Is NO Kings a political movement yet? Yes.

 When does a political organization or spontaneous protest rise to a political movement? Has NO KINGS reached the level of being a movement comparable to and in opposition to MAGA? Yes. It meets the definition and is similar to others in scope and size.  Per Google AI: "A political movement is an organized effort by a group of people to promote, resist, or change political and social conditions." Elements of a political movement include organized action, shared goals, tactics such as protests, demonstrations, boycotts, lobbying, political campaigns, and creating public awareness, and a common identity.  NO KINGS meets the definition, for sure, but how big and how effective are also elements to consider.  My own view is that to be a movement, it must be outside a political party structure, though political parties can participate.  I would add the element of being large enough in size and scope to effect change. NO KINGS is close to meeting that more restrictive definition, as well.

Some of that rise of NO KINGS to a movement status is due to the fact that the established Democratic party has no single voice or even a unified direction to counter MAGA. It has failed the leadership test.  NO KINGS has stepped into the void. A wide variety of organizations are partners in NO KINGS, with the prime leadership by Indivisible and 50501, coordinating and training leadership in peaceful protests and mass demonstrations.. That NO KINGS is primarily a pro-democracy/anti-autocracy movement is their common identity.

 Per some political scientists,, 3.5 % of the population must be engaged in protest to cause regime change.. Seven million turned out in October; around 11 million would be effective enough to effect regime change, and as the midterms for Congress  are still a year away, that is quite possible to show that kind of strength. Americans Continue To Build a Peaceful Mass Movement To Force Trump Administration Changes - Center for American Progress 

Poll: Americans approve NO KINGS protests v MAGA: Americans approve of No Kings protests by 16 points(49-33), Trump approval 39% with 20% approval among Gen-Z: Economist-Yougov : r/fivethirtyeight

  I have been a skeptic that the political science approach to political advocacy is a winner. This is despite the fact that I am motivated by being pro-democracy, anti-autocracy, and a political science major, and a life of political involvement and a junkie with hands-on experience with autocracies and dictatorships. That the concept of democracy under attack would get so many off their couches has surprised me.. I still think, in the very short term, pocketbook affordability issues will be the determining factors in the 2026 midterms.

 However, in the long term, NO KINGS is by far the more important movement. The reason? The people can complain all they want about government policies hurting their ability to live an affordable life, but if they lose democracy and support a dictator or one-party rule that tramples First Amendment rights, they have lost their ability to affect the very pocketbook issues that bug them. Instead of government of, by, and for the people, in an autocracy it becomes a government of, by, and for the autocrat —or one-party rule —and how much they are concerned about those they govern depends on how much people contribute to the autocracy gaining and staying in power. Otherwise, those they govern only get the news that favors the autocracy, and opposition ideas and activists are suppressed by whatever means and power the autocrat has. Once in full control, it is nearly impossible for people to dislodge. So far, MAGA and Trump are not quite there yet.  An autocracy can most easily be stopped early in its efforts to seize control. That is where MAGA is now and why 2026 and 2028 are the last chances for NO KINGS to stop it. Republicans are ridiculing ‘No Kings.’ A striking new poll shows Americans aren’t laughing | CNN Politics

MAGA is definitely an example of a political movement...a few democrats, some independents and and many registered Republicans who are loyal to Trump with near cult like adoration and are devoutly supportive. Whatever Trump says goes, whatever he does is OK if it advances whatever drives those who share his values. In my own view, it is primarily racially driven by the prospect that white domination will soon be replaced by multicultural racial demographics. MAGA is so focused on cleansing the country of "people they do not deem to be like them," manifested by the immigration issue, that it is racial more than any other single issue, pocketbook, or sociological class and peer pressure. In 2024, the racist, "pro-lifers," and homophobes made cultural issues their mantra and won. In 2026 and 2028, that is no longer the top of anyone's political issue list, I have seen in polls. 

Trump did not invent MAGA, other than giving it its name as a political slogan, Make America Great Again ("again" back to which date undefined or openly stated by its members ).  He has, however,  exploited the racist nautre of many for political and personal advantage, from his days of media and TV, from opposing the Central Park Five,  Birtherism against Obama, the Golden Escalator, Charlottesville of some very fine people are neo Nazis, and unleasing paramilitary ICE and Border Control to kick out of the contry more than those who were criminals (other than being undocumented which at best is only a misdemeanor).  The figures are hard to grasp, but somewhere around 60% of those in ICE detention have no criminal record or warrant, and have some degree of legal status; it is quite OK for the MAGA adherents. 

