The Day After: Trump Election Draws Protests, Calls for "CalExit"

Americans shocked by the election of Donald Trump made their opposition known through large-scale protests, walkouts, and marches across major US cities yesterday. Minorities, LGBTs, the disabled, and women fearful of what a Trump presidency will mean for their lives and communities helped lead the actions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and New York, among other cities in predominantly blue states that voted heavily against Trump.

Thousands of protesters in Chicago took to the streets to yell "Not my President" and "F--- Trump" outside Trump International Hotel & Tower. In New York, thousands of demonstrators chanted and banged drums as they marched up Sixth Avenue.

NBC New York reported more than 30 arrests, most of them for disorderly conduct.

• Across the country, in Los Angeles, more than 100 people shut down a major highway through the downtown area.
• In Seattle, several thousand protesters carried signs reading "Fight Racism" and "Impeach Drumpy."
• Dozens of demonstrators burned a US flag on the on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C., and chanted "Hey, ho! White supremacy's got to go!"
• African American and Hispanic students at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California staged a walkout while chanting "Love trumps hate!" and "Not my President."
• Hundreds of protesters chanting "No Trump" and "Not my President" marched down Bond Boulevard in Pittsburgh bearing a banner reading, "We must stand together against fascism."
• Protesters in Portland, Oregon shut down Interstate 5 in both directions, and one protester spray-painted "Impeach" on the side of Moda Center, home of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers.
• As many as 7000 protesters took the streets in Oakland, California; thirty people were taken into custody. Police said some protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police officers. Trash fires burned on the highway by the end of the night.

Meanwhile, #CalExit trended high across Twitter, as many in California called for a referendum for the world's sixth largest economy to follow Brexit and withdraw from  political union with the United States.

Noting California's growing cultural shift away from the rest of the country and burgeoning  economic success, backers of the idea under the "Yes California Independence Campaign" gathered in the state's Capitol and vowed to place the measure on the 2018 ballot.