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    A year on from Trump’s victory, resistance is everywhere | Rebecca Solnit

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    A young white woman in yoga clothes berating masked ICE agents in a parking lot this spring. A pope speaking up again and again for immigrants. Furious judges dressing down the Trump administration and ruling against it time after time after time, in response to the blizzard of lawsuits filed by human rights and environmental groups, states, cities and individuals. A senator speaking nonstop for 25 hours and another flying to El Salvador to find out what happened to his kidnapped constituent. The biggest day of protest in US history as an estimated 7 million people showed up for No Kings on 18 October in small towns and red counties as well as big blue cities.Weekly protests at Tesla salesrooms earlier this year that succeeded in damaging the brand, depressing global sales and prompting Tesla CEO Elon Musk to retreat from his Doge slash-and-burn project. Federal workers resisting sometimes merely by adhering to law, truth and fact, and sometimes by speaking out as whistleblowers or in protests, as with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff who staged a walkout in late August in solidarity with senior staff who’d just resigned in protest against the health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anti-vaccine policies.Extraordinary solidarity organizing for and with immigrants, refugees and the people targeted for looking like them on the streets, in the neighborhoods of Chicago, at Home Depot parking lots, around schools, in courtrooms. Democratic state attorneys general suing again and again, independently and together, and Illinois and California’s governors spending a lot of time ripping into Trump. Airports refusing to play the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s partisan-propaganda video about the congressional shutdown. Seven major universities refusing to sign a contract with the administration promising financial incentives for compromising academic freedom. This is some of the resistance to the Trump administration and its policies we’ve seen since 20 January, and it’s worth surveying on the anniversary of the election.When people tell me that there’s been no resistance to the Trump administration, I wonder if they’re expecting something that looks like a guerrilla revolution pushing out the government in one fell swoop or just aren’t paying attention, because there has, in fact, been a tremendous amount and variety of resistance and opposition and it’s mattered tremendously. When will it be enough is a question that can only be answered if and when all this is over and we find out what comes next. Another source of disappointment seems to come from the expectation that there will be some sort of obvious and logical building up toward regime change, rather than the reality that tipping points in particular and histories in general are unpredictable animals.Resistance is everywhere, both geographically and in terms of the constituencies participating: civil society and civil servants; human rights, climate and environmental groups (who in many cases had plans in place before the election and hit the ground running when the new administration came in); religious leaders and institutions, elected officials at all levels from city councils to the US Senate, the military, lawyers and judges, educators and students, librarians, of course, medical professionals, journalists, editors and publishers, people in the arts. Of course there’s been shameful collaboration, submission and silence from many figures in most of these constituencies as well. It has been striking that the most wealthy and theoretically most powerful have, in this crisis, often been the first to surrender. It’s non-elites who have stood on principle even when it means taking risks.It wasn’t clear beforehand what the focal point of opposition would be, and the early protests against Doge and the Tesla Takedown actions were in response to the administration and Musk’s attacks on the federal government. Though activists and organizations are defending everything from renewable energy to reproductive rights, the heart of active resistance is now solidarity with those under attack by the border patrol, ICE and the other agencies assigned to terrorize, brutalize, kidnap and violate rights across the country. This manifests in myriad ways from volunteers striving to protect immigrants and refugees when they show up for their immigration-court appointments to neighbors walking kids to school when their parents are afraid to leave home to the lively protests in front of ICE in Portland, Oregon, and the extraordinary neighborhood activism across Los Angeles, and then Washington DC, and then Chicago.As Sarah Conway reported in New York Magazine: “In their free time, or, in some cases, by actively taking time off work, everyday Chicagoans are building rapid-response teams to keep eyes on the streets and follow the movements of federal agents. Some pass out whistles in bars and laundromats; others keep vigil outside Home Depots and taquerías. Activists have begun locating agents’ suburban hotels and hosting noisy protests outside. Some take shifts patrolling their neighborhoods on foot, in cars, and on bikes to alert neighbors to the presence of federal agents and to document their aggressive tactics and arrests.”The Catholic church has shown up, from a midwestern church that put cardboard silhouettes in the pews to represent members of the congregation afraid to attend to Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV. The new pope, seemingly in direct opposition to loud-about-his-Catholic-conversion JD Vance, has repeatedly spoken up for immigrants and the poor. It’s not just Catholics, though: ministers and rabbis have participated in protests, and more than 200 Chicago-area clergy signed a letter titled Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview. Many cities have reaffirmed their statuses as sanctuary cities and their policies of not cooperating with Ice.Miles Bruner, in resigning from his job as a Republican fundraiser, wrote in the Bulwark: “I quit the Republican party and my job as an accomplice to the party in the throes of an authoritarian cult.” Marine Col Doug Krugman explained his resignation from the military in the Washington Post: “Instead of trying to work within the Constitution, or to amend it, President Trump is testing how far he can ignore it.” The admiral who resigned abruptly from the navy’s southern command last month did not give a reason, but it was widely assumed to be in response to the murderous attacks on small boats in the Caribbean. The veterans group About Face launched a campaign on the Fourth of July to support military members refusing illegal orders and encouraging them to do so.Boycotts have always been a powerful tactic of nonviolent resistance. The Tesla, Target and Disney boycotts all had an effect, and Indivisible has just launched one against Spotify for running Ice recruitment ads. The Disney boycott seems to be why late-night host Jimmy Kimmel got reinstated after being pushed out for making mild remarks after far-right activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Often acts of submission to the administration provoke their own acts of resistance, as when individual lawyers left some of the big law firms that caved to the administration early this year. A lot of journalists have left the Washington Post and other publications that have shifted right to go independent, and small, alternative and independent media have been a vital part of keeping the public informed and engaged.Indivisible has grown hugely in chapters and membership since the new administration took over, 50501 was founded soon after the inauguration to organize more activism and a number of other local and national resistance organizations have sprung up. Trump has called the resistance and progressives more generally “the enemy from within”. But the enemies of human rights, the rule of law, the balance of powers and the constitution, of voting rights and fair elections, of science and history, are in the partially demolished White House. If this country has a future, it’s in the streets, the courts, the movements and the continued exercise of free speech and freedom of assembly against this administration.

    Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility More

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      Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks

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      Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students’ and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations such as Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United.Protesters called on university administrators and elected officials to denounce the president’s months-long effort to force US universities to abide by its ideological priorities and urged them to reject Trump’s “compact”, which would give universities preferential access to federal funding in exchange for a commitment to advance the administration’s conservative agenda. Only one university, New College of Florida – a public school that state legislators have turned into a bastion of conservatism – has so far accepted it.“Universities should be a place of learning, not propaganda machines,” Alicia Colomer, managing director at Campus Climate Network, said ahead of the protests. “That’s why students, workers and alumni around the country are taking action.”As the day unfolded, hundreds of students across the country walked out of classes, unfurled banners and rallied on campuses, often joined by faculty and other staff. In addition to denouncing the compact, they called for a more affordable education and for the protection of all students – from transgender to international ones.At the University of Kansas, about 70 students demanded administrations divest from weapons manufacturers and Israel, refuse to collaborate with ICE, safeguard gender-affirming housing and meet faculty’s demands for fair contracts. At Duke University, in North Carolina, professors held signs demanding the university stand with immigrants, pay its workers a $25 hourly wage, and protect trans and international students. At Brown University in Rhode Island – one of the first institutions to reach a settlement with the Trump administration earlier this year – passersby were invited to endorse a banner listing a series of demands by dipping their hands in paint and leaving their print, while a group of faculty members nearby lectured about the history of autocracy.View image in fullscreen“Trump came to our community thinking we could be bullied out of our freedom,” said Simon Aron, a sophomore and co-president of Brown Rise Up. “He was wrong.”In New York City, students and faculty from multiple campuses gathered by the midtown headquarters of the investment firm Apollo Global Management to protest against its CEO, Marc Rowan, a billionaire Trump donor and key architect of the compact whom they say “has no business making policy for higher education”.They cited Rowan’s involvement with the online University of Phoenix, which they described as “the largest single producer of student debt in the country” and his role in paving the way for the ongoing abuse of civil rights legislation to target universities over students and faculty’s criticism of Israel.A spokesperson for Apollo did not respond to a request for comment but the firm reportedly instructed staff to stay home on Friday in anticipation of the protest. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Rowan defended the compact, writing that American higher education was “broken” and that “course correction must come from the outside”.Amy Offner, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Guardian that the campaign against Rowan is part of a broader effort to protect US higher education from the influence of ultra-wealthy individuals. “Billionaires should not control what can be taught and studied in the United States,” she said.The protests marked the first time that students, faculty and staff have staged such a large-scale response. “There is only one way forward in saving higher education and democracy writ large and that is students, faculty, staff united,” Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said on a call with protest organizers last week. “We have to become a new political force.” More

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      Forget diplomatic niceties: it’s beyond time Europe denounced Trump’s trashing of democracy in the US | Paul Taylor

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      What do you do when you discover your best friend is abusive to their partner at home? That question, or something similar, should be addressed to European leaders – and indeed to all of us in the European public space, who are watching, often speechless, as Donald Trump takes a cudgel to the institutions of American democracy.For the last nine months, European leaders have bitten their tongues, looked the other way and engaged in flattery, appeasement and wild promises to keep the US president sweet and engaged in European security. The overwhelming imperative for Trump to stand with Europe against Russia over its war on Ukraine – or at least not against us and alongside Vladimir Putin – has led them to swallow unrealistic defence spending targets and unbalanced trade terms. For what gain?No European leader has publicly contradicted Trump’s inflated claims to have ended eight wars in eight months, nor criticised his demolition of the multilateral rules-based free trade order, his assault on the United Nations, or his selective use of tariffs to pursue political vendettas around the world.The only time European leaders briefly found their voices was when JD Vance used the stage of the Munich security conference to launch a fierce attack on European democracy. Vance accused US allies of suppressing free speech and said he was more worried by “the threat from within … the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” than by any threat from Russia or China to the continent’s freedom. To underline his support for freedom of anti-immigrant hate speech, he chose to meet the leader of the far-right German AfD Alice Weidel in Munich in the midst of an election campaign, and to snub Berlin’s then-chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats.With millions of Americans now taking to the streets to protest against Trump’s authoritarian drift at home, isn’t it time for European leaders to speak up and assert their moral autonomy by signalling Europe’s support for democracy in the US, and for those who are trying to defend it?This is not to suggest that an expression of European dismay would have any practical effect on the dismantling of checks and balances in the US political system, the abolition of the USAID foreign aid agency, the crackdowns on universities, law firms and science, the abuse of the justice system against political enemies, or the purging of the armed forces and, most alarmingly, the deployment of the military in American cities to combat the “enemy from within”.While the US can protect security in Europe and deserves our undying gratitude for having done so for the last 80 years, Europeans cannot protect democracy in the US. They can and must, however, protect liberal democracy in Europe, which risks becoming a collateral victim of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agenda.What happens in America doesn’t stay in America. It is often a precursor for trends in Europe. Just as the #MeToo and “woke” movements spilled over from Hollywood studios and US campuses to European film sets and universities, so the tide of illiberalism and repression rising in Washington is already washing up on European shores in countries such as Hungary and Serbia. By speaking up about Trump’s assaults on the independence of the US civil service, judiciary, legal profession, media and armed forces, and his moves to criminalise dissent, European leaders would be asserting the values of the rule of law, the separation of powers and liberal democracy that they have a duty to preserve at home.If Elon Musk can use his social media platform and the world’s biggest fortune to intervene in German elections in favour of Weidel’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – or in British politics in support of convicted anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson – then surely we, too, can make our voices heard in US politics. We can offer support and practical cooperation to states, cities and courts that share our values, and moral support to US freedom campaigners. Our governments and regions can build partnerships on climate action, civil rights and development assistance with like-minded US states and local authorities. We can offer jobs, visas and scholarships to US scientists and academics hit by Trump’s cuts to research funding. Europe stands only to gain from a self-inflicted American brain drain.The massive No Kings protests in towns and cities across the US were fortunately peaceful, despite Trump’s deployment of armed forces in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland and other cities, and the attempted mobilisation of the National Guard across 19 states. But having branded his leftwing opponents “domestic terrorists”, the risk is growing that Trump will make good on his threat to invokethe 1807 Insurrection Act and claim sweeping powers to use the military against American protesters.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe last time the US military was used for domestic policing against demonstrations was under Richard Nixon in 1970, when the National Guard shot dead four students protesting, at Kent State University in Ohio, against the draft and the US military intervention in Cambodia. An earlier precedent for the deadly use of force against peaceful protesters was in Selma, Alabama in 1965, when state and local police violently broke up civil rights marches by black Americans demanding the unhindered right to vote. On both those historic occasions, European media criticised the use of force against peaceful demonstrators, but governments on this side of the Atlantic kept their mouths shut, motivated by the principle of non-interference in the affairs of an allied state.With the administration and its billionaire buddies intervening at will in support of hate speech and its proponents in Europe and against EU digital regulation, there is no longer any justification for staying silent. On the contrary, the defence of European liberal democracy starts by recognising when it is under threat in our closest ally.

      Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre More

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      Can Democrats harness the energy of the No Kings protests to fight Trump?

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      They marched in their millions. Some waved the Stars and Stripes. Some clutched signs with slogans such as: “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting.” And some donned inflatable costumes that included aliens, chickens, clowns, frogs, lobsters, mushrooms, penguins, seahorses, sharks, squirrels, starfish and unicorns.The energy of last weekend’s No Kings protests against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism was palpable and peaceful, drawing an estimated 7 million people to 2,700 rallies across the country. Among them were the Democratic senators Cory Booker, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Raphael Warnock and Elizabeth Warren as well as the independent Bernie Sanders.But many Democratic lawmakers did not attend. Their absence was conspicuous at a time when the party stands accused of lacking fight and failing to meet the moment. As Trump runs riot through US democracy, Democrats face the challenge of harnessing the spirit of No Kings and turning anti-Trump sentiment into votes at the ballot box.“We’re in the process of a fight to save our democracy,” said Murphy, a senator for Connecticut who spoke at the event in Washington. “As I said at the rally, we’re not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover; we’re in the middle of it. And what I know from history is that the only thing that saves democracies from ruin when a demagogue is trying to destroy it is mass mobilisation.”For all his grandstanding, Trump is deeply unpopular. About 62% of Americans say the country is going in the wrong direction, according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, and 56% describe Trump as a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited”.The popular revolt against him appeared slow at first but is now gathering steam. There have been three major street protests organised by a broad coalition of dozens of groups including civil rights organisations, labour unions and pro-democracy movements such as Indivisible.The first, known as Hands Off!, was held in April and drew 3 million people. The second, No Kings, was staged in June to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday and a rare military parade in Washington, attracted 5 million people. Then came last weekend’s reprise of No Kings, whose turnout of 7 million people was said to be the biggest civic action in the US for more than half a century.View image in fullscreenNo Kings – which draws its name from America’s founding principles and resistance to the tyranny of Britain’s King George III – and the Democratic party are both essentially leaderless but the former’s momentum has thrown the latter’s inertia into sharp relief.Trump’s victory in last year’s election came like a kick to the solar plexus. His shock and awe approach on taking office left Democrats divided and despondent. The party’s approval rating was at the lowest level for a generation. In March Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, was berated for allowing a government funding bill to sail through the chamber without using it to challenge Trump.Six months on, however, Schumer’s Democrats have refused to vote on legislation that would avoid a government shutdown as they demand funding for healthcare. Polls suggest they are winning the argument in the court of public opinion.Democrats are fighting back in other ways. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is pushing a new electoral map in his state that aims to bolster his party’s chances of regaining a congressional majority in 2026 and counter Republican efforts to add more seats in Texas and other states. The effort has been endorsed by former president Barack Obama.View image in fullscreenNewsom has also been at the forefront of some savage online humour mocking Trump. Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois has been similarly pugnacious. This week Senator Jeff Merkley delivered a 22-hour 37-minute speech on the Senate floor describing Trump’s authoritarianism as “the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the civil war”.Murphy has been one of the most prominent senators sounding an alarm for the future of US democracy. He told the Guardian: “We should pay attention to the fact that we were a pretty unpopular party before we took a stand on government funding and we’re a more popular party after having taken this stance.“People do want to see us fighting. They do want to see us engaging in risk-tolerant behavior. They want us to use leverage when we have it and I hope my colleagues recognise that we won’t be able to beat Trump if people don’t see the Democratic party as an effective opposition party.”Indivisible has been urging Democrats to show some spine. Ezra Levin, its co-founder, believes the party has gone through three phases of defiance since Trump returned to power. First there was condescending dismissal.He said: “It was there will be no defiance, there will be no resistance, the grassroots is done and discredited and the smart move is to demonstrate how well we can work with Trump because that’s the future of the party. That was the dominant strategic vision of the Democratic party circa November, December, even January of this year.”According to Levin, however, once activists began showing up at town halls and took part in the Hands Off demonstration, Democrats were forced to recalibrate to a second phase, which he describes as performative resistance – the aesthetics of opposition.