"Not my president."
That was the refrain from demonstrators at the University of California Los Angeles during the early hours of Wednesday morning after Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States in a stunning upset victory. Protesters gathered in cities like Portland, San Jose, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
The crowd at UCLA was large and boisterous, setting fire to a Trump pinata. More than 1,500 students joined the rally, chanting "F**k Trump, f**k racism."
Colleges such as University of California Irvine, University of California Berkeley, and University of California Santa Cruz, held similar demonstrations.
"When our communities are under attack, what do we do?" protesters in nearby Oakland chanted, locking arms in a show of solidarity against the newly elected Commander in Chief. "Stand up, fight back."
Over 100 demonstrators gathered in the downtown area of Oakland where they set fire to an effigy of Trump, according to the East Bay Times. The police, equipped with riot gear and batons, descended on the scene after protesters began setting small fires to property, as well as smashing the windows of the Oakland Tribune.
In Seattle, protesters blocked traffic in Capitol Hill, an area highly populated by LGBT people.
"We are making noise," one protester told KING-TV, a TV station in Seattle. "We are telling Donald Trump that we don't like that he's here. I feel like we're doomed. This can't be real."
Outside the White House, over 1,000 people came together to protest the election results, which showed that Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote even while losing the Electoral College, the first such result since the 2000 race.
The crowd, which included Black Lives Matter supporters, gathered on the north side of the White House, as WTOP-FM, a radio station in Washington D.C. reports. Many were carrying American flags.
These scenes were mostly peaceful, refraining from breaking out into the chaos witnessed at a smattering of polling places across the country. In Azusa, California, one person was killed after a "gun fanatic" began firing at random passersby on their way to the voting booth. Many polling places in the area had to be moved in fear of violence, according to The Los Angeles Times.
One woman, however, was critically injured after being intentionally struck by a passing motorist during a protest in Berkeley.
Not all of these scenes, though, were shows of dissent. On Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Trump supporters stood at the former reality show host's star to celebrate his upset victory, many wearing his signature "Make America Great Again" hats. That star was destroyed last month by an anti-Trump protester.
