More than 2,700 demonstrations are planned coast to coast, from big cities to small towns, and even near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is spending the weekend. Organisers say they are expecting millions to attend.

Those numbers would match the massive turnout at similar events on June 14, Trump’s birthday and the day of a giant military parade in the US capital, in outrage over the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented migrants and its deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

Since then, Trump — who returned to the White House in January — has ordered National Guard troops into Washington and Memphis. Planned deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon have so far been blocked in the courts.

Demonstrators are also up in arms over Trump’s attacks on the media, prosecutions of his political opponents and a host of other actions they see as authoritarian.

“The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty,” the “No Kings” movement — which brings together some 300 organisations — says on its website.

A government shutdown is now in its third week, with the Trump administration firing thousands of federal workers and lawmakers showing little sign they are ready to break the impasse.

“This president is a disgrace and I hope there will be millions in the street today,” Stephanie, a 36-year-old hospital worker who did not give her last name, told AFP in the Queens borough of New York, where hundreds had already gathered in the morning.

Demonstrators carried colourful signs that read “Queens Say No Kings,” and “We protest because we love America and want it back!”

Some chanted, “We love our country, we can’t stand Trump!”

In Los Angeles, organisers plan to float a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper. They said they expect 100,000 people to attend.