"Hands-Off" protest on Saturday in Plymouth

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 12:00 AM

By Kathy Bottorff

On Saturday, Plymouth and Marshall County protesters gathered at the Marshall County Courthouse to oppose President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The protest was part of a nationwide initiative aimed to take to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off! About 100 people from Marshall County participated in the Hands-Off! National Day of Action.

The Hands-Off protests launched across the United States on Saturday were currently the largest one-day, nationwide display of public resistance against President Donald Trump's second administration.

Michelle Livinghouse told GIANT fm WTCA that the Marshall County Democrats had a regular meeting scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and realized there wouldn’t be enough time to get to the South Bend event. Some local people approached them and said they wanted to go to South Bend but couldn’t, so a Plymouth event was organized. Some local Democrats were attending Kevin Overmyer’s retirement party on Saturday and felt it important to be there and show solidarity with Kevin and his family.

One person said she’d be happy if 20 people showed up and the Democrat Party posted about it on its Facebook Page, doing little else to promote it.

Livinghouse said, “Other organizations put it on their sites since it was a nationwide event. The first one was the Michiana Alliance for Democracy (Indivisible District 2), and before we knew it, we kept being listed on various sites with maps. It was bigger than our wildest dreams, but we did little else to promote or plan the county’s event. It was very grassroots and organic.”

Protesters were out in force to say, “Hands Off! Our democracy, Constitution, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and personal data.”

Those lining the sidewalk at the courthouse received many honks of support and thumbs-ups that were very gratifying.

Livinghouse said, “It was amazing.”