[NB: check the byline, thanks. UPDATES at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

There will be coast-to-coast protest rallies today; the theme is No Kings.

If you are participating, please be safe while exercising your First Amendment right to non-violent protest. wear sunblock, comfortable shoes and clothing, know your rights and help others