“It was strongly worded letters. I think a memo went around Democratic circles to tell people to cuss more so there was more cursing. You saw fiery speeches but still a refusal to use leverage. It’s in this period that Schumer surrenders on the Republican bill and you see Cory Booker vote for the crypto bill after giving an inspiring speech.”Now, Levin perceives a shaky third phase of unified defiance, exemplified by Democrats’ willingness to hold the line during the government shutdown. He hopes this resolve will feed into primary elections for next year’s midterms with candidates who are “fightback Democrats” rather than “do nothing Democrats”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOthers dispute this binary characterisation. Matt Bennett, executive vice-president for public affairs at the thinktank Third Way, said he has not met a single Democrat who does not believe Trump poses an existential threat.“It’s total bullshit,” he insisted. “Every single professional Democrat in America is in an absolute panic about what Trump means for everything we care about. There’s zero complacency. There is a huge set of disagreements on tactics and strategy but there is no disagreement about the level of the threat.”Norman Solomon, national director of the progressive group RootsAction, however, said: “The Democratic party leadership doesn’t have the credibility, vitality or capacity to inspire millions of people. How many are inspired by Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries? The question answers itself. In effect, the most vibrant opposition party is civil society, which is gaining momentum with grassroots organising and national networking.”Some commentators have drawn parallels with the Tea Party, a grassroots movement driven by a mix of libertarian, populist and conservative activists that emerged in 2009. It reshaped the Republican party with a focus on anti-establishment rhetoric, distrust of elites and racial hostility to Barack Obama that paved the way for Trump’s ascent.The Tea Party also acted as an “anti-inspiration” for Levin and his wife and Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg when, in 2016, they put together a Google doc proposing that progressives emulate the Tea Party’s tactic of constituents pressuring their members of Congress to derail the president’s agenda.Levin said: “I didn’t like their violence or bigotry or some of their strategies but I thought they were smart the way they organised as an outside movement to push the party to embrace their ideals. As heinous as those ideals were, they were effective.”He added: “Effective movements cannot simply be tools of the formal party system. They need to push the party. A smart party will see historic levels of grassroots energy and say, oh goody, I want that, what do I have to do to get there? That’s going to require some substantive changes, both in who the messengers are that lead the party and also in what policies and strategies they support going forward.”View image in fullscreenWhereas the Tea Party came from the right, No Kings is bigger, more ideologically diverse and able to avoid the factional disputes that inevitably dog a political party.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said: “I hope this isn’t like the Tea Party because the Tea Party led to the Republican party becoming an extremist party and helped lead to Trump. The central focus of this movement should be to mitigate the damage that Trump is doing and to help pro-democracy forces win back power in the United States. To do that, we need a big tent.”All is not lost for the Democrats. So far this year the party has won or overperformed the top of the 2024 ticket in 39 out of 40 special elections, flipping two state senate seats in Iowa alone. Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger are expected to prevail in next month’s races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia respectively. The party is feeling confident about the midterms, especially since the president’s party almost always loses ground.Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “The energy is already out there. Some people who decided not to participate in ’24 are now anxious to get back involved in their community and to prepare for the next election.”Brazile also cautioned against trying to hijack the No Kings movement for party political ends. “I don’t see why we should make this partisan,” she said. “I don’t look at it as a Democratic party event. It was people coming out from all parts of life.“I had a friend in a red district saying that for the first time they thought Donald Trump has gone too far. They wanted to do something that was meaningful, that was not partisan. To the extent that lawmakers and others find themselves marching with ordinary citizens, that’s important. But they’re following the people and not leading. The people lead at this moment.” More

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      Is Trump preparing for civil war? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS News, CBS News Chicago, PBS Newshour, CNN, WHAS11, Global News, KREM 2 News, Inside Edition, Today
      Read David Smith’s piece on why Donald Trump is demolishing the East Wing of the White House
      Read Rachel Leingang’s piece on the future for No Kings rallies
      Buy Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Traitor’s Circle, here
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      Silly inflatable costumes are taking over anti-Trump protests. What are they actually saying? | Julia Carrie Wong

