June 14 is 'No Kings' Day

You know he is lying.

When Donald Trump spews anything, it's a pretty good bet that he's shoveling you shit and calling it candy corn. As I often say, he doesn't lie to be believed but to be repeated. And that 101 con man move—unfortunately—has proven to be highly effective, especially against "enlightenment" thinkers to the left who remain unwilling to repeat anything, even if it's working.

Repetition works, as does spectacle, especially if it is not countered and ideally drowned out by a more effective spectacle.

So we know Donald Trump is lying.

He's lying about his businesses, which he still runs. He's lying about not wanting a third term in the same interview, where he says, "I don't know," about whether the president of the United States has to follow the Constitution.

"He's hedging on the 3rd term talk because it's massively unpopular," posted The Nerd Reich's Gil Durán. "But the only thing standing in his way is the Constitution ... and he refuses to say that he supports it."

There's another thing standing in his way: Us.

That's why we must prepare for America's next big mass mobilization—June 14th, No Kings Day. Let Ezra Levin of Indivisible explain:

You can find an event near you here, or organize one of your own.

Now, you may feel like you're stuck in a loop, repeating the same protests over and over. And you're right.

So I'll repeat: repetition works. It's how we get the message out.

And what's the message? We rule. We rule ourselves. The people decide.

"In America, the rule of law is king," Thomas Paine wrote. "But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.”

The have been over 5,000 protests against Donald Trump in 100 days because "No Kings" is the one idea that (nearly) all the original Founders and the Founders of our more perfect union since have agreed upon.

Still, need to be sensible about the power and limitations of these efforts, L.A. Kauffman cautions:

To put this another way, the overall scale of protests in the United States has been steadily increasing alongside the scale of the authoritarian threats we face.

It's never been possible to evaluate the impact of protests by their size alone. Small actions have often changed the course of history, while some massive mobilizations have accomplished not much than giving people a place to vent their frustrations.

That's why we must be focused on the message of any mass mobilization, which, Andrea Pitzer notes from reflecting on her work documenting concentration camps around the globe, is to remind those who think they rule us that the power resides with us.

In her most recent newsletter, she explained:

"...every dictator wants to appear as if he has enough power to transcend everyday life. He needs to be not only omnipotent but also in no way dependent on anyone else to achieve his goals, and completely above the day-to-day struggles affecting most people’s lives. To reveal the dictator as contingent might remind people where the real power lies."

That's why every one of us in the streets matters. And if you can bring someone new out on June 14th, you've doubled your power.

I also want to quote from a recent piece on WagingNonviolence.org from Everett Rudolf, a self-proclaimed "lifelong conservative" who has decided to get out and protest:

Within social and political academic circles, it’s an accepted fact that nonviolent protests are significantly more likely to result in positive change than movements that rely on physical force and weaponization. The wide variety of tactics employed in peaceful protests — economic boycotts, marches, strikes — give peaceful protesters the ability to attack single issues from multiple angles, as opposed to only force and intimidation.

Fortunately, that’s all I’ve seen so far. The first protest I went to was the April 5 Hands Off rally in Carson City, Nevada, which had about 7,000 people. Yes, there were some people who felt the need to hurl insults, but that’s to be expected in any large gathering. Nothing has escalated beyond that point, and bit by bit, I’ve felt a lot more confident about going to demonstrations.

We are all in Basic Training to counter authoritarianism.

It's new to us because we were born, more or less, free, depending on who we are. And if we want to live the rest of our lives with the same aspiration to freedom, we must practice the art of demonstrating our power again and again as we prepare for the moment it will matter most.

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