October 18th. Put it on your calendar.
That’s the day that Indivisible and its partner organizations will mount a second “No Kings” day. As the email announcing that event reminded us, organizing a national day of action with millions of people takes time and resources– recruitment tools, map of events, supplies and resources for local protests and anchor events, so the advance notice is intended to allow for fundraising and the other tasks that ensure a successful turnout.
Speaking of turnout–the incredible number who participated in the first No Kings Day was the result of such careful organizing, and the goal is to build on that success–to ensure that the millions of Americans who are deeply opposed to the ongoing destruction of America’s government and our constitutional culture have a vehicle to send a powerful message, not just to the nation’s corrupt and incompetent MAGA administration, but to their cowardly enablers in the House and Senate.
In the announcement of the second No Kings Day, the email from Indivisible reported “round the clock coordination with our No Kings partners” and the intent “to make the next No Kings one of the largest days of protest in US history.”
I have posted previously about academic studies documenting peaceful protests by only 3.5% of a country’s population that have defeated other autocratic takeovers. That percentage would translate to some eleven million Americans–an enormous but doable number.
I frequently hear people minimize the effectiveness of taking to the streets in this fashion. Certainly, if nothing else is going on–if the resistance is limited to expressions of displeasure–that effectiveness will be limited. But that isn’t the case in today’s America. Literally hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the administration’s illegal and unlawful actions, and–at least at the lower court level–over 80% of them have been successful. I’ve previously noted the multiple efforts being mounted by Blue state Attorneys General and governors.
There are also the numerous, less well-organized and promoted protests that have erupted more or less spontaneously around the country. Citizens have developed on-line systems identifying ICE movements, to assist immigrants in evading capture; small (but not insignificant) groups of protestors have gathered in response to other illegal and unconstitutional incursions. Social media is filled with advice for resistors (granted, not always helpful)–not to mention reports of lesser-known activities protesting our would-be King.
The great virtue of a massive protest of the sort being planned for October 18th is the message it sends, especially but not exclusively to the Republican elected officials who have refused to hold town halls or otherwise interact with angry constituents. But we should not minimize the extent to which participation in such events also has a number of “spin-off” merits. As someone who participated in the first No Kings protest, I can personally attest to experiencing very welcome feelings of solidarity. Interacting with so many other people who clearly shared my concerns, encountering friends I might not have expected to see at such an event, reading the multiple (often very clever) signs–acted like a shot of adrenalin.
When an individual citizen gets up each morning and is immediately assaulted by emails, newsletters and media “breaking news” items detailing the most recent horrific, bigoted and unconstitutional actions taken by the Trump administration, demoralization can–and often does–set in. Gathering with others who share one’s determination not to surrender is a powerful antidote.
In any event, put October 18th on your calendar. Buy some poster-board, and maybe a t-shirt with an appropriately aggressive slogan. Sign up with Indivisible to indicate your intent to participate, and tell your friends and family members.
Let’s see if we can get eleven million people to send a message…
As a grandmother with two perfectly glorious grandsons, 6 and 2, I am “ all in!”
Plan A: buy poster board, make poster, dress comfortably, take bottled water, catch the bus for downtown Indy.
Plan B: see Plan A.
Ann Stack says it perfectly
We’ll be there.
“So much wrong, so little cardboard.”
Good plan, Theresa!
I posted about Project 29, a development by Third Way (Wall Street) Democrats for the 2029 Democratic presidential administration. Most of the people behind are Clintonites who worked with Bill and then Hillary’s 2016 failed campaign.
Yet, today, the Associated Press dropped this little nugget for the DNC to think about:
“Now, the Gallup poll found that only 14% of Republicans have a positive view of socialism, compared to 66% of Democrats. Positive views of socialism have grown among older and younger Democrats, according to Gallup’s polling.”
Republicans are being fed so much propaganda by right-wing media that they believe Hitler was woke and a real socialist. #ignorance
Or, as Forrest Gump said, “You can’t fix stupid.” Nor should you try.