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      There was little reason to imagine that the inflatable frogs would become an actual thing. Protests at the ICE detention center in Portland, Oregon, in recent months have reflected the city’s penchant for whimsy and weirdness, and tactics such as naked bike riding, organized public knitting and “ICE fishing” with doughnuts have largely remained a local affair.But when a federal agent in riot gear ran up behind a protester wearing an inflatable frog costume and sprayed a chemical agent directly into his costume’s air vent with all the casual menace of an exterminator, the inflatable frog went viral. “I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,” the 24-year-old protester, Seth Todd, told the Oregonian, cementing the frog’s status as a leftist folk hero.Soon, activists had launched “Operation Inflation” to equip Portland protesters with an entire menagerie of inflatable animal suits, and the costumes began appearing at other protest hotspots, including the ICE detention center near Chicago where police have deployed teargas, pepper balls and batons against protesters in recent weeks. By the time millions of Americans took to the streets in last weekend’s No Kings marches, inflatable costumes were ubiquitous.“I obviously started a movement of people showing up looking ridiculous, which is the exact point,” Todd said. “To show how the narrative that is being pushed [that] we are violent extremists is completely ridiculous.”View image in fullscreenMove over pussy hats. Step aside safety pins. The resistance 2.0 has a new visual language, and this time it’s polyester, battery-powered and full of hot air. The colorful costumes lent a festive air to the No Kings protests and offered an implicit rebuke to the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his political opponents as violent terrorists.“Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern father archetype to their followers,” wrote author Gary Shteyngart in a New York Times op-ed celebrating the profusion of playful and joyful imagery at Saturday’s marches. “Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return.”It’s a lovely idea, but nine months into the second Trump administration, it’s hard to argue that Americans have yet to catch sight of the president’s dirty laundry. Kryptonite, like the emperor’s new clothes, is just a fairytale. As Americans seek to harness the energy of No Kings and direct it toward building an effective opposition to Trump’s authoritarian agenda, it’s worth considering what the inflatable costumes are actually saying.Street protest movements have many aims and many outcomes, but one of the most important is the production of imagery that conveys a message and outlasts the event itself. Activists are keenly aware of symbolism and optics – they aren’t called “demonstrations” for nothing – and often work to imbue protest aesthetics with their particular ideological and ethical commitments.Nonviolent resistance movements tend to adopt aesthetics that emphasize the inherent dignity and humble humanity of their members. From the Sunday best donned by marchers in the US civil rights movement to the simple dhoti worn by Gandhi and the modest white dress shirt and black slacks of the Tiananmen Square Tank Man, aesthetic choices by peaceful protesters are an effective way of manufacturing imagery that, by contrast, illustrates the sadism and brutality of an oppressive state.The rejection of respectability politics by subsequent generations of Black liberation activists in the US – from the Black Panther party to Black Lives Matter – reflected not just an aesthetic but also an ideological shift. The Panthers were not seeking equality within a white supremacist system, but a revolution of the system itself; their signature berets, black leather jackets and firearms asserted their militancy and tied them visually to other leftwing revolutionary movements around the world.View image in fullscreenRebel clowning or “tactical frivolity” represents a another aesthetic tradition of protest, one that deploys humor and buffoonery to pierce the aura of invincibility relied on by despots and dictators. From Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Adolf Hitler in the 1940 film The Great Dictator to the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (Circa) protests against globalization and capitalism in the early 2000s, clowning has a storied history within leftwing and antifascist resistance movements.“The clown puts their absurd body in the way of the harm of others. It is politically more expensive to club a clown!” wrote performance artist LM Bogad in a 2020 essay about his experience with Circa. Confrontations between clowns and riot police create what Bogad calls “irresistible images” – “images that are so compelling that our ideological opponents cannot help but reproduce them even though they undermine their worldview and support ours”.Portland’s inflatable frogs fit squarely into this tradition, co-opting and subverting the aesthetic of intentional cruelty that has been so assiduously cultivated by the second Trump administration. Maga’s exaggeratedly sculpted faces and glorification of human misery convey the underlying ethos of the Trumpist worldview: beauty is pain, and pain beauty. When Donald Trump conjures up a false image of Portland as “war-ravaged” and “under siege” by antifa “terrorists”, he asks his supporters to embrace the cleansing power of state violence. But when federal agents and riot cops are forced to carry out their attacks on inflatable cartoon characters rather than figures clad in the all-black uniform of recent iterations of antifascist activism, government forces are enlisted in the project of debunking their own lies.But there is a difference between facing down a riot cop outside an ICE detention center, and dancing in the streets during a permitted march on a sunny Saturday morning. When a Vietnam war protester placed flowers down the barrels of rifles wielded by military police at the 1967 march on the Pentagon, or when anti-occupation activists clucked like chickens before IDF soldiers in the West Bank, they clowned in the face of real danger. Without the implicit threat of state violence, without the bravery of offering up a comically unprotected body as a target for real violence, tactical frivolity can devolve into little more than entertainment.View image in fullscreenThere are very good reasons to hold family-friendly protests away from the threat of riot cops, but different contexts require different tactics; what is ridiculously effective in front of an ICE detention center can end up looking just a bit ridiculous when there is no danger in the frame.Already, one mainstream media outlet has published an affiliate link-laden article promoting cheap inflatable costumes on Amazon: “You too can join in on the movement today with this steeply discounted inflatable elephant costume that’s less than $20 – a record-low price, according to Amazon.” Similarly, the aesthetics of the flower power movement were adopted and commodified by the fashion industry over and over again, losing political potency along the way. The revolution may well end up being televised, but it is sure as hell not going to arrive in a cardboard box with free shipping from Amazon Prime.It is also worth keeping in mind that Trump is not a straightforward “stern father” autocrat. While some of his rhetoric and actions invoke violence and terror against disfavored groups, he has also played the role of his own court jester, to great effect. His disinhibited remarks and frequent buffoonery are doing their own work to disarm and discredit his opponents, who have often struggled to convince the broader public of the seriousness of the threat he poses. So while tactical frivolity certainly has the power to deflate the menace of the Department of Homeland Security’s anti-immigrant security apparatus, it is not clear that it has much to offer when confronting Trump directly. After the No Kings protests, the president posted an AI-generated video of himself dumping shit on protesters; it’s impossible to make him look like more of a clown than he already is.Finally, remember that clowning is a fundamentally de-escalatory tactic. When activists turn rifles into vases and riot cops into zookeepers, they are interrupting the cycle of escalating tension that can turn protests into dangerous confrontations. We absolutely need to de-escalate the violence that is being aimed at immigrants and other disfavored communities by Trump, ICE, DHS and the national guard – but it’s not clear to me that de-escalation is the right tactic for nationwide, popular protests. The Democratic party leadership has overwhelmingly failed to operate as an actual opposition party since Trump’s re-election; they don’t need to calm down, but to wake up.So please, wear your inflatable frog costume if you plan to use your body to obstruct the workings of Trump’s violent deportation machine: in addition to provoking irresistible images, it might help protect you against teargas and pepper spray. But let us be strategic about deploying tactical frivolity against Trumpism. When millions of people take to the streets to demand that our leaders and institutions stop capitulating, the message should not be mistaken for anything other than deadly serious. More

