More than 3,000 marches and rallies took place yesterday in cities and towns across America during the third “No Kings” event, where millions protested against the policies and actions of President Trump and his administration.
More than 3,000 marches and rallies took place yesterday in cities and towns across America during the third “No Kings” event, where millions protested against the policies and actions of President Trump and his administration.
I would very much argue that the anti-ice protests were the reaction and escalation. And what “No Kings” should have been in the first place.
There was a problem. We had very specific demands. Folk got out. They stood in the face of violence. They showed they were willing to protect their fellow humans. Hell, they even showed they were willing to engage in a (limited) general strike.
And guess what happened? Ice bitched out and ran away from Minneapolis and Chicago and so forth. Yeah, they are still there to a lesser degree. But the occupation ended and we are back to just a moderate hellscape rather than constant terror of being outside while brown.
Contrast that with No Kings where… there is no actionable anything or even unified message. It is just people standing around dancing and putting on costumes.
Its a cliche but “What do we want? X. When do we want it? Now, but really within N days is fine” is such an effective chant. Because it provides a clear deescalation path that gives the protestors what they want.
“ICE Out!” varies state to state. Minnesota and Portland are targeted with an increased presence because the regime wants to control the kickback. In my state there’s no mass presence even though the arrests are still occurring. They’re less visible, harder to track, don’t build castles that can be sieged, and the vast majority of the work is being done by local/state police officers because state leadership are boot-lickers. ICE creates bonfires for attention but a lot of the work is being carried out dimly and discretely. It’s a lot harder to take action, organize counter-protests, make local chats, and follow them with whistles when it’s one or two unmarked cops trolling vs a squad of them going door to door.
It reminded me more of a Mardi gras parade than an actual protest. Meanwhile we’re in active shooting warfare with Iran, we’ve invaded Venezuela while threatening Greenland and Cuba. All while we’re trying to sell out Ukraine. It feels like we’ve gone beyond threatening to send a gold spray painted boot to our state senator.
Many of those problems are the kinds of things that will just never get critical mass amongst a domestic population. Because… it genuinely doesn’t impact them. Like, let’s take the Genocide in Palestine? If you were to believe online lefties? It is the greatest sin ever and THE most important topic on the planet. But most of them never even knew it was a thing until the attack a few years back. And they STILL mostly just know it because their favorite celebrities started talking about it (which is why they still actively ignore all the other genocides…).
But the “good” news is that things are RAPIDLY boiling over due to oil prices. But that will likely manifest more as protesting “the price at the pump” rather than whether we do or don’t send the marines to die in Iran.
But yeah. I strongly encourage going to local protests and talking to the organizers. No Kings… I mostly checked in on a few buddies and dipped. Because there are plenty of people who are thinking beyond filming a tiktok of singing a Hamilton song. They just aren’t really advertising on social media.