Civil action: how NO KINGS empowered people to resist

 NO KINGS was a lesson to all of us that peaceful demonstrations could be organized and controlled if the preparation and training were successful, as the coalition of so many diverse groups joining together did to pull this off.. The positive press of the peaceful turnout overshadowed the negatives of the troublemakers, who were a minority. That may give fence-sitters and couch loungers a feeling of comfort in supporting the movement's aims of supporting democracy and opposing dictatorship/strong man lovers in the MAGA base.

The movement of a peaceful resistance in 2025 owes much to Gandhi in India, but civil disobedience was a feature of his methods. Martin Luther King adapted Gandhi's technique. Indivisible and 50501 honed it and appealed to mostly white crowds, but civil disobedience was replaced with obedience of local laws...staying on sidewalks, not blocking traffic, coordinating with local police for permits. Using social media and modern communications, accumulated lists of participants (I had registered with the local sponsoring group in advance for the Granby event, but switched to the Fraser small band of poster holders, one that was easier for me to handle) were a key to NO KING's success. The modern twists employed by these new political movement organizers, who tapped into a wide variety of existing organizations in a coalition, as well as an online system for individual participation and message notification, were impressive. The success depended on the masses of participants waving homemade signs. It succeeded.

The removal of the civil disobedience element as a technique used by MLK and Gandhi made it possible and safer for those less brave, including children, the elderly, mothers, fathers, and grandparents, to participate. It was multi-generational and at times, joyful. It gave an outlet for many who wanted to express their resistance to Trump but were not violent or confrontational. The use of NO KINGS was the least partisan and anger-rousing substitute name for Trump possible. It was a group civics lesson as it inspired a deeper appreciation of the benefits of democracy. It was a history lesson, too, that highlighted the reason our form of democracy came about in the first place 250 years ago. It was the spirit of 1776 and the beginning of resistance against a tyrant, too. The children and young people who participated will probably never forget June 14.

June 14 NO KINGS and the numbers and kind who participated put a lie to Trump and his minions, who in advance tried to paint it as a bunch of paid professional demonstrators.

-What was not reflected in the marches were minorities ...especially Hispanics, who were likely in hiding (exception LA first generation). That may help inspire more support from the Hispanic community. That this was mostly white does not reflect the strength of the Hispanc vote. The anti-DEI racist agenda of MAGA is an accelerant. We cannot take this for granted..and make sure that NO Kings also implies support of minority and civil rights, too. I am closely monitoring the polling of Hispanics to see if the losses Democrats have experienced in recent years have been reversed, and it would be a significant advantage in 2026. The assumption that Hispanics would be for Democrats because of Trump's anti immigration stance was wrong. Many Hispanics also feared or looked down on the recent immigrants, and they too saw the economy as a problem that Trump promised to fix.. However, Trump's cruelty may change some minds there.

All protests are not the same, part 1.

Update: September 1, 2020: Biden's speech August 31: " I want to make it absolutely clear, so I’m going to be very clear about all of this, rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites, destroys businesses, only hurts the working families that serve the community. It makes things worse across the board, not better. "   Biden delivered.

One trap the Democrats are in danger of falling into when supporting protest marches is separating the peaceful ones from the violent ones.  The right to protest peacefully is protected in the Constitution; violent protests are not. We have seen the fear monger in chief, Donald Trump, take advantage of a conception that violent and peaceful demonstrations are the same evil,  to scare "suburban housewives' and moderate male white voters back into his fold. Peaceful marches can turn into violent ones unless their leaders maintain control to keep them nonviolent or poor law enforcement strategies provoke a violent reaction with their threats or disproportionate actions.

  Expect this next week of the GOP national convention to convey a message that chaos and violence will be what a Democratic victory will bring them, that peaceful protests and violent ones are the same and are to be feared and stamped out by the federal government military-like force.   What the convention voices will not note is that the actions that Trump's uninvited federal forces took this summer in Portland inflamed more violence and failed to restore peace. They left after state and local officials demand them to leave.  This violence happened in his administration. He made a bad situation worse and there is no reason to believe he will make civil unrest more peaceful in a second term.

