October 18, 2025 "No Kings" Protests

Politics & Elections
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A potential Next Step;

The movement could benefit from a “Live Aid”/“Farm Aid” type of event. Willie Nelson, et al. A theme song could emerge out of that.

I’m trying to remember the musical “solidarity with our troops” event that happened around the time of the first Gulf War, 1990-ish. This was the first time since the end of the Vietnam era that it was okay again to be military. I grew up in a military family, so it was always okay to me. But when I was in college (1966-1970) and the draft was still in effect, the tide turned and young men my age rejected voluntary military service. Anyhoo, at the time of the Gulf War and that musical coming-together, it was the first time that my late husband felt it was okay to talk about his service in Vietnam-- he was a Medivac pilot, but even so, was called “baby-killer” when he came back to the US. I’m digressing…sorry…

My point is that a group of musicians-- venerable and younger ones, too-- putting on a mass musical event-- could draw a lot more attention. Here are some from history and more recently.

https://www.one.org/us/stories/10-music-collaborations-that-changed-the-world/

Hurry, while Willie Nelson is still alive. But Bono, Sting, Springsteen, Bon Jovi (who was seen at a No Kings event, and who is serving furloughed federal employees for FREE in his restaurant in – I think – the Boston area). You get the idea.

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It’s really hard to beat this one, though.

“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

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That’s what got us into this mess.

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Oh, man, what a great idea! Start wirh a concert in Philly or New York, and then follow it with a finale in the Rose Bowl. For added effect, have an interim show in Dallas.

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Philadelphia would be the obvious place to launch. Then Chicago, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Nashville, Miami, ending up in New York. Just spitballin’ here…

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Nah, what got us all in this mess was allowing people their ginormous delusions.

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This is apropros:

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I’d like to hear Stephen Stills and Neil Young perform For What It’s Worth live as a theme song. All the lyrics are completely applicable right now, with the exception of: “Young people speaking their minds”. Just change that to “Old people”, and we’re gold.

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Great idea, @ThelmaLou. Makes me wonder if anyone in “the industry” has given any thought to it.

If anyone here has insight on how to get something like this started, please share.

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Right on, @teelabrown. This is the last song that was playing on my drive home and I thought the same thing; " damn, this song could have been written yesterday".

Ack. Sorry for the consecutive posts. I was trying to mesh them but I thought it best to quit while I was behind.

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Nudging just a bit here, quite informally, but we might want to move onto one of the existing threads or a new one before we get too far afield of the actual event.

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I’ve been hit with both pepper spray and mace (the mace was an own-goal, I tested it in the stupidest possible downwind manner)

Pepper spray is unpleasant but it is over in minutes. I make Habernero chillis in various sauces, and I occasionally stupidly touch my eyes after chopping. That lasts.but…

I’ve had spicier tamales. I have never really been into emoticons, but this is when discourse needs to support :frog:

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I didn’t hear of one happening where I live. If I had, I would have gone down to it to mock them for their stupidity.

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Feel free to elaborate.

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I think mocking No Kings protestors for foolishness is a bit like testing mace by spraying it upwind, but I’m not sure that’s what Hurrilon meant?

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The RW response, seen over and over and over, is apparently “Silly liberals! They say “No King” when we have a president, not a king! Har!”

roll eyes

Because “We Fear Our Country Is Sliding Into Autocracy and The Guardrails Aren’t Working” isn’t as catchy.

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It’s telling that that rhetorical nitpick is the straw the Trumpists clutch at, because they can’t refute any of the more specific criticisms raised by the No Kings protestors.

Is ICE overreach violating human rights, including those of US citizens, and disrupting communities and labor markets? Yup.

Is Trump a convicted felon who deserves incarceration, which he only escaped by being re-elected President? Yup.

Are Trump’s tariffs and government funding cancellations seriously inconveniencing US consumers and industry and having severe negative effects on the economy? Yup.

Is Trump a clueless egotistical buffoon constantly embarrassing himself and the country with his self-centered tantrums and ridiculous lies, egged on by a spineless bunch of Republican sycophants? Yup.

Is Trump abusing and lying about US citizens when he sends troops to terrorize peaceful protestors and poor communities in US cities that he falsely equates to “war zones”? Yup.

Is Trump carrying out extrajudicial murders by attacking other nations’ vessels on the high seas? Yup.

Are Trump administration officials being recklessly incompetent with mishandling classified data, sharing security-critical information on insecure networks, etc.? Yup.

Are Trump’s federal agency leaders constantly attempting illegal and tyrannical actions that don’t hold up in court? Yup.

Are Trump’s agency leaders pursuing goals that irresponsibly sabotage their agencies’ own purposes, like the HHS secretary trying to cancel vaccines and DOGE asset-stripping agencies it’s supposed to be “auditing”? Yup.

Is Trump physically smashing up part of the White House for his self-glorifying “ballroom” construction project that never went through any review or approval process appropriate for this historic federal building? Yup.

Are Trump’s actions immiserating millions of Americans and making their jobs and healthcare access more precarious? Yup.

Has Trump actually accomplished anything to fulfill any of his vapid promises about making Americans safer and healthier and better off? Nope.

“Oh, but Trump’s not actually an officially designated king, so that means the ‘No Kings’ protestors are stupid!!! Ah ha ha ha you silly protestors, we mock you for your stupidity!!”

Yeah, that really is all you’ve got by way of rebuttal.

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They do not have a rebuttal. They have “Hate you-Lie about you-Cheat-WIN!”

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Here’s an expert assessment of the impact and potential of the latest No Kings protests. Krugman’s Substack today: he interviewed Erica Chenowith, author of Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Spoiler alert: after No Kings comes Civil Resistance.

(It’s about a 40-min interview. There’s a transcript if you don’t want to listen.)

…
Chenowith: Now, civil resistance is a broader phenomenon than just protest. Civil resistance is when people engage in sustained levels of mobilization, organization and political conflict without using violence. So it includes protests, but it also includes other methods of non-cooperation, of community organizing, of base building, of sometimes bargaining and negotiation. Lots of different methods to try to shift the balance of power in their favor. Civil resistance can be used where elections don’t happen at all and it can be used where elections do happen. It’s sort of a broad range technique of struggle that is meant to dislocate whatever the sort of opponent is of the movement from their pillars of support by changing what their interests are and the future of the country.

The degree to which civil resistance works depends on a variety of things. How does the movement build a capacity for broadening its base over time? How it builds a capacity for engaging in a wide variety of methods like non-cooperation, strikes, boycotts and the like. Also whether it is able to withstand the almost inevitable violent attacks against it, by maintaining discipline and resilience and making that violence backfire. Those are the key characteristics of movements that succeeded, at least in the 20th century, to do things like initiate democratic breakthroughs in Poland and in the Philippines and later on in Serbia, Brazil, and Argentina. People are familiar with the Arab awakenings of the early 2010s, etc. So those cases are what we would call civil resistance cases, more so than protest by itself.
…
Then there’s an understanding that now that we all know this information, there’s no going back to the previous status quo where it felt like the situation was permanent, only going to get worse, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
…

It’s not all puppy dogs and rainbows, but I felt hopeful after reading it.

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Moderating:

Just a reminder, @ThelmaLou is reporting what a specific author is saying the next step is. Civil Resistance can cover a huge range of topics, many of which are fully legal. But before this sidetrack has a chance to invite discussion, I’ll gently remind all that Civil Disobedience or other forms of resistance involving lawbreaking is not allowed per the TOS. Again Civil Resistance is NOT automatically the same thing, but it can head over the line if we’re not careful in our discussions.