It’s happening again this weekend. NO KINGS. Protest on Saturday.
I signed up to participate in the march in Morris at 1:00 Saturday afternoon. Then I saw there’s another march in Cyrus, less than 10 miles away, at 2:30, so I signed up for that one, too. I only regret that the constraints of space and time forbid me from participating in every protest march everywhere on that day.
Down with Trump!
I’m sure that these marches can be fun social events, and can offer an emotional outlet, but you shouldn’t kid yourself that what you’re doing is courageous or historically significant.
What is needed at these protests is a booth where those who are not registered to vote can be registered. And don’t forget to update our IDs so our votes count. Meanwhile, a survey from Pew Research shows Trump’s approval rating has hit new lows of 37% and a new disapproval rating of 61%
Spoken like a true MAGA troll.
This is just flat out wrong and you are lying.
.1. Nonviolent protests are twice as effective as violence in causing regime change.
.2. No government or regime survived once 3.5% of the population participated in sustained nonviolent resistance.
.3. Nonviolent protests ended the Vietnam war (I was there), was a major part of the US Civil Rights movement, ended the USSR, ended the rule of the Soviet puppet regimes in Eastern Europe, changed Ukraine in the Euromaiden movement, and just recently ended the regime in Nepal.
There are dozens of examples of the power of the people in the streets.
Cthulhu, this troll is dumb.
Just stringing lies together like any one in the GOP.
.1. It doesn’t take much courage to get out in the streets but it does take some initiative and courage.
Most people who disagree with the regime won’t bother for a lot of reasons but fear is one of them.
.2. I’m part of the local organizing committee.
We’ve already received death threats from Trump supporters.
We have a comprehensive safety and security plan involving dozens of volunteers and liaison with the local police.
We will need them on Saturday for sure.
.3. The US government is well aware that people in the streets is a bad sign for them. Governments fear people in the streets because it means they are losing control.
.4. “As of early 2026, reports indicate the U.S. federal government, particularly under the Trump administration, has increased targeting of protesters through surveillance, surveillance, and criminal prosecutions, focusing heavily on anti-ICE, anti-administration, and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. ”
The US government is openly targeting protests and protesters. This is blatantly illegal but the whole Trump regime is a collection of criminals and terrorists.
.5. At least I don’t have to worry about ending up with an FBI file. I already have one from the anti-Vietnam war days.
MAGA trolls like sinuousrills don’t want you out in the streets not because they are concerned about you wasting your time. They and the US government don’t want you out in the streets because they know it is challenging their regime and if it is sustained and large, they will eventually lose.
So, sinuousrills, how much courage does it take to be a driveby troll and drop off a sentence or two of lies? Inquiring minds don’t really care.
Viktor Orban of Hungary will soon be up for re-election. Massive demonstrations against him have recently been held in Hungary. His approval ratings are dismal. Trump just approved of Orban publicaly. In a month when Orban is ousted from power, Trump is going to rage helplessly. Massive Hungariand public happy dances will occur.
These protests are nationwide and planned for No Kings III.
There are now over 3,000 events planned nationwide.
These protests on Saturday may become the largest protests in American history.
No Kings II had 7 million people nationwide and this is considered the largest protest in US history.
Predicting turnout is hard enough that I won’t try.
It is though possible and even likely that No Kings III will have more than 7 million people.
The Trump regime is failing and people are getting more and more angry.
Once you cross the treshold of demonstrating for the first time, it becomes less ‘weird’ and easier the next time.
And – as cheerfulcharlie said @ 2 – “What is needed at these protests is a booth where those who are not registered to vote can be registered. And don’t forget to update our IDs so our votes count.”
REPEAT TO ORGANISERS EVERYWHERE!
.
BTW Sweden had at least two idiot kings in the 18th century who started wars with Russia without preparations or planning. But at least those parasites knew how to speak French and were not known for random pettiness or cruelty. So if you want to replace Trump with a better qualified zombie king we might help you.
Rave while I absolutely support peaceful protest there are reasonable questions to be asked about how the database Chernoweth used for her research was compiled, and in particular why a higher proportion of successful violent revolts and unsuccessful non-violent revolts were excluded. I don’t have the spoons to find the links right now, but the gist of the work is ‘it really isn’t that simple’, which covers a lot of human behaviour of course.
Urgh, apologies, that should be ‘Raven’.
Here is a comedic intermission.
Seth Meyers :
“Trump Doesn’t Want ICE Agents Wearing Masks in Airports” [plus various of his most recent lies]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wT1Y3XGfDog
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a Throne.’
(a) Suggest remedies, or
(b) Imitate the action of a Tiger.
sinuousrills: You’re an idiot. Please engage your brain if you want to continue to comment here.
No one is claiming it requires courage to protest — ideally, we’d keep the protests safe to encourage greater participation. What is historically significant is the degree of involvement and the growing opposition to Trump. You cannot argue that he has retained the popularity that got him elected — he is now officially the most unpopular president in American history, and his numbers are only going down. I consider that significant. Maybe you don’t, but you are a moron.
at the no kings this saturday in St. Paul, headliners include: Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Bernie Sanders and Jane Fonda.
they will be performing/talking on the state capital green space.
Cross-posted from The Infinite Thread:
RACHEL MADDOW: History-making protests anticipated at Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ events to push back on Trump policies
Video is 9:53 minutes
Question: will the record March heat suppress turnout?
