Did 'No Kings' Miss the Mark?

This past weekend saw round three of the No Kings march happen simultaneously nationwide. From coast to coast and in between, millions of demonstrators took to city streets in protest of Donald Trump’s despotism. Several Bay Area cities participated. Three official gatherings took place in San Francisco alone. Last October’s coordinators counted approximately seven million participants across the country. Saturday’s reprisal very likely exceeded that figure, leaving little doubt that by and large, Americans want Trump gone.

 The question is, what are we willing to do about it?

Musician Bruce Springsteen, senator Bernie Sanders, and activist/actress Jane Fonda spoke at the No Kings march in Minneapolis. Actor and daddy heartthrob Pedro Pascal joined the crowd in Los Angeles. In Washington DC, every Millennial’s favorite televised teacher Bill Nye gave an impassioned speech about Trump’s abuses of power, calling him “petulant”. Meanwhile, Rev. Al Sharpton, actor and Manhattan native Robert Di Nero, and State Attorney General Letitia James marched with New Yorkers. With over 3,300 demonstrations across all fifty states, this might’ve been the largest day of political protest in United States history. 

While other prominent protests happened in Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento, the largest in Northern California occurred in San Francisco. First of three No Kings gatherings, a march from Embarcadero Plaza to Civic Center kicked off at noon. Next, a rally at Civic Center Plaza until 4 PM. While thousands marched up Market Street, others met at Ocean Beach to create a human banner visible from the air. 

Speakers at Saturday’s anti-Trump rally had no shortage of issues to discuss when voicing their concerns. Shrewd budget cuts, gluttonous military spending, his vain assault on Iran, deference to Israel, implication in the Epstein files, etc. Trump’s decisions, mistakes, and crimes impact so many people so adversely, it’s no wonder No Kings had such a diverse turnout. Nothing kindles camaraderie quite like shared hatred (sounds like one of Trump’s business principles). For him, there’s more than enough to go around. 

President of California Nurses Association Michelle Gutierrez Vo spoke at the Civic Center rally. “The Trump administration is defunding health care. Meanwhile, they're funding warfare,” Ms. Vo said per SFGATE. “We need to stop harm, so we can provide care. And we need to take back the wealth from billionaires, so we can provide care to all who need it and build a healthy society.”

Meanwhile, organizers gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland (Oscar Grant Plaza if you were here for Occupy). A march began at noon to the Lake Merritt Amphitheater for a rally at 2 PM. "America does not belong to strongmen, corrupt billionaires, or those who rule by fear,” said one speaker. (SFGATE) 

It’s no small feat to mobilize this many people. That said, I can’t help but wonder what we might accomplish if that momentum counted towards genuine civil disobedience. And I mean a Henry David Thoreau-kind of conscious divorce from senseless law through abstention and disruption. Undeniably, No Kings drew major crowds. Attendance in the literal millions across the US shows we understand our leading authority is unjust. It’s a great start, but only that: a start. To speak of disobedience is to implicate obedience. No Kings had plenty to say, but did it ask any questions? Or did millions organize just to voice what we already know, that Trump is bad and has to go? 

I’m not the only one questioning the praxis of the No Kings march. Broke-Ass Stuart contributing editor James Conrad, who attended events in San Francisco, encountered abundant criticism of Saturday’s demonstration online. "Protests on weekends only are really the most docile and lazy shit ever,” James read. “Protests that yield results are relentless and disruptive during business hours until one of the sides has to give in." 

In downtown, James saw the Peace and Freedom Party had set up a soapbox I presume was for some gimmicky speaker to peddle their message. Indeed, a PFP representative was advising all who would listen to reject both Democrat and Republican Parties. James admits his frustrations with Democrats not pushing back against Trump hard enough. However, he knows a fragmented vote among the left only helps the right hold power. Amid the ideological chaos remains the fact that the Democratic Party’s idle guardianship is why Trump’s tyranny goes unchecked. 

I’m curious how No Kings and similar demonstrations address the conundrum of dissent within the law. If the protest against governmental abuse of power obeys that same government’s laws for “peaceful” assembly, what’s it really protesting? Active civil disobedience defamiliarizes how we understand tradition, time, and authority. No Kings, I feel, challenged none of these. Who was inconvenienced by this anti-Trump parade marketed as resistance, yet scheduled on a weekend? Nobody—not ICE, the military, the oil industry, Epstein’s cronies, not even those “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” bastards—least of all Trump. In a sense, No Kings was an ideal protest, for precisely the wrong people. 

Rebellion is an American tradition bound to its founding character. And yet, further rebellion gets deemed unconstitutional, destructive to the American way of life. I often wish we Americans did as the French do and inconvenience those in power until they comply with the will of the people. I suppose it’s a matter of scale. However brutal French law enforcement is, our militarized police has them beat. Maybe disparate American individuals proud of uniting to lawfully trash Trump is why No Kings feels like rebellion, but isn’t. What if booing Trump feels pointless because there is no individual separate from the determining systems that shape and destroy us? In any protest, for whom are we taking on personal risk? 

The next time so many American protesters gather, will they waste their potential on denouncing a despot? Or will all that potential energy finally convert to kinetic movement directed at dismantling the conditions that enable tyranny in the first place?