However, Democratic Socialists in the USA aren’t genuine socialists. Nevertheless, we now have 66% of Democrats approving of socialism, which the Democratic National Party is allowing strong capitalists to write policies for 2029.
Suppose they fail to align with their constituents and instead push a pro-capitalism, pro-big business agenda. In that case, they will suck the energy out of any movements set up to gather momentum within the base. The policies should heed the shift in the base with the intent to build the movement’s momentum, not kill it like Obama did in 2008 to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Just to be clear, 66% of Democrats, including independents, now embrace socialism. If the DNC insists on putting forth a pro-capitalist campaign, the base will reject it, and the young people will stay home. You can’t blame voters for rejecting a party that ignores their desires; Kamala Harris fell flat because she failed to appeal to the base.
This is my biggest concern with the left half of the capitalist uniparty.
Sorry, I forgot the AP link:
https://apnews.com/article/socialism-socialist-capitalism-big-business-free-enterprise-poll/
Sorry again, I cut the link too short:
https://apnews.com/article/socialism-socialist-capitalism-big-business-free-enterprise-poll-c052ca687269a2cc075423877b7904e6?
The most important choice is, as has been said before, not between right and left but between right and wrong. But we do not have to choose between socialism and capitalism. We DO have to find the right balance between them because neither works by itself. We are unbalanced right now having moved too far toward the latter but if we make this a war against capitalism, we will lose.
Todd, back in the day, we learned that the primary difference between capitalism and socialism lies in the ownership of the means of production, including buildings, machinery, and protected intellectual resources. If owned by a few within or outside a country, it is capitalism, while ownership by all within a country is socialism.
That means that there are no countries in the world that don’t practice both socialism and capitalism. The entire discussion revolves around which assets are jointly owned (infrastructure, socialism) and which are privately owned (unit pricing, capitalism).
Socialism is funded through taxes, while capitalism is financed through personal loans (for big-ticket items) and bills.
Socialism represents the wealth of a country, whereas corporations can be owned by individuals worldwide.
Today, the ownership of both is held by financial institutions as debt.
So, Todd, is this what you were taught as well?
“Stupid is as stu[pid does.”
Oh, well, you know what I mean.
My Vietnam vet hat and shirt will say a lot.
No, Todd, Harris did not fall flat due to anything other than racism and misogyny.
The arguments between socialism and capitalism are too esoteric for most voters in this country, as we have seen repeatedly.
We are now down to basics. The fully corrupted SCOTUS has ruled that how you look is grounds for suspicion. If you are are darker or dressed differently than a particular ICE agent likes, that is grounds for detention.
Indiana has two of those corrupt justices to own; Roberts and Coney-Barrett are both products of Hoosier educational institutions. The deep roots of Indiana’s racism continue to manifest after decades, even a century, of denial and willful ignorance until dump gave nourishment to those deep roots. Like a storm in the desert, long hidden seeds of hate bloomed, forming the seeds of hate for the future.
The shadow docket basis for decisions makes it impossible for citizens to know if there is any legal reasoning behind those decisions, other than personal bias or corruption.
Is this just another distraction to keep the populace on edge so they remain disengaged or willfully ignorant of the deep lack of morals in the group ensconced in a White House that looks more and more like a private beach club every day?
Release the Epstein files. RESIST.
Most people don’t understand the concepts of socialism, capitalism, communism, etc. My word of choice is Representative government. There’s a reason why we call it the House of Representatives; and they have failed miserably. Perhaps protests need to take place in front of Representatives local offices instead of the Capital bldg (We saw how well that worked). Some states have recall elections. As screwy as that has been in California for example, perhaps the threat of such action might get them off their asses and do their jobs. But maybe I’m just a dreamer.
