NO KINGS RALLIES- HISTORIC, MASSIVE ANTI-TRUMP PROTEST
Saturday, October 18th was the largest protest in the history of the United States. It was a protest against what Trump is doing to America. There were 2600 rallies across the country in big and small cities, in red states and blue and purple states. Over 7 million attended these rallies, exercising their right to peaceful protest and free speech.
Republicans characterized these protests as Hate America protests and claimed that all of the protesters must have been paid by a wealthy Democratic donor. Baloney. That lie is not passably credible given the huge numbers of protestors who joined these rallies from every single state in America–big cities in blue states to small towns, from Democratic districts to reliably red districts. The protests were joyful, filled with inflatable costumed protesters and people dancing, speakers talking about what’s happening to our country and at the rally I went to in Pasadena we all sang America the Beautiful together. No one stormed the Capitol and fought with police.
What was Trump’s reaction to the rallies? Take a look at the AI generated images of Trump as a fighter pilot wearing his mask wrong and dumping shit on Americans below: https://x.com/i/status/1979724233715716425 This was an infantile response. The man is an embarrassment to our country. But there is some truth to the idea that Trump is shitting all over Americans and that he doesn’t give a shit about Americans.
Millions of Americans are fed up with Trump and sickened by his ethnic cleansing in the name of immigration, his attack on our freedoms- free speech, the right of women to take care of our own reproductive health, his dismantling of our government and purge of civil servants who follow the law instead of being loyal to Him.
Trump and the MAGAs are flat out failing to give Americans what they hired him to do- a country that works better for them. I think his voters understood the fact that Trump was corrupt, a felon, a sexual predator and even a kook – they factored that in when they voted- but they figured THEY would do better economically with Trump in charge once again. They are coming to realize they were wrong.
We are 10 months into this administration and Americans are not doing better. They are doing worse.
No amount of lying by Trump and Mike Johnson can convince Americans that they are better off when billionaires get massive tax breaks at the expense of working Americans who will lose their health care to pay for that. Our grocery prices keep going up. Republicans are hell bent on eliminating the subsidies that make the ACA health care system economically feasible for most Americans. Rural hospitals are closing. Americans cannot get jobs. They may not be able to get protective vaccines anymore and RFK Jr, the man in charge of HHS and the CDC is wrecking our once stellar health care system. Immigrant neighbors and American citizens who look Hispanic are being chased, assaulted, abused, kidnapped, mistreated, arrested, and deported -literally disappeared from the streets of America without due process by ICE agents wearing masks and no identification. The shut down makes it harder to fly. Many can’t afford to buy a home. National parks are closed. Money already approved by Congress for civic improvement, climate change projects and more is being wiped out by Trump just because he doesn’t like it. There is much more that motivated Americans to get to a No Kings rally to protest.
A president should not be able to wipe out Congressionally approved and funded projects. A president should not be able to blow up what might be fishing vessels off the coast of Venezuela and kill people claiming without any actual basis they are trafficking drugs. I could go on. And on. And on. This administration is making millions of Americans very angry and upset. The government shut down is adding to the sense of anger and frustration.
NO ONE IS FOOLED. THIS SHUT DOWN IS ON TRUMP AND THE MAGAS
We are on day 20 of the shutdown. Government is not working, Mike Johnson has refused to keep Congress open and is not even trying to hold talks with Democrats. House Republicans are at home while the Dems are in DC ready to get to work on a plan as long as it would continue to fund ACA subsidies for Americans.
Guess who needs these ACA subsidies the most? Trump’s own MAGA voters especially in southern states. The Dems are using the only leverage they have as the minority party to help Trump’s voters have lives that work. 57% of MAGA Republicans want to extend the ACA subsidies so that they don’t lose their health care coverage. Democrats are demanding fairness for those MAGA Republicans! Marjorie Taylor Greene is looking ahead to a time when Trump is no longer around. She has joined the Dems on this one.