 One can imagine what a lame-duck second term Trump presidency will look like, as he takes a win as a permission slip to continue his inflammatory tactics. These GOP  solutions to suppress even peaceful protests against the brutality of the police and "federal agents" will create hate and fear-filled four more years full of violence. Angry civil unrest will be the rule, not the exception.  This is a prediction.   It is not a threat, and it is based upon the experience of seventy years of racial strife in this country particularly during this summer.  Unless the demonstrators and marchers have faith that their voices are heard and action will be taken, as Joe Biden has made clear he will,  reaction to a continued  Trump inflammatory modus and tweets will be four more years of strife, more violence, more fear, and more hate.  Is this the kind of country we want to live in?

Wall Street Occupiers have more to learn from MLK

The dedication of the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington  took place  as another movement,  Occupy Wall Street, is in  infancy.  There are many lessons the new movement could learn from  King’s leadership  .   The civil rights movement was also fueled by anger with  unfairness and injustice , but its success  was the result of using the right technique to bring others outside the group along with them.  Occupy Wall Street has taken one of those lessons to heart and it will succeed in moving others to join them if they stay the course.  The   lesson is that peaceful, civil disobedience ultimately will be more successful than violent acts of defiance. There are other lessons yet to be learned.

Dr. King’s technique was inspired by  Mahatma Gandhi, who led India’s independence from the British Empire.   Using non violent protests and reacting peacefully  when authorities used physical violence against them gained them sympathy, respect, and support. 

 The alternative is  violence and our family has experienced some of it. My husband was born in the old Yugoslavia in 1933.  He saw first hand what happened when one group felt they had been poorly treated by the power structure in the midst of a world depression . Rage turned into   violence; parliament members were assassinated, and, when World War II came to the Balkans, so did civil war.  A dictatorship emerged, imposing  peace, but as soon as  strong man Tito died, the conflict resumed, climaxing in the bloody ethnic cleansing war of the Balkans in the 1990’s.  It is that life experience that had him  fearful that the US could experience the same expression of anger in violent riots and demonstrations. 

I grew up in an eastern Oklahoma town that had become the refuge for  many African Americans after race riots and KKK action in Tulsa in the 20’s and 30’s.  Oklahoma was the icon of poverty in that pre World War II period , choked with  dust storms, with masses of Okies immigrating to California. The African  Americans in that part of the world had learned that violence got them nothing but more poverty and even more institutionalized separation that was not equal.  It was MLK that showed them another way out of that wilderness, and how to use the democratic system and court decisions to end segregation.  The snarling police dogs, the murder of civil rights leaders, the peaceful hymn singing marches,  brought sufficient sympathetic support from diverse quarters  for the  causes so eloquently expressed by King,  that  it ended  government supported  segregation. The US worked through its civil war  of decades past with a much different outcome than Yugoslavia experienced..

Those same techniques developed by Gandhi and  MLK helped the participants in the Arab Spring overthrow oppressive dictators.  The outcome of the revolution in Egypt is jeopardized by violent religious strife. Tahrir square occupiers  have forgotten that non violence was their effective tool and that violence could nip their establishment of democracy in the bud as the military  imposes  the very same practices to stop the violence that  were  the reasons for the revolution. Non violence is not a one time matter; it must be practiced until the goal is reached.

  Occupy Wall Street has a chance  to translate sympathy into  votes and governmental action,  democracy’s  way of facilitating change. Non violence has been their mantra and  response to action by police.  They so far have learned the lessons of the civil rights movement well.  They need, though, to heed another lesson from MLK: to identify their goals and objectives.

The Occupy movement so far is just an expression of anger. Participants have not agreed on what they want either the private sector or government  to do.  Dr. King moved the civil rights activists past  anger to specific  objectives concerning  voter rights and eliminating  segregation .  They also need to channel their  rage into  reformist  goals if they  want to  rally  others to take action beyond merely  expressing sympathy.