Todd is right. We have the perfect example in front of us now in Zorhan Mandami. He won the Democratic primary by 40%, but that’s not a big enough for Schumer, Gillibrand, or Jeffries.. I’d like to remind them of a Bob Dylan song, “The Times They Are a Changin’.!” You can’t lead anyone if you don’t know where they are.
A note to Democrats: Wake up and smell the coffee, brothers and sisters the people are so far ahead of you, you can’t even see them.. If you can’t support the guy democrats obviously wanted, says you’re cutting your own voters out of the picture. It seems a bit autocratic to me.. If you’re smart you’ll endorse him as quickly as you can. If you put up a shill, like Cuomo you won’t get the voters back for years.
Sorry, JD, Kamala aligned herself with Biden when the base of voters wanted her to provide her own path. When she chose to embrace neocons and independents versus the young people, she basically told the progressives to stay home. As the AP poll demonstrates, a large majority of the base is more progressive than the media conveys on TV.
Yes, Pete, I would agree with your assessment. Central planning versus letting the free markets provide the direction. If you look at where China stands with the U.S., instead of investing in destruction (Dept of War), they invest in infrastructure and production. Have you seen their bullet trains and their stations? Very impressive.
We don’t have a single one.
We are clearly in the late stages of capitalism, which, according to Marx, means we can continue down the path of fascism or rebel with socialism. Intuitively, I think liberal-minded people sense this without knowing anything about Marx.
If you look at the warnings of Franklin and then George Washington, we have already lost the Republic because we weren’t very diligent as citizens. As Sheila likes to point out, civics is important, but the owners don’t want critical thinkers; they want obedient workers. I believe I just paraphrased a George Carlin skit. 😉
Fascism is very oppressive, and the people can feel it. We can gather and march in rebellion, but at some point, we need to create a tangible solution to present to gain the people’s support, much like a list of demands. I can assure you that if we let the DNC present the solutions, we will be disappointed. They represent the oligarchs – not the people.
All it took were the lies and obfuscations of a morally bankrupt mobster, his Russian trolls and his billionaire backers to send this country to hell in a hand cart. Now it’s up to people with a conscience to work extremely hard to prevent the continuation of an authoritarian change over. Vegas odds are not looking good but I will be there on October 18th. I hope we can wake a few more million up. Let’s go people
Thank you for this update!!
To every Grandparent who reads this: commit to this .
Our grandchildren deserve a better world than the one envisioned by this sorry Administration .
The worse thing we can do is to despair and do nothing.
Glad to know another No Kings Day is being organized. The one in June was helpful to feel a sense of solidarity during these treacherous times. I hope that the organizers realize that the sound system they used was inadequate with the thousands that showed up. We were unable to hear what speakers were saying while standing halfway back on the side lawn of the Statehouse that day. Needed are professional sound techs that can produce the needed volume to hear without blasting out our eardrums. I hope that gets worked out.
Todd, the “socialism” that Democrats by and large lean into has nothing to do with Soviet-style central-planning Communism. It’s the democratic social agenda of Scandanavia and Central Europe that is responsive to the population, small-“d” democratic in governance, and focused on providing actual governance and community support for real people, in the areas of healthcare, education, housing for the unhoused, jobs for the unemployed, and a welcome to newcomers that helps them to integate into their new cultures without losing their own identity. My family and I lived and worked in a Germany that operated that way for nearly a decade before coming home to a USA that we scarcely recognized anymore. Just a few more Euros/Dollars paid in taxes made all the difference in quality of life for us and our neighbors while we were there. It can happen here, too, if we let it.
What time and where on the 18th?
The way things are going its basically becoming a choice between what is right or wrong in terms of humanity.
Right now we have a domestic terrorist problem that we as Americans have the duty to solve if we want to save our democracy, maybe even the world. I pray there are more of us that are morally good to stand up against the bad people that are being cruel right now. We should be creating a network between each other so we can all know what is going on anywhere that might need our attention. Lean in on family, friends, and neighbors and maybe have an emergency plan for certain types of situations.