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      Boycotts, strikes and more protests: organizers on what’s next for No Kings

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      The No Kings alliance, the groups behind the mass days of protest last Saturday and in June, is building a nationwide rapid response network that will call on supporters to take new actions each week. Leaders of the organizations told the Guardian that there was energy for “some type of disruption”, and future actions could include targeted boycotts, campaigns at universities, more street protests, and electoral organizing in local communities.After an estimated 7 million people took to the streets last weekend, tens of thousands joined a national call on Tuesday to hear what’s next for the growing movement. Leaders celebrated the broad turnout, saying it showed how much opposition to Trump there was in all corners of the US, and talked about how to sustain and grow a movement during an increasingly authoritarian moment for the country.The next steps for this burgeoning resistance will show the durability of the movement and whether it can pressure Democrats or pillars of civil society to stand stronger against Trump, or whether it can force defections from Trump’s Republican allies to fracture his power.Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, elevated the idea of a general strike at his city’s rally, an idea that some labor leaders, including the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, and his Association of Flight Attendants counterpart, Sara Nelson, have called for, though no more imminent plans have emerged.“If my ancestors, as slaves, can lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do the same today,” Johnson said, clips of which spread widely.A report from Harvard researchers before Saturday’s rallies found this year’s protests had been more geographically broad than those in Trump’s first term, saying: “The current protest movement has already reached deeper into Trump country than at almost any point during the first Trump administration.”The geographic diversity means people are getting tapped in with local groups to organize in their own communities, and those local networks will have different goals that make sense in their areas. In some, that could look like attending school board meetings or working against Republican gerrymandering efforts.“It may be different things in different locations,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter. “But I think most of the energy and most of the discussions taking place right now are related to some type of disruption … The next rally needs to be accompanied by some other type of action as well.”Nationwide, the movement remains leaderless, though some elected officials, including Senator Bernie Sanders, attended protests and spoke to the crowds. On The Daily Show this week, Sanders said Democrats now need to set out their vision for the country, citing access to healthcare and home ownership as part of it. “I think that many of my colleagues in the Democratic party have not had that vision,” he said.Here’s what the leaders of organizations involved in No Kings told the Guardian about their vision for what will come next for the movement. Their comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.IndivisibleEzra Levin, co-founder (as told to mass call on 21 October)“No successful anti-authoritarian movement in the history of the world has relied exclusively on one-day protests, even historic, incredible life-giving one-day protests like Saturday. Successful movements grow, they evolve, they diversify their tactics, and they do new things together. There are going to be big mobilizations in our future, but before that, there’s going to be overreach from this regime. We’re seeing it with our own eyes. They’re dominating media institutions, they’re dominating universities. They’re bullying businesses and political opponents, and we need to coordinate a way to respond quickly and powerfully with the full force of this movement. The era of capitulation and obey in advance, that’s over.View image in fullscreen“The No Kings era is here, and it’s defined by widespread mass defiance of this regime. That’s why we’re launching the No Kings alliance, a nationwide Rapid Response Network built for this moment to coordinate pushback … The alliance is an effort to coordinate the full diversity of our movement and use the leverage that we have with the people power we’ve collectively built.“At Indivisible, we’re talking a lot about boycotts and economic power. We should learn from Disney and ABC and Kimmel. The regime bullied. The institution capitulated. The people rebelled. The institution reversed, and democracy sat up a little straighter the next day, is a little bit more confident. Rinse and repeat.“We just pulled off the largest peaceful protest in American history, and those fascists are quaking in their jackboots at what we’ll do next.”Organization for Black StruggleJamala Rogers, executive director“The No Kings protests have accomplished two of its three goals. We have identified the growing defiance of the Maga regime and its inhumane and unconstitutional policies and decisions. It was also important to show the world that we do not condone the current authoritarian government. Protesters are uniting in solidarity, driven by a shared vision of what a true democracy should reflect.“The Organization for Black Struggle believes it is time to intensify our impact on the state and local levels by identifying strategic targets. These could be corporations or institutions who support the Maga platform and who are implementing it. For example, in Missouri the GOP-dominated legislature passed a new gerrymandered map following Trump’s directive to create more districts aimed at securing congressional seats before the midterm elections. The activist communities in Missouri are now collecting signatures to put the issue on the ballot to restore the fifth CD and maintain Kansas City’s sole African American congressman.“The protest communities should also target places of commerce to disrupt the flow of capital, like sports arenas.”American Civil Liberties UnionDeirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer“The best way to protect our freedom is to act free – and that’s exactly what over 7 million people did on Saturday by peacefully and lawfully protesting President Trump’s abuses of power. Using our first amendment rights to free speech and protest is most patriotic and American thing we can do in the face of this administration’s attacks. Saturday’s events were more than a single day of protest: it was a powerful example of the courage, strength and determination of the American people to defend our democracy.View image in fullscreen“The ACLU will continue to channel that courage to defend our freedom in the courts, in statehouses, and in our communities.”50501Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator“At 50501, we’re currently working with members of the Working Families party to promote a toolkit that helps boycott Home Depot, and we are hosting a community survey to help determine our next action(s). We are also focusing on uplifting local organizers in cities facing occupation or increased federal brutality, including Chicago, Portland, DC, Memphis, New York and San Francisco, as well as supporting the Disappeared in America Weekend of Action at the beginning of November.“I expect there will be another No Kings-level mass mobilization sometime in the next several months. However, right now, I believe the most important thing is to focus on connecting No Kings attendees with community groups that provide active resistance against the Trump administration. Whether it’s groups like 50501 that are focusing on protests, mutual aid work and boycotts, or your local union, or immigrants’ rights groups like CHIRLA, or anti-Ice community defense groups like Valley Defensa, or groups providing legal protection from the Trump Regime, or a group you formed on-the-ground at No Kings, the most important thing a No Kings protester can do is get involved.