No Kings & Civil Disobedience
For those of you just joining us here at When/If, welcome! If you came from CNN you may be somewhat surprised to find I'm not "left-wing," but leftist–and about as far left as it gets. What that means in practical terms will become clear through this letter. I'm not trying to chase you off; rather, I want you to know what to expect, and what I expect from you.
Today I want to talk about the "No Kings" protest. This was a massive movement, one of the largest protests in United States history (but not the largest). I found these huge marches across thousands of cities and towns to be heartening, but ultimately and simultaneously deeply disappointing. That's almost certain to be confusing for you newcomers, but probably less so for long-time readers.
We aren't content to walk on the sidewalk here. I can't think of a much better precis for my feelings about protest, to be honest. As such, I felt that a lot more could have been done last Saturday, but I also knew that "more" wasn't likely to happen. Let's break down a few things.
Trump's Sad Little Day
First, the good news: Trump's military parade was an enormous disappointment. While White House numbers estimated attendance around 250,000, news outlets are reporting what, by all appearances, are more accurate numbers south of the expected 200,000. It's also been reported that thousands left midway through the day to avoid rain. I'm of the opinion that if you swore fealty to a God-Emperor, you'd bring a raincoat. If you came out for a guy because it seemed like he hated the same people you hate, you'd maybe go home after a sprinkle. I think the turnout and the flight of these attendees speaks to the very real lack of support Trump has from the public.
There is the parade itself, as well, which appeared to be somewhat lackluster and featured, for instance, troops marching out of step in what has been termed "malicious compliance." While there was a goodly number of troops and tanks, and the cost of the parade was tens of millions of your dollars, this just wasn't the spectacle that Trump wanted, and I'm sure it was a disappointment for his administration. Spinning this event against the backdrop of the No Kings protest is pretty hard to do.
What Worked and Didn't Work for No Kings
I don't need to tell you that managing to organize millions of people across the country to protest on the same day is no small feat. As a matter of scale, the organizers of the event, 50501, succeeded. They got people out and moving, and had them unified under a single banner. And try as you might, I don't think "no kings" can be warped to mean something somehow authoritarian itself, or deceptively, secretly, communist (not that I would necessarily mind that–just talking mainstream appeal). The idea harkens back, of course, to the founding of the United States, which makes it even more difficult to undercut as a somehow anti-American movement (which, again, I don't mind). This is to say that 50501 united millions of people against a common enemy and optic-wise it's pretty unassailable as somehow meant to support the Deep State or anything other than what it says on the tin. It is also both a lofty goal (get rid of Trump) and doesn't address the heart of the problem (the country is a white supremacist fascist oligarchy). That's almost certainly intentional.
What didn't and doesn't work is that 50501 did their best to ensure that this was a toothless march. When no one is bothered by your protest–and for millions of people, across the country, there were only a handful of instances of non-cop violence*–this means you didn't protest; you had a parade. A police department even tweeted their support, saying that the No Kings protest is how it's done. I want to be very clear about this for the new folks: if the cops agree with you, you've done something wrong. Protests are meant to aggravate, to discomfort, to disrupt. No one in the United States was enlightened by Saturday's events–they didn't suddenly realize Trump was a despot because they drove peacefully past 500 people with signs saying so. This was not meant to be an information campaign, but that's all that it was. To be successful, a protest must, at minimum, have clear and achievable goals. Expecting a disruptionless protest to topple Trump is not that. While the George Floyd uprising was stymied, it had clear, achievable goals–and some that were, for a time, actually achieved. Ground was held, a precinct was burned, the people put the state on the back foot. With No Kings, what can be said to have happened?
Now, I'm of the opinion that 50501 is, as they say, "an op." That is, they are a tool of the state designed to waste our time, make us feel like we've done something, and send us home without effecting any change. I'm of the opinion that's pretty much what the Democratic party does these days, up to and including supposed radicals like Bernie Sanders and AOC. That idea is to be discussed another day, perhaps (or maybe just read old letters in which I dunk on the Dems). But this is an insidious concept–especially for people who are newly-radicalized or perhaps not even quite radicalized yet; you come to think that marching around is the ticket because you don't know any better, go home pleased with yourself, and Trump ships another planeload of people off to a foreign prison**.
*See the heading below.
**I was like this, once, and not that long ago. Don't be discouraged if this was you! As I've said in the past: protesting/marching is a great first step–it just can't be your only step.
50501 Got Someone Killed
During Salt Lake City's protest, a protester was open-carrying a rifle, legally, and armed security provided by 50501 opened fire into the crowd in which this armed protester was walking, severely injuring that protester and killing another. Before the smoke was cleared, 50501 blamed the protester as a terrorist and would-be mass-shooter. Footage of the event is described as that armed protester walking away, getting a fair distance, and being shot at from behind. Now, 50501 works hand in hand with cops, and this is the way people who rely on the state act: only the state gets have weapons and do the violence–and they will. That their security acted the same way is not surprising.
Compare this with the uprising in LA against ICE. Clear demands, clear gains, no one killed, and the needle is on the move against the federal government even within the federal government. It is not that every march must end with burning cars; it is that you must be prepared to tell the state no.
I don't think that everyone who marched on Saturday got taken for a ride. Folks who see this as the beginning of their activity will, I hope, see it as just that. But the presence of 50501 does mean that everyone, leftists and pissed-off democrats alike, have got to be able to read these orgs for what they are and realize when we're being played. We don't need everyone who marched to suddenly become an anarchist, or even a leftist, but we do need these people on our side and in the streets when the time comes. We just have to be able to teach each other when to recognize that moment–and it may be soon.