Trump's top advisors are radical extremists and ideologues on immigration policy (Stephen Miller) or in rolling back government to the pre-1930s depression era, wiping out any vestige of the New Deal, social security, food assistance, and medical care with affordable access(Russell Vought). Both are adherents of white Christian nationalism ideology and bent on destroying any governmental priority or reference to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: What if it is true: Trump's got dementia as some claim

There are MAGA voters who are fellow travellers who are not the hard core and maybe "squishy".  There is a segment of GOP adherents who are the business- self-interested side seeking low taxes and deregulation, willing to lend support to the movement, and some others who are traditional Republicans who could never vote for a Democrat, but they are not in the hard core and could be motivated to stay home on election day or actually vote for the Democratic candidate in 2028. tHIS  is the ground where MAGA and NO KINGS will be duking it out to gain or keep political power.

How justified are NO KINGS in opposing Trump's regime as autocratic? One MAGA supporter on another FB site called it "concocted". Here is my FB response:

 This is an extremely important editorial from The New York Times. It cites ten markers of what ends democracy and becomes a country ruled by an "authoritarian"based upon the study and history of authoritarians.. It makes a case of whether we are there already or it is in process. The general gist is that if we are not yet fully there in some markers, but in others, he has already done it. Please take this seriously. I am. I am gifting this for you to read. The 12 markers and reasons for it are graded by whether we are on the way, have started, and to what degree, or are already there. For the reasons and evidence regarding each of these markers, go to the text of the editorial itself: I have gifted it and hope you can access the full text. https://www.nytimes.com/.../trump-autocracy-democracy...? I like this approach because it is based on what Trump has done or tried to do, is devoid of inflammatory language, and is grounded in facts and examples. Here is a summary by marker headings.

Of the markers of Democacy's demise in terms of what markers of authoritarianism Trump has already accomplished are

-persecutes political opponents

-declaress national emergencies on false pretenses

-vilifies marginalized groups

-creates a cult of personality

-uses power for personal profit

Of the authoritarian markers Trump has already started and yet to have fully accomplish:

-stifles dissent and speech

-bypasses the legislature

-issues military for domestic control

-defies the courts

-controls information and the news media

-tries to take over universities

-manipulates the law to stay in power

nytimes.com

Opinion | In Trump’s America, Are We Losing Our Democracy? (Gift Article)

FROM GOOGLE AI:

A political movement is an organized effort by a group of people to promote, resist, or change political and social conditions. These movements are driven by a shared ideology and use collective action to achieve goals like promoting rights, reforming government, or seeking social and political change. Examples include the Civil Rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, or the environmental movement, which use various methods from protest and lobbying to elections and advocacy. 

Key aspects of a political movement

• Organized action: 

  Movements are not random events; they involve people working together with a shared purpose. 
Shared goals: 
The objectives are to either change the status quo or to preserve existing political and social structures. 
Methods: 
Tactics can include protests, demonstrations, boycotts, lobbying, political campaigns, and creating public awareness. 
Collective identity: 
Members of a movement often share a common identity and a belief that they are working to address a common problem. 

Examples of political movements

The Civil Rights Movement: 
A movement that sought to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans through nonviolent protests and civil disobedience. 
The women's suffrage movement: 
A movement that fought for women's right to vote. 
The environmental movement: 
A movement that works to address environmental issues such as pollution, climate change, and conservation. 
The LGBTQ+ movement: 
A movement that advocates for the rights and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. 

Holding ICE thuggery to local laws is about to happen in Colorado

 There has been a lot of talk about holding ICE agents to the rule of law. Here is a case in Colorado of that happening. The rough treatment of a protester will now be investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Poorly trained, poorly screened ICE agent hires have created situations when they act like thugs...and violent ones at that. Not only is it "not a good look", it may also break the law...in the case of Colorado state laws. https://www.durangoherald.com/.../colorado-bureau-of.../...

Why is MAGA so down on mail in voting?

Fear is being expressed that the Trump regime will put troops on the street to control the results of the 2026 midterm. So we have to call out the armed muscle, as if that makes a lie somehow true.. So, seeing streets patrolled by military on voting day(s) must mean...holy cow...there is a lot of fraud going on. There is not, and why that is so. The short answer: there is little fraud in voting because there is already a great deal of effort by Secretaries of State to employ and use technology to prevent it. However, there is still a nagging question raised by opponents of mail-in voting that is hanging around, making it easier to commit fraud.. Many believe that, but I surmise that is due to an ignorance of how the system works that feeds that fear.  