“We need to continue building our protest, mutual aid and civil disobedience muscles now, so that when the opportunity arises, we can peacefully dismantle this regime and undermine its pillars of support.”American Federation of TeachersRandi Weingarten, president“It’s really important to tie together the issues around democracy and fighting back against authoritarianism and what we need to do to help Americans have a better life, and how to address the affordability crisis and the cost of living crisis. If you’re an American who is actually struggling to make ends meet, you want to connect the voice in government with what you use that voice for. And so that’s why we connect it to these other fights, like the healthcare premiums that are skyrocketing.View image in fullscreen“When you talk about boycotts, or what we’re doing on college campuses to fight against the loyalty oaths, these are all part of the fight to get other institutions to actually do their jobs and to, instead of capitulating to authoritarianism, to actually believe in the rule of law, not the rule of one man. But look at what’s happening on college campuses: there are at least seven of the nine who were asked to sign the loyalty oath that said no. So that kind of organizing is always a part of something bigger, and that is to try to get these institutions to be as courageous as the individuals who are on the streets for No Kings on Saturday.“We think about the tactics, we think about how we fight this as a community, and the courage of our convictions. We fight it through Congress and the courts. We fight it in commerce and we fight it in the court of public opinion.”Public CitizenLisa Gilbert, co-president“We have great challenges ahead to defeat Trump’s authoritarianism. But animated by the spirit and energy of this weekend, we have a springboard for more actions to follow. This may include call-in days to stand up for healthcare in the current government shutdown fight, actions to support immigrant families against Ice raids, email campaigns to block schemes that would make voter suppression even worse, campaigns against corporations preparing to fund Trump’s White House ballroom and engage in other corrupt dealings with the administration, campus projects to ensure universities reject Trump’s proposed ‘racist’ compact, rallies to fight free speech affront, and more.“The fight for the soul of democracy is live, and we all need to participate.”View image in fullscreenService Employees International Union (SEIU)Joseph Bryant, executive vice-president“On No Kings Day, SEIU members and unions across the country exercised our first amendment right to show what real power looks like. From care workers to janitors to educators, millions filled the streets to reject the lawlessness of this administration. “Our work doesn’t stop here. We will continue to mobilize to demand that our healthcare be protected and not robbed for billionaire tax breaks. We demand an end to cruel Ice raids and militarized takeovers of our cities that make no one safer. And we demand that federal workers who serve our communities be reinstated. When working people move together, we can defend democracy and build a future where every one of us can thrive.”View image in fullscreenBlack Voters MatterCliff Albright, co-founder and executive director“There’s no one way to grow a movement like this. We can look at some of our past experiences in this country. We can look at what some other countries have done … [The movement] is growing and, like a lot of things in life, that growth needs to be nurtured. I’m confident that this movement is going to continue going in the right direction, and it will continue to bring more people on board. Because a lot of people have observed, it’s a lot of white people at these rallies. Where’s everybody else? Where are the black people, the Latino people. I think what you’re seeing at each one is that it gets more diverse … It’s moving us up a scale, up a ladder of engagement.View image in fullscreen“There’s growing support for [a general strike]. Groups like ours will be involved with educating people around, what is this? When has it been done in the past? How do you do it successfully? What are the objectives? I think there would need to be ongoing awareness raising and education and preparation for it.“Whatever the next action is, it’s going to be one that both has an understanding and acceptance by a good number of the 7 million people that showed up to the rallies, but I think may even be something that may push some of us to go a little bit beyond what the current comfort level is. Finding that balance of something that stretches us enough, but doesn’t stretch us too much. Something that is practical enough to be manageable and doable, but also big enough and visionary enough to be impactive.”Human Rights CampaignBrandon Wolf, national press secretary“The fight for democracy and freedom needs all of us. What comes next is plugging people in wherever they can – in big ways and small – to resist this administration’s authoritarianism. We will mobilize people to school board meetings and legislative hearings, boycotts and buy-ins, local elections and campaigns for Congress. Now is the time to continue turning the nationwide No Kings energy into strategic people power.”View image in fullscreenWorking Families PartyJoe Dinkin, deputy national director“Working people are tired of Republicans who say they care about the working class only to turn around and cut our healthcare so the wealthy can get bigger tax cuts. That’s why we saw millions of people show up to No Kings protests on Saturday. Heading into the midterms, we expect to see new leaders step up, from protests to boycotts to getting out the vote and even running for office themselves.”Interfaith AllianceThe Rev Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO“The No Kings movement has mobilized many millions of Americans to demonstrate courage in defense of democracy and decency. Going forward it should continue to build unprecedented levels of civic engagement, including by training thousands of people of faith in the spiritual discipline of nonviolence – which is crucial to the practice of democracy. The movement can push back in real time against attacks on vulnerable minorities and core freedoms – taking actions to show that we will never capitulate to authoritarianism.”Common CauseVirginia Kase Solomón, president & CEO“People in this country are sick of the corruption and abuse coming from this administration. Instead of lowering costs and improving lives, Trump has only enriched himself and his billionaire friends. The millions that came out to the No Kings rally did their job and now it’s time for Congress to respond to the people’s activism with action, something tangible that demonstrates that we are a democracy and not an autocracy.”View image in fullscreenLeague of Conservation VotersJustin Kwasa, democracy program director“People in every state showed up to clearly say No Kings in our country. Trump and his extreme Republican allies are increasing the cost of healthcare and energy for families around the country, and are using Trump’s government shutdown to attempt to illegally fire more workers, shut down more programs, and threaten the health and safety of communities. The next step for us is to identifying ways to get these 7 million people who showed up for No Kings more involved in holding this administration accountable in various ways … LCV will be featuring our actions in their regularly updated weekly activities section.” More

