No Kings, No Billionaires: Protesters link struggles in the Hamptons
As part of the national anti-Trump protests on June 14, hundreds of New Yorkers trekked out to the famed billionaire summer getaway to say ‘yes, and.’
By Eric Santomauro-Stenzel
Protesters march through Meadow Lane in the Hamptons, Long Island.
SOUTHAMPTON, NY – In a historic moment, millions of people across the United States and beyond mobilized against the Trump administration this past weekend as part of “No Kings Day,” a day of action led by Indivisible, a progressive chapter-based advocacy group. Around two hundred protesters added additional protest targets: billionaires. More than eighty miles from midtown Manhattan, some of these movers and shakers have addresses on Meadow Lane in the Hamptons – a waterfront neighborhood where the average home price is in the tens of millions of dollars.
“It's really easy to imagine that billionaires in America are a shadowy group of people we can't know, we can never reach, that are so above us," Rachel Hu, a protest organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation told Grassroots Magazine. "But it's just not true."
Twenty-two organizations from across Long Island and New York City sponsored the June 14 protest. Some demonstrators bussed out from The People’s Forum in Manhattan.
Organizers singled out a few particular billionaires with right-wing ties, who they said owned homes on Meadow Lane. Ken Griffin is a Republican mega donor who spent over $100 million to boost Republicans in the 2022 midterms. David Koch's widow, Julia Koch, serves as president of the David H. Koch Foundation. A funder of Birthright trips to Israel and the Anti-Defamation League, hedge fund manager Daniel Och, also drew demonstrators’ ire.
Some on the American left have been critical of the No Kings protests as insufficiently radical, saying they focused on Donald Trump to the exclusion of root causes for his presidency, which most elected Democrats have also failed to address. But the Shut Down Billionaires Lane protest put a more expansive class conflict twist on the national day of action. Organizers took a decidedly intersectional and coalitional approach, with chants ranging from “ICE out of New York!” to “From Palestine to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine!”
“We wanna say it’s a dictatorship of Trump and the rich,” Hu declared through a megaphone before the march began.
Video filmed and edited by Eric Santomauro-Stenzel.
Protesters arrived about two hours before the scheduled start time to find wind, rain, and over a dozen vehicles from at least three separate law enforcement agencies at the Cooper’s Beach parking lot. Some officers were wearing tactical vests. Days earlier, Southampton Village Police had promised “an increased police presence throughout the village to help ensure a safe and orderly environment” and warned of traffic delays.
“We have some of the most well-equipped police forces in the country,” demonstrator Erin Curley said of Suffolk County law enforcement as a surveillance drone buzzed overhead. The Long Island Progressive Coalition board member said the presence was “intimidating.”
Before marching, demonstrators heard from Tela Trogue with Warriors of the Sunrise, an Indigenous women’s group from the local Shinnecock Nation. “This is our homelands,” said Trogue. “Every single wave that we hear crashing is our water, every single blade of grass is our land.”
Marchers ranging from the Palestinian keffiyeh-clad to someone dressed as Uncle Sam took to the street as police tailed and led them. If not for the hedgerows and gated driveways, the Shinnecock Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other could be visible from much of the narrow two lane road.
Porsches, BMWs, and Teslas were often brought to a stop, slowly moving past the marchers when police vehicles cleared the path. A few people rolled down their car windows, or walked down mansion driveways, to clap, watch, or film. Some looked bemused or confused.
Atop a pickup truck bed, organizers led chants and speakers addressed everything from ICE raids to working conditions and compensation. Most demonstrators readily saw the connections.
Westbury ICE Watch member Reyna, who chose not to share her full name, called attention to the Trump administration’s escalating deportation campaign. Immigrants make up the bulk of wealthy Hamptonites’ workforce.
“We must remind our people that they have rights, we must hold ICE agents accountable, we must ask them to show us their warrants, to identify themselves, to tell us who they’re working for,” Reyna said.
Dan Lozano, an electrician and solar panel installer, said that “like so many of us here on Long Island, I work here on the houses of the ultra rich.” He recounted a time he worked on a wealthy person’s house, and was pressured to work through dangerous conditions by his boss because of the client’s status. The client never offered water, Lozano said, and only spoke to him to ridicule his keffiyeh.
“We were treated better,” Lozano said, “at working class people’s homes.”
Eric Santomauro-Stenzel is an independent journalist based in New York City. He can be reached at ericsantstenz@gmail.com