No King’s Day Episode 4 went off pretty much as predicted.
Cities all over America were filled with a massive, ebullient mob of families, schoolteachers, ministers, parents, grocery store clerks, college students, business owners, grandparents, and toddlers on shoulders.
Highways and overpasses were lined with exuberant, sign-waving throngs of joyfully defiant human beings loudly declaring their shared disdain for a wannabe dictator.
Local parks exploded in a kaleidoscopic display of disparate humanity, converging to declare their solidarity and their collective rejection of authoritarianism.
Republican lawmakers’ offices were surrounded by a spirited show of resistance from pissed-off, fed-up constituents demanding accountability.
The vibes were positive.
The chants were spirited.
The dance lines were jubilant.
The sign game was strong.
And it was all, well… really nice.
We gathered together. We made some noise. We gave speeches. We raised our fists. We encouraged one another. We put the Republican Party on notice.
And when it was over, we all felt the emotional intoxication that events like these usually yield.
But if we’re honest with ourselves, was it all the equivalent of a strongly-worded letter to powerful, corrupt people who threw it directly in the trash the moment it arrived?
Here we are after the fourth of these gatherings.
The Constitutional crises are still piling up.
We’re still immersed in an unnecessary, unwinnable war halfway across the world.
This Administration’s disregard for legality and morality is still escalating.
The complete Epstein files are still concealed, the monsters within them still evading their reckoning.
ICE is still ravaging our communities with impunity and with taxpayer funding.
Our traitorous, cognitively-decimated, sociopathic Predator-In-Chief is still unstable and violent.
We’re still a hair’s breadth from full-on fascism.
And in the aftermath of Saturday’s protests, the United States is less than three weeks away from a nation-altering election that the current Administration is clearly doing everything to rig and disrupt, and has no intention of honoring, should the votes of the people not be in their favor.
Regardless of the results at the polls, we are almost certainly going to be thrust into chaos by this sitting president; one that we have never experienced in our 250-year-history. I wonder if we have it in us to do what we might be required to do to ensure the will of the voters is honored, and the directives of the Constitution are followed.
Though I want more than anything to be wrong, as I look at the fierce, fiery protests that have shut down France and those we’ve seen in Spain and Italy and elsewhere, I’m terribly worried that Americans may be too soft and too polite to meet the moment that is likely coming.
The last three No Kings Day protests didn’t stave off the chaos that is now here, and it won’t prevent what this regime has planned. We’re going to need a mass display of sustained civil disobedience that we haven’t seen since the 1960s, and that isn’t something we seem capable of.
The painful truth is that fascist dictators are rarely voted out, and monstrous authoritarian regimes don’t leave simply because they’re politely asked to.
Practically speaking, as meaningful and uplifting as our collective efforts on Saturday were to us, they didn’t matter even a little bit to Trump and his sycophantic gaggle of ghouls. Like so many times before, they allowed us to have an afternoon where we all felt a false sense of power, blew off steam, and then largely returned to our lives currently in progress, while they continued to dismantle our Republic largely unabated.
Yes, we registered people to vote, we equipped them with the tools to make their voices heard, and we implored them to show up in numbers too big to manipulate, at least in theory.
But what happens if we wake up on November 4th and we find ourselves with a presidential administration that refuses to release the stranglehold on this nation?
I’m not advocating for violence or inciting wide-scale property damage, but I sure as hell know that if the American people are the only thing standing between our Republic and a cadre of lawless, violent, deranged traitors who show every sign that they’re not leaving voluntarily, signs and chants aren’t gonna cut it.
We need to remember that transformative activism is found in sustained and forceful movements, not in soothing moments, and unless we actually strike fear into the oppressors and oligarchs, we may get the very king we claimed for four times in two years that we’d never tolerate.
John and I both would really like to hear your honest thoughts on all of this.
Do you share the same concerns that we have about our willingness to make a more sustained and disruptive response should this Administration do what has been unthinkable?
Do you worry that we are too passive and polite a people to push back the way that people in Europe and Central and South America have?
Is a post-election No King’s Day going to need to be different, and are we capable of it?
Let me know in the comments.
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