Mike Johnson is also refusing to swear in the newest House member from Arizona because she is a Democrat and the all important 218th vote in favor of releasing the Epstein Files. What are these guys hiding? Those files must have a lot of damaging information about Trump and Republican donors and Trump’s cabinet members for Republicans to be so set against their release.
Republicans claim the shutdown is the fault of Democrats but no one thinks the Dems are in charge. Duh. They are not. And if Trump is such a great peacemaker that he can end the war in Gaza and 8 other made up wars he claims to have ended and get his face on Time Magazine for doing that, then he is obviously the guy who could end the shutdown in America if he felt like it. He doesn’t feel like it. Instead, he and Russell Vought are gleefully trying to fire more federal workers.
With Trump in office it’s a fight against him being a King every day.
At this point millions of Americans are done giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. They get it that this is the America you get when you elect Trump and the MAGAs and put them in charge. Most Hispanics are really sorry they voted for Trump. Many young men are sorry they listened to Charlie Kirk and voted for Trump. If you thought Trump was going to expose the elites involved with Epstein think again. Trump is and always was one of the corrupt elites who is IN THE EPSTEIN FILES and so are many of his donors and cabinet members. Trump is only out for himself and his rich pals who vow to be loyal to him.
POPE LEO JOINS THE RESISTANCE
Just this past Thursday, Pope Leo asked journalists to “act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing.” He urged them to “be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth.” And he quoted Hannah Arendt’s warning that “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”
Pope Leo also met with labor union leaders from Chicago and had a strong message of support for immigrants in his comments to that group. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17UEpEhvV9/
Pope Leo is taking on Trump, bless his heart. Here is one person Trump cannot bully into submission or threaten to investigate or indict or claim some bogus mortgage violation to get him to shut up. No. Pope Leo has a megaphone and free speech and by God he is going to use his voice to push back on Trump.
What Pope Leo is pointing out is that Trump’s power comes from divisiveness and lying. Trump creates an alternate fact-free universe in which he is always winning. He is a master liar and divider-in-chief. If he can keep our country divided with his group of loyalists attacking other Americans who oppose what Trump is doing, then, he thinks, he can keep the power for himself and his allies.
Most autocrats use that playbook to gain and keep power. Then, like Trump, they use country as their own piggybank- getting ever richer by self-dealing, using their power as the head of state who will give you what you want and need (like government approval for your project or access to something) but only if you make him personally richer. Autocrats also create their own goon squads that are their private military. Guess what. Trump now has made ICE into the 13th-largest military force in the world—better-funded than most of the rest of the world’s militaries.
The resistance is rising as Trump’s ratings are falling.
TRUMP’S NOT A POPULAR PRESIDENT
Trump is creating chaos but Congressional Republicans have given up their power to stop him using the checks and balances of Congress. This angers millions of Americans including independents and moderate Republicans, creating backlash to Trump. The backlash will get worse if the country’s economy sinks further thanks mostly to tariffs creating higher prices and immigration policies that are decimating the workforce.
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen below water in every major swing state for the first time since taking office, according to a new set of state-level polls.
The latest Morning Consult survey shows the president’s net approval is now negative across all seven battlegrounds expected to decide the next election: Pennsylvania (-2), Michigan (-5), Wisconsin (-8), Arizona (-2), Georgia (-1), Nevada (-3), and North Carolina (-3).
In North Carolina Elon University’s polling 50 percent of people disapprove of Trump’s job performance while 39 percent approve—a net -11 point approval rating. Trump is, for the first time in his presidency, underwater in all of the key swing states that were crucial for his win in 2024.
AMERICANS DON’T HATE AMERICA, THEY HATE WHAT TRUMP IS DOING TO AMERICA
One interesting sign that Americans are waking up to the mess Trump and the MAGAs have created in our country is the most recent assessment from Cook Political which is a neutral political assessment group that tracks voting trends using reliable data.
