One of the first things you’ll see upon entering the ornate Union Station terminal in Washington, DC, are groups of prowling National Guard troops, dressed in full tactical camouflage. Most look bored, one hand hanging casually over the rifle they are holding. now authorized to carrya suspicious look at the teenagers wandering around the food court in the after-school hustle and bustle. Walk around the city and you’ll find those same groups of them stationed at nearly every major landmark, as well as other federal forces who for months have been brutalizing anti-ICE protesters across the country.
They are there because donald trump has prioritized physical and legal repression against its political opposition, which has mainly targeted cities and Democratic politicians. Recently, the administration has turned its attention toward protesters, free speech, and liberal nonprofit groups, and the president signed an order designating anti-fascists as a domestic terrorist group, and a note targeting “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Americanism,” as the administration sees them. The goal appears to be to make life miserable for activist groups and organizations that support resistance to Trump’s authoritarian power grabs.
Everything may come to a head this weekend as millions of people across the country prepare to march in the second version of the “no kings” protest. More than 2,500 events are planned in the United States and abroad, with some of the largest expected to take place in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and, of course, Washington, DC.
The Republican ecosystem has been working hard to demonize the protest movement ahead of the event, adopting Trump’s formulation of his opposition as anti-American terrorism. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared on Fox Business and described the more than 2,500 protests expected to take place across the country and in cities abroad as “part of Antifa” and “paid protesters.” Speaker of the House Michael Johnson He called the planned events “a demonstration of hate for America,” adding that “the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the antifa people, they’re all coming out.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) also referred to the event as a “demonstration of hatred for America,” Majority Leader Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called Potential participants are part of the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. reclaimed The protests would be made up of members of the “hardest core” of the left. Rep. Pat Harrigan (R.N.C.) even called it a “blue-haired anthropomorphic experiment,” during an appearance on Wednesday on Fox Business.
No Kings is a coalition of grassroots protests driven by liberal and left-wing advocacy groups. He first No Kings event in June it attracted up to six million participants nationwide, according to estimates. The protests took place on the same day that Trump organized an awkward attempt to hold a military procession, in the style of the autocratic leaders he admires, on the National Mall. At the time, organizers said rolling stone that to defeat a tyrant “you need to have a visible demonstration that Americans are against authoritarian overreach.”
In it intermediate monthsThe organizations involved in No Kings have been building their coalition and training activists and partner organizations on how to weaponize the principles of “strategic non-cooperation” against the administration.
The June protests were almost universally peaceful across the country, and organizers say rolling stone who hope the second iteration of the event will play out in the same way. But they are not blind to the reality that the events will take place amid Trump’s broad crackdown on anti-ICE protesters in major Democratic cities, and that republicans They are openly trying to label opposition to the president as terrorism.
“It’s about one thing and one thing only: winning political points with the terrorist wing of your party, which is willing to keep […] a hate rally against America in DC next week,” Emmer saying Friday of the next protests.
“[We] We want to be out there speaking our minds carefully and peacefully,” says Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, one of the organizations participating in the No Kings coalition. Rolling stone. “The only thing we cannot be right now is to be cowed by what [Trump] “It is threatening and we will not be intimidated into fear and silence at this time.”
The escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against Democratic and progressive nonprofits followed the murder of right-wing activist and organizer Charlie Kirk, even though top law enforcement officials do not believe Kirk’s killer was working with any left-wing organization, with a senior administration official. recent count rolling stone the prospect was “never on anyone’s radar.”
“I think it’s very clear that they’re attacking because they fear this kind of organized, peaceful people power, and that’s true for authoritarian regimes around the world,” says Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, a progressive activist group focused on peaceful resistance to the Trump regime..
Administration officials have said rolling stone that aim to make Trump’s enemies, including progressive groups, “suffer,” while another source said White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller declared the administration was “at war” with left-wing groups. Some members of the government have compared the strategies they want to use to persecute these groups with those used in the “war on terrorism,” as they say.
Levin also dismissed Republican attempts to rebrand Saturday’s events as “hate America” demonstrations.
“They understand that the phrase ‘No Kings’ is so popular that they should avoid mentioning it, so they are trying to find other ways to refer to it,” he says. “[It’s] It is encouraging that they are taking note and concerned about what a peaceful demonstration of people power will do to their own image. […] and then some of it is serious. “They are going after our First Amendment rights, and that is the goal of doing this protest.”
Recently, Trump has made a public spectacle of openly attacking some of his most prominent critics in recent weeks, and has even escalated his rhetoric toward suggestions of the necessary annihilation of his political opposition. Jimmy Kimmel was briefly taken out of the air after direct threats from the FCC against ABC News, with Trump threatening to sue when Kimmel was reinstated, and openly suggesting that his other critics in the entertainment world should watch their backs. The president has also filed a series of frivolous but financially punitive lawsuits. against the main networks and media, including Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, for reporting that he thinks it makes him look bad. Trump at full speed for a moment boasted that “we took away free speech” earlier this month by signing an executive order aimed at punishing anyone who burns the American flag.
“If the first No Kings was to push back Trump’s image as a strongman in [the day of] the ridiculous military birthday parade he organized for himself,” Levin adds. “This is a reaction to the invasion and occupation of American cities, the suppression of comedians and other peaceful protests, and the intimidation of media institutions and the political opposition.”
The GOP’s alarming rhetoric about the protest movement comes directly from Trump, who has characterized everything that opposes him — from comedians to news organizations — as a threat to the United States and something to be discarded. Earlier this month, during a speech at Naval Base Norfolk, he complained that Republicans had to “take care of this little gnat on our shoulder called Democrats.” Days earlier, he told senior military leaders gathered at Quantico that “The United States is under an invasion from within. We are under an invasion from within. It’s no different than a foreign enemy, but it’s harder in every way because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they wear uniforms you can take them out.”
Gilbert points out that the entity putting Americans at risk is not the protest movement, but the administration itself: “The authoritarian intensity that we have seen in this administration has just doubled our desire to be there and do everything we can do. That is, litigate, organize, fight and mobilize people to do more right now.”
About the insinuation that protests are staffed by paid attendees or funded by extremist bogeymen, something that Trump and Republicans in Congress like. Ted Cruz He says we have to investigate it, Gilbert laughs. “These are events supported locally by community members and leaders. They are not centrally funded in any way,” he says. “We’re not funding 2,500 events across the country.”
“Nonprofits are another forum where they try to silence dissent, and it’s un-American and it’s egregious, and that’s a big part of the reason we’re there now,” he adds.
No Kings cannot predict exactly how many people will turn out at protests at home and abroad on Saturday, but with more than 2,500 events planned, turnout is expected to surpass that of the first day of protests in June. “There is no other way to protect your constitutional rights than to exercise them,” says Levin. On Saturday – in communities large and small – millions of Americans will do exactly that.