There are a lot of questions about vote security and there needs to be a lot of voter education. Here are some of the questions that this post attempts to cover: How secure is your vote? Why is MAGA so opposed to mail-in voting? , Colorado is held up as the gold standard in mail-in votes How do you know if your ballot has been counted? What about poll watcher harassment? What about the military interfering in voting?

Why do MAGA and Trump hate mail-in voting? The assumption has been that the easier it is to vote, the more it favors the Democrats. That assumption was popular when the GOP  was composed of the better-educated and older voters. The demographics have changed somewhat. MAGA is now the party of the less educated, and older voters have trended to be more liberal. There is still a persistent belief that the larger turnout favors Democrats, and voter participation is higher in mail-in states.   For a time, in the 1980s, when I was an election official, it was the GOP pushing for mail-in voting,I suspect,  mostly for the convenience of seniors who were heavily Republican.  Colorado's system of mail-in voting was created by law in 2013, by a Republican administration with a variety of built-in safeguards against fraud.. Subsequent Democratic Secretaries of State have abided by those rules and laws.

There is another reason why I suspect Trump and his regime want to end mail-in voting. It has to do with the federal government controlling nationwide voting to its benefit.  The most significant barrier is that, per the Constitution, the states, not the federal government, are in charge of voting. It is harder to interfere with voting when there are 50 individual states instead of a single federal system.

All voter lists and data are pretty much public records and accessible. However, those who would abuse them have a problem. Each 50 state has its own system and cybersecurity, and purges of lists are in the hands of thousands of county clerks and 50 secretaries of state. That means that so long as elections are not federalized, run from DC, we still have a fighting chance to hold the MAGA attempts to fix elections at bay. That mail-in ballots are such an enemy to MAGA is understandable. Every ballot is on paper, and no one can bully or scare off anyone at a polling place. It is easy to use the paper ballots to recount and prove irregularities.

I hope the answer is more mail-in... like Colorado. So long as the paper ballots are kept secure, they are the ultimate evidence of whether fraud was committed. The other disturbing piece is who controls the tally machine, or the polling place voting machines. Dominion Systems won a major liability-defamation victory, but it has now been bought by a MAGA-leaning company. That should be of great concern. Mail-in elections remove voting machines from the final equation and provide proof that the machine and electronic tally systems are accurate if a recount is called for. FYI... the chances of more fraud in mail-in ballots show a complete wilful lack of understanding of how the verification process works, primarily based on comparing signatures with those on record vs. the returned ballot. It is done at various counting stages. Clerks in Colorado have recently been sent to jail, fined, or relieved of election administration duties for breaking the machines' security protocols. Computers, these new-fangled systems, since the early 1980s, can also easily identify duplicate and deceased voters, as state death certificate records can provide corroborating evidence of such attempted fraud.

That the 2020 election was stolen is the mark of a true believer in MAGA and the litmus test to join the group. It is a MAGA pretext to make the case for federalizing elections. Election deniers have now been appointed to key positions in the DOJ. Here is the problem: A Conservative group finds "absolutely no evidence of widespread fraud" in the 2020 election. The myth persists, and no evidence has emerged that the 2020 election was stolen in the five years since. It is a pretext for a federal takeover of elections, an excuse for a loss.

More on "mail-in voting" ..  Voting by mail and absentee voting | MIT Election Lab. Voting by mail and absentee voting | MIT Election Lab. This study, done in 2024, found that the incidents of election fraud are very rare, whether it is by "mail" or in person. "By mail" is a misnomer since in states where most voters get their ballots in the mail, they also return them in drop boxes and in their precinct polling places, or also return them by mail. The term "mail-in" should be about  the method of returning a ballot for counting, not who gets a ballot in their hands to fill out.  Nonetheless, voter registration is important in mail-in states like Colorado, as registered voters will automatically receive ballots. How thoroughly they are vetted is critical, and their applications are checked against duplicate and multi-state irregularities. The major advantage of all registration processes is that the voter's signature is on record and used to verify that those who cast a ballot are indeed the registered person.

The process of maintenance of registration rolls and purging those who may only vote occasionally after a period is sometimes an issue of contention between political parties. Motor-voter registration, which allows people to register to vote when applying for a driver's license, is sometimes attacked by those who do not want greater voter participation in elections. They express bogus fears of fraud, though all registrations are vetted, no matter where they are done. 

Voter participation by "mail-in" is actually increased a little, but participation in voting for local offices shows a greater increase if "by mail".   per the MIT study.One problem that critics of such" mail-in" voting raise is that if ballots are sent out only on request, then bad actors can request them without the voter knowing and vote more than once fraudulently..  There a few prosecuted cases like that mostly in the South per the MIT study.