-Should participants be required to carry extra water, in case they observe people near collapse from dehydration?
.
If these questions seem odd, remember USA looks super-weird from up here. I just walked home through snowfall.
@sinousrills – It doesn’t have to be courageous if it’s right. And public protest need not be the only factor in social change to be significant. You may disparage it as mere virtue signalling, but that’s better than virtue dismissal. Doing nothing does nothing. But courage is also relative. While the likelihood of out-of-control enforcement and the misuse of facial recognition is small it’s not zero: it exists. We’ve already seen the cancelling of visas and even of green cards, for political reasons, and the threat of retroactive de-naturalization, not to mention the outright murder of protestors. For some people who fear repercussion, either from employers or from vigilantes or from the government itself, the risk is real, even if it’s rare.
Anticipated Fox News coverage of the upcoming Saturday:
“Honest Americans inconvenienced by small groups of ragtag protesters, mostly illegal Messicans & trans communists”.
Also: “Trump cures cancer, demands Nobel Prize.”
“Biden cause Strait of Hormuz blockage”
@17 birgerjohansson
Also on Fox News,
“Trump claims he raped the dead body of Queen Elizabeth II and demands the Noble Piece Prize.”
.
.
.
Too soon?
The marches are great entry-point for people to become more active in other, more sustained ways. This time around in Seattle our focus is connecting people who come for the march to organizing in their local communities (at the neighborhood level).
Many groups that participate, whether they are part of the Seattle No Kings coalition or not, use the marches to advertise their message and recruit members. One new group that will be showing up in Seattle’s No Kings march is Seattle Strike. In the near future expect similar groups to start in large metro areas around the country. The premise is that so far one of the resistance’s most successful weapon has been economic pressure, so the goal is to amplify it.
@Raven, #3, 4: Damn, I was going to tell that guy off but you beat me to it-there’s always someone who tries to demoralize protesters. We have weekly protests in Massachusetts in several towns. No major problems with MAGAs, occasionally one or two of them will drive by with a big “trump” flag and flip us off, but that’s about the extent of the trouble they cause.
raven@#1:
Nonviolent protests are twice as effective as violence in causing regime change.
Agreed, but I wish someone would tell the CIA. They keep running this playbook based in outdated ideology and it costs lives.
@1
You tell me who’s more courageous: a “law enforcement officer” dressed as a bmx bandit lying flat on an ex troop carrier aiming a rifle at a bunch of protestors, or the protestors armed with nothing more than a piece of cardboard yelling, “Unarmed. Don’t shoot.”
anat@#19:
The marches are great entry-point for people to become more active in other, more sustained ways.
Also [stderr] be careful of FBI provocateurs trying to join any movement that they can, including provoking violence. [stderr] it’s hard to total it all up, but a lot of the anti-regime violence in the 60s was regime-instigated. Which means that, if you want to fight against the goverment, you should join the system but start, as my old sensei said, by kicking your own ass.
cheerfulcharlie@#5:
In a month when Orban is ousted from power
If Orban can be ousted peacefully, using the remaining machinery of democracy, that will be an incredibly significant milestone which should be lauded, applauded, and copied globally. Traditionally we have waited for a coup and a shooting against a wall – huge respect to Romania for doing that and keeping it from getting out of hand – while I think the US is now a failed state, it’s been an example of how to transition from autocracy to a-step-less-than-autocracy, so, yay team!
Marcus Ranum @24: IIRC most of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989 were non-violent.
Jazzlet–
Yes indeed. I’ve long argued here against tankies (many of whom I think are just fake progressives coming to progressive spaces to stir up stupid conflicts) who refuse to acknowledge the success of non-violent protest movements. But non-violence does not always work. As you say, its complicated. And I’m certainly suspicious of any finding that non-violent protests are a specific number more effective than violent protests. That smacks of pseudo-objectivity to me.
PZ, I fully support your decision to protest even though I live on the other side of the world. I guess that makes me even less courageous and historically significant. Still vastly superior to sinuousrills, though.
Thing is, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armalite_and_ballot_box_strategy shows there is no excluded middle for such a bivalent strategy.
I note that California allows 16 and 17 year old citizens to pre-register to vote so that when they turn 18 they are automatically registered to vote.
https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/pre-register-16-vote-18/pre-reg-faqs
I’m not sure whether other states have similar procedures
Given that a rill is a shallow and narrow channel, I am not sure that being sinuous adds much to be proud of.
But back to the topic, I again attended a local protest march against native forest logging here in NSW on Sunday organised by the Bob Brown foundation. https://bobbrown.org.au/ It isn’t much in comparison.
Were I an USAian I would be joining in with you, PZ, because fuck trump and his millions of minion morons.
@ Nick Wrathall : Given that a rill is a shallow and narrow channel, I am not sure that being sinuous adds much to be proud of.
Well, it does put a few curves and twists on it I guess. OTOH the Rills were also a species in the Whoverse :
Source : https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Rill
Tho’as intelligent Pacidistic creatures they seem much nicer & mor eintresting than the troll merits. Perhaps he is trying to rise to pwoe rintheir terms :
Ibid.
But sinuousrills, that ugliness is meant to be external NOT internal! ;-)
^ Pacifistic.. that is obvs.