He is going to push us into a global recession.”

And in Berlin, 70-year-old retiree Susanne Fest said Trump had created “a constitutional crisis,” adding, “The guy is a lunatic.”

In the US, a loose coalition of left-leaning groups like MoveOn and Women’s March organised “Hands Off” events in more than 1,000 cities and in every congressional district, the groups said.

Trump has angered many Americans by moving aggressively to downsize the government, unilaterally impose conservative values and sharply pressure even friendly countries over borders and trade, causing stock markets to tank.

“We’re out here to stop the, honestly, fascism,” protester Dominic Santella told AFP in Boston. “We’re stopping a leader from... jailing his opponents, stopping him from jailing just random people, immigrants.”

Many Democrats are irate that their party, in the minority in both houses of Congress, has seemed so helpless to resist Trump’s moves.

At the National Mall, just blocks from the White House, thousands heard speakers, including Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who served as impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment.

“No moral person wants an economy-crashing dictator who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” he told the crowd.

Activist Graylan Hagler, 71, also addressed the protest, saying: “They’ve woken up a sleeping giant, and they haven’t seen nothing yet.”

“We will not sit down, we will not be quiet, and we will not go away.”