 What I note that the MIT study does not address very clearly is that such "harvesting" occurs when voters request an absentee ballot. However, states like Colorado and Oregon mail" mail-in ballots" to all registered voters to fill out at home if they wish. Who gets a ballot mailed to them is not an issue; the question is whether the returned ballot is secure and cast by a duly registered voter.  All ballots are paper ballots, whether they are dropped off or mailed in, making it easy to recount and spot fraud if that becomes an issue in a recount..   All such" mail-in" ballots have signatures affixed on an envelope separate from the actual voted ballots, which are placed in a special secrecy envelope..  Clerks can compare the signature with signatures they have on file in their data registration banks as they receive them and discard those who are dead. Clerks are using state computer records of death certificates to continuously update their voter files..  Secretaries of State also tap into other states' data to eliminate duplicate registrations of persons registered in more than one state.  This process is ongoing and includes both in-person and "mail-in" voters. Both are subject to all of these kinds of scrutiny...  This explains why the claim that the "2020 election was stolen" is so deceptive. Since security techniques are so effective, there is little evidence that elections could be stolen by enough fraudulent voters to make a difference.  The greatest value is that if voters can avoid going to a polling place, armed paramilitary and national guards glaring down on anyone who is not white just will not work to suppress black and brown voters. It's all a show that "fraud is widespread' so we have to call out the armed muscle, as if that makes a lie somehow true..    

From a commenter on FB in response to this being posted: "I've heard the same statistic for years now, and that is voter fraud amounts to one in approximately 15 million votes cast. And as far as mail-in voting and people saying you don't know what happens to your ballot, when I go to an in-person polling place and vote, I have no idea what happens to that ballot after I put it in the ballot box, so what's the difference?"

Felicia Muftic In Colorado, you can sign up to track your ballot just like you would a UPS package. That is how you know what happens to the ballot after you drop it off. That the frequency and 60 p;us court cases and other official investigations show not enough fraud to change the outcome is an example of Trump's successful election-denial strategy. It is set in their ideological context and in the minds of the MAGA cult by never admitting any information or facts to the contrary. It is one of the biggest mind control successes within a democracy ever seen... We have fought election deniers getting elected, even in Grand County, and lost by a squeaker. We have one now. The only hope is that the career staff and the Democrats, having blown her whistle, watch her every move. The Tina Peters case is still a hot one, and she is still behind bars campaign for Trump to pardon her. I expect he will shortly.

From another commenter: "Republicans learned how to do some of this stuff a long time ago. Colorado used to have poll watchers who were empowered to challenge the right of any particular voter to cast a ballot. In the 1968 election, Republicans put a squad of poll watchers out to certain polling places to challenge people who looked like they might be a Democrat. (I don't know what the criteria were -- probably dark skin, hippie, or a little too scruffy.) In many instances, the challenged person just turned around and walked away. (This feature of the election laws might have been eliiminated as I haven't heard of it lately.)"

Felicia Muftic

From the Colorado Secretary of State website.( What it does not address is some ICE agent, National Guard, or military armed standing in or outside of polling places. Once again, in Colorado, most ballots are cast by mail, so this is a moot point for them.) "Voters may NOT advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate or a ballot measure either inside a polling place or within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling place or drop-box. While inside a polling place, voters may NOT wear pins, t-shirts, hats, or other apparel that displays the name or likeness of any candidate who is on the ballot or bearing the number, title, subject or logo of a ballot issue or question that is on the ballot. Additionally, the soliciting of signatures for a candidate petition, a recall petition, or a petition to place a ballot issue or ballot question on a subsequent ballot may NOT occur within 100 feet of a polling place.

Campaign workers are allowed outside of polling places to offer water, snacks, and other items to voters who are waiting to vote. These "comfort teams," however, may NOT campaign or wear any apparel or accessories bearing the name or image of a candidate, political party, or ballot measure if they operate within 100 feet of the polling place".

California to monitor the Justice Department's election watchers next week

Vote-by-Mail - Center for Effective Government. Yes, to some extent, there is more participation in voting when mail-in ballots are used.  Vote-by-Mail - Center for Effective Government

Trump Is Putting Election Deniers in Charge of Elections - The New York Times

Tina Peters, former Mesa County clerk, sentenced to 9 years in prison over voting systems breach | Colorado Newsline, and now she is seeking a pardon from Trump/

Trump wants to stop states from voting by mail and using voting machines: NPR

Dominion Voting sold to company run by ex-GOP election off