I attended the No Kings rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on June 14. Hundreds were there and we got to listen to speakers on a lousy sound system, walk around the block in protest, and generally connect with like-minded people.
Folks took a bunch of pictures, and we all went home feeling good about ourselves – me included. And we accomplished nothing – me included.
Organizers said at least five million people showed up at the more than 2,000 No Kings events across the country. I guess that’s a good number. I don’t know what to expect from a nation of 340 million people that’s been undergoing an endless attack on our democracy, our rule of law, and our decency by a corrupt, unfit president and his equally corrupt Republican Party.
I guess I would have hoped for more. Still, five million is a lot of people.
The day was organized under the theme that no individual is above the law. That’s a lie. There are plenty of individuals in this country above the law because of their wealth, power, or position, none more so that our four-time indicted, twice-impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, wannabe fascist dictator, convicted felon, Russian puppet, President Donald Trump.
These events are all well and good, but the fact remains that they haven’t been enough. You see, big numbers are nice – we now know we have them – but they’re next to worthless if you don’t do anything with them.
And up to now, Democrats and those who oppose the current administration have for the most part mirrored the famous line from Shakespeare, having produced “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
When is that going to end? When will our adherence to traditional political opposition that doesn’t work anymore give way to the reality that, despite these good and necessary efforts, it’s not enough? That our country continues to slip away every day, no matter how many people gather on weekends to politely protest, no matter how many calls and emails arrived in the offices of our various lawmakers, no matter how many memes we see on social media, no matter how many politicians send their quotes out into the wind, to float away without impact or consequence?
Don’t get me wrong, protests like the No Kings rallies have served an important purpose. They’ve gotten people into the streets. That takes a lot of organizing and planning, and it’s good that this has been accomplished.
The problem is what you do with them once you get them there.
Let’s say I’m going out some night and I know I’ll be in a dangerous area so I bring a gun (Heaven help us). I’m walking along and a mugger jumps out from an alley. I’m ready. I pull out my gun, but it’s a toy gun. What good is that going to do me? Let me answer that, nothing.
So, we get all these people out, they protest, take selfies, and go home. What good is that going to do at this point? It can’t change anything when you have a corrupt president and administration and a complicit Congress that lets him get away with whatever he wants no matter who gets hurt.
You say, “Well, maybe we’ll change some GOP minds and they’ll do something.” Have you been paying attention? They’ve let the worst of Trump’s autocratic, racist, illegal plans go into effect, and they just passed a horrific budget bill despite all those “Republicans are divided” bullshit stories we knew would end with them rolling over and falling in line, just like they aways do.
Democrats keep talking about the 2026 midterms, and those are incredibly important if we have any hope of slowing down Trump before his current term comes to an end. But look our reality: From now through those elections Trump and the Republicans can do just about anything they want, and they will. Just multiply the problems we already have.
Then, even if Democrats win the House in 2026, a Republican-controlled Senate will block whatever they pass. If Democrats somehow win the House and the Senate, the 60-vote cloture rule and Trump’s veto power will squash anything they try to do.
Of course, we’re better off if Democrats control one or both chambers of Congress, but the system will still work against them. That’s how bad things look at this point.
So, once again, we’ll call here for more militant action by our citizenry in the form of civil disobedience and non-violent public disruptions. Chaos isn’t always a bad thing.
I admit, I don’t know what that looks like. I wish I was smart enough to figure it out, but I’m not.
However, we do have people who are smart enough, tough enough, focused enough, and brave enough to make this work. We just need to find them and let them harness the pent-up anger we see when millions turn out on a June Saturday afternoon to protest what’s going on in this country.
Will it work? I don’t know, but it’s the next logical step. The old ways aren’t working. Staying in our comfort zone isn’t working. The sooner we figure that out, the better.
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Here’s something positive I saw this week in an email from the folks at Indivisible. The organization is starting a training series called “One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism.”
The goal is “to train one million people to fight back.” The email continues: “The success of an authoritarian takeover is dependent upon a population choosing to comply. It only takes a (relatively) small number of people practicing non-cooperation to make implementation of their fascist ideals impossible … If we can motivate, train, and equip this movement in practice of strategic non-cooperation, we can disrupt, delay, and even at times, make it impossible for this administration to enact corrupt policy.”
Here's a link to their program.
I don’t know how this is going to look or if it will work, but it sounds somewhat promising.
We’ll have to see if this is a step in the right direction or just another way of staying on the same path. And if we still haven’t figured out that our current path is leading us nowhere, then we better do so soon.
Before it’s too late, if it isn’t already.
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