Black-clad activists smashed store windows and blocked traffic in Washington during US President Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday, and fought with police in riot gear who responded with tear gas and stun grenades. About 500 people, some wearing masks, marched through the city's downtown, using hammers to claw up chunks of pavement to smash the windows of a Bank of America branch and a McDonald's outlet, all symbols of the American capitalist system.
Anti-Trump protests so strong and well coordinated make spontaneity unlikely to the reasoning observer who makes out that ”someone is stirring the pot because America has never traditionally had a problem with accepting the outcome of an election,” as one analyst put it.