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      The massive No Kings protests may mark a new American political posture | Moira Donegan

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      Over the past week or so, it seemed as if some Republican leaders were hoping that Saturday’s No Kings demonstrations – the marches and rallies hosted by a coalition of liberal groups across the country and worldwide – would turn violent. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, called them “Hate America” rallies, a moniker that was quickly picked up by other Republicans, and described the No Kings protests as a crucible of potential riots, representing “all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the antifa people”. “You’re gonna bring together the Marxists, the socialists, the antifa advocates, the anarchists, and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat party,” he said. Tom Emmer, a representative for Minnesota, described the rallies as a product of the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic party. And Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, fantasized that the protests would require action by the national guard. Others, such as the attorney general, Pam Bondi, mused about who might be paying the protesters to show up – an idea that seemed to dismiss the notion that anyone might oppose Donald Trump’s agenda for principled, rather than cynical, reasons.At times they sounded almost wistful. Republicans, the president himself chief among them, have been fervently endeavoring to cast those who oppose their authoritarian consolidation of power as enemies – contemptible un-Americans who lack virtue, common values, or the protection of the law. In a world where it was once considered the height of inappropriate partisanship for Hillary Clinton to refer to a “basket of deplorables” among Trump voters or Barack Obama to mourn the conservatives who “cling to guns or religion”, it barely registered as news on Thursday when the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News: “The Democrat party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”But no matter how fervently and how deeply the Trump regime appears to hate the American people, the No Kings protests that brought millions to the streets on Saturday suggests that the American people hate them even more. In the densely packed streets of cities from New York to Austin to Oakland to St Augustine, Florida, the massive protests took on a tone of jubilant contempt, with Trump and his various lackeys derided on signs and in effigies, with jokes that ranged from the high-minded to the vulgar. At a protest in San Francisco, I saw one man holding a sign that quoted Walt Whitman, walking near a woman making a vulgar reference to Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. A number of people donned inflatable character costumes – I saw a starfish, a teddy bear, two unicorns, a rooster and a pickle. They originated from Portland’s protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and national guard deployments as cheeky ways to mock the Trump administration’s claims that the city was “war-torn” and in need of armed invasion. If the anti-Trump resistance movements of his first administration were characterized by a kind of self-serious righteousness, those of the No Kings era have devolved into irreverence and humor. At times I was reminded of a peculiar feeling I have sometimes had, in the desperate hours after funerals or bad breakups, when I have been crying for so long that I find I’ve started laughing.The No Kings protests have been criticized for their capaciousness and indefinite agenda, and it is true that the demonstrations are the product of several large liberal groups and bring together people whose politics and inclinations would not ordinarily mix. At San Francisco’s protest, I saw the signature red rose of the democratic socialists, the Aztec eagle of the United Farm Workers, and a gold lamé sign held aloft by a largely unclothed man who declared himself a libertarian – in addition to a motley mix of men wearing the powdered wigs and tricorn hats of the founding fathers, women with white feathered sleeves and hoods posing as bald eagles, and a staggering number of people who wrapped themselves in the American flag.The hodgepodge of symbolism might reflect the chaotic and disorganized nature of the anti-Trump coalition – which, containing as it does the majority of the US’s 340 million people, is rife with contradictions. This has long been a problem for the Democrats: the party fears that their tent is too big, their base is too far from swing voters, and the coalitions of Obama and Joe Biden are too fractured and fragile to ever be maintained. But Trump has perhaps created a new kind of glue that can hold together a different kind of political movement: something that vast swaths of the American people hate even more than they hate each other.Amid the density of references and imagery, No Kings might also indicate a new political posture being born: a left-liberal popular front that mixes principle with irreverence. The aspiration of No Kings, in a way, is to abolish itself – to rebuild, perhaps a little sturdier and more honest this time, the kind of constitutional system in which law and persuasion replace Trump’s model of violence and domination. To put it another way: the people at the No Kings rallies all agree that they want to restore the kinds of liberal-democratic conditions that will enable them to disagree with one another.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt any rate, the violence that the Trump regime seemed to long for did not materialize. In San Francisco, an organizer speaking into a megaphone urged attenders to ignore any pro-Trump agitators they might encounter, and to not engage with any federal agents. “If you see uniformed feds outside a building,” he warned the crowd, “it’s bait.” Before the marches, some seemed frightened of what might happen – whether Trump-aligned federal forces might crack down with mass arrests, or whether pro-Trump militias might instigate a fight. But the demonstrations seem to have been remarkably peaceful, even cheerful, avoiding provocations and meeting virtually no violence from Trump-aligned forces. In New York, an estimated 100,000 marchers participated in No Kings events across the five boroughs, and an official Twitter account associated with the New York police department reported that there had been no arrests of protesters.Trump appeared disappointed. On Saturday evening, after the marches had largely disbanded and the millions who had turned out to oppose him went home, he took to Truth Social, his proprietary social media platform, to post an AI-generated video of himself. In the cartoon, Trump – wearing a crown – flies a fighter jet over the No Kings protests, and dumps feces on the protesting citizens. It was a peevish, petulant little display of contempt – the kind of behavior that you would punish in a child but which has become bog standard for the president of the United States. He evidently wanted Americans to know that he hates them. The feeling is mutual.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More