Here were the most recent headlines that show the tide turning:
- With a little more than a year to go until the midterms, Democrats are catching up to Republicans’ early cash advantage.
- Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is in strong shape as he vies for a historic third term in St. Paul.
- With Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ entry into the Maine Senate race, it moves from Lean Republican to Toss Up.
- It’s unclear that Republicans can redraw enough districts to insulate them from what looks like a pretty tough midterm.
Trump sees a tough midterm coming and so does the Supreme Court. The 6 radical justices are going to help Trump out. The Supreme Court WILL eliminate the last bulwark of the Voting Rights Act that helped Black Americans get fair representation in Congress by forcing red state legislatures to redistrict in a way that granted Black Americans more representation in Congress. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act will be “reasoned away” by this right wing 6/3 Court. We can see this coming based on the questions that these right wing justices asked in oral argument. They questioned the need for continuation of Section 2 of the VRA. It is not hard to read the tea leaves there.
The end of the VRA will result in more southern states doing what Texas did, namely, re-gerrymandering their already highly gerrymandered districts which could produce anywhere from 12 to 20 rejiggered districts that – they think- will elect more MAGA Republicans to the House. To do that re-districting they will have to take the “Republican jam” that is currently piled up in the Republican districts and spreading it ever thinner across more the re drawn districts in their states. They risk spreading that jam too thin.
Elimination of the VRA by the Supreme Court could also add to the backlash against this administration and incentivize more Americans to vote in the midterms against the Republican party. In short, the midterms might be shaping up as a continuation of protest against Trump and his agenda. Trump and the MAGAs will try to prevent that not by offering better policies and practices but by wreaking vengeance on people who disagree with them and further suppressing the votes of Democrats. Creating more backlash.
WHY TRUMP HAPPENED
Trump happened in response to the coming population shift from majority white to multiracial that will happen in about 20 years’ time. Almost everything the Republicans and Trump are doing is an attempt to turn back the tide of the browning of America and force our country to be white and Christian. They needed a dictator to carry out this effort because Americans did not vote for this or want this to happen. Most of the cities of America are multicultural already. Trump was the best bet for this movement and he showed up at just the right time to be their Trojan horse to get into power as a populist even though he was in fact one of the corrupt elites himself. He was and still is great at deception.
HOW TO RECLAIM A DEMOCRACY
1) Huge peaceful and local protests across the country. (check)
2) Economic protests (like what happened with Jimmy Kimmel and Americans cancelling their subscriptions to Disney and Hulu. And a boycott against Home Depot and their use of license plate tracking system, Flock, is brewing led by Chelsea Handler. (check)
3) Leaders who rise up to speak up for the majority and break through the deceptive messages of the administration (like Pritzker, Newsom, Momdani, Bernie Sanders, AOC , Robert Garcia, Jason Crow and others). Podcasters like Joe Rogan and Bobbi Althoff with millions of followers and others are pushing back. Altoff reported the kidnapping of an Hispanic neighbor and friend who had no criminal record and who was not “treated as a fuckin human being.” Late night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and others. (check)
4) Media exposure of the lies and corruption of the administration (the growth of Meidas + which is beating out Fox News and podcasters on the right and the Bulwark and other sources of reliable information.) The use of cell phones by citizen reporters to show the truth of what is going on in American streets that cut through the lies of government (i e that the streets of Chicago are full of criminals when in fact its the ICE agents creating mayhem in Chicago.) (check)
5) Judicial push back (judges fearlessly ruling against ICE in Chicago and Portland, grand juries refusing to indict political enemies cases) (check)
Throughout history cultural movements that shape the future come about because of disruptive economic forces, new scientific developments, political backlash and public energy. I think the No Kings rally could be part of an exciting rising pro-democracy movement that could lead to the revitalization of our democracy.
By trying to kill off democracy Trump has ignited a movement to reclaim it.