More Than 7 Million Protest on No Kings Day
According to the Oct. 18 No Kings Day organizers, in one of the largest single day nationwide demonstrations in U.S. history, nearly 7 million people gathered in cities and towns across America for the day of action. The protests were organized by Indivisible, MoveOn and other organizations.
The number of protesters grew by more than 2 million since the last national protest in June. All No Kings Day demonstrations were peaceful, and there was no political violence reported anywhere in the United States.
In Fresno, many organizations, including the May 1 Coalition for Immigrant Rights, SEIU, Indivisible, Peace Fresno and Raza Against War, organized the event. Organizers from Indivisible estimate that more than 7,000 attended the diverse, lively and energetic rally at Manchester Center in Fresno, the largest local anti-Trump event to date.
Protests also took place in other cities throughout the Central Valley.
At the Fresno event, there were inflatable “animal army” costumes and many expressive signs like “The Power of the People is Stronger than the People in Power,” “The Only Monarch I Recognize is a Butterfly, Migration is Natural and Beautiful,” and “We Are the Drops that Make the Ripple that Create the Waves that Build the Tide that Is the Movement.”
Many carried signs calling for an end to immigration raids and mass deportations. Fresnoland reports that ICE arrests are up nearly 60% in the area over the past year, and the Fresno Bee reported in mid-October that more than 500 people have been deported from the area.
Fresno Protesters Speak Out
“It’s not about Trump,” said Lourin Hubbard. “It’s about the people that have been silent at this point. People are out here to preserve democracy.”
Hubbard recently declared his candidacy for Congressional District 21 against Jim Costa (D–Fresno). He previously ran in a special election for CD22 and received 38% of the vote in a heavily Republican district.
“The Democrats have just abandoned their Congressional oversight,” added Hubbard. “They will write a strongly worded letter—oh boy.
“To this point, the Democrats are doing no [constitutional] enforcement at all. We need a partnership to demand better from our government.”
Max was passing out copies of the U.S. Constitution. She favors impeaching the President and his entire cabinet and cited Article 2, Section 4, of the Constitution, which outlines the process for removing the President, Vice President and other civil officers from office through impeachment for treason, bribery and other high crimes.
Dr. Mohammed Shaikh, a prominent surgeon and community activist, attended with his family and spoke of the health effects of the immigration crack down. “The Democrats don’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation. What we are seeing at the policy level, and [with] the ICE thugs and goons, is putting fear into people.
“The negative impact on health and wellness is referred to as structural violence or social murder. We’re seeing people missing clinic appointments because they are afraid of getting apprehended.
“Their stress levels are high; it’s not good for anyone’s health. When people get sick they go to the ER, and that impacts everyone.”
Another demonstrator, Tiffany Curtis, wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, said it was great to see so many people protesting but that “Black folks have been screaming about this for decades and decades.
“A lot of Americans are [now] looking at things we gotta confront, things that are deeper and darker, that affect all people, not just Black and brown people. I think they [the government] don’t listen when the Black community talks.
“People from different backgrounds that have a louder voice, that have power and privilege, need to speak up more.”
Cindy Piombino, a volunteer and advocate for unhoused folks in Fresno, said that she “showed up because of the division Trump [has] created and the taking away of Medicaid, food stamps and other assistance to those less fortunate. He’s acting like a king and needs to be de-throned.”
Veronica Martinez, a young woman from Fresno holding an antiwar sign, asserted that “we have waged war against humanity. My sign is a remembrance of people we have committed atrocities against: Palestine, Sudan, the Congo, Yemen, Venezuela and Ukraine.
“My other sign says, ‘The Only Minority Destroying America is the Rich.’”
Carlos Bravo from Fresno summed up the moment: “People come here for the American dream. They work hard to support their families. That is being taken away from us, our freedom of speech is being taken away. They’re putting a lot of fear in everybody.”
Trump’s Bizarre Post and Presidential Memorandum
Late on Oct. 18, Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, a video of himself wearing a crown and flying a jet over demonstrators in New York City bombing the people with large amounts of fecal matter.
On Oct. 9, the Trump administration published a presidential memo, technically, a national security presidential memorandum, outlining its upcoming efforts to combat political violence. In a section titled “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” the document states:
“There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described ‘anti-fascism.’ Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
In another section titled “Designation as a ‘domestic terrorist organization,’’’ the memo says that “the Attorney General may recommend that any group or entity whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of ‘domestic terrorism’ in 18 U.S.C. 2331(5) merits designation as a ‘domestic terrorist organization.’”
Designating something a domestic terrorist organization sounds like a parallel to the process we use for identifying foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). That process was created by Congress in a statute. Being designated as an FTO triggers a number of legal effects, enabling the government to seize assets, revoke visas, bar entry of non-citizens and prosecute people who provide any direct help to the organization.
Congress has the ability to block or revoke an FTO designation, and organizations themselves are entitled to judicial review of the decision to include them on the list.
The “domestic terrorist organization” definition proposed here has no legal support and no clear significance. It’s completely made up.
It seems that an organization so designated will receive extra scrutiny from the federal government until it pleases the attorney general and then be removed from the list. Donors, speakers, employees and members of these organizations will all have their speech chilled for as long as the executive branch sees fit.
The increasing number of Americans demonstrating and speaking out in resistance to the administration’s assault on democracy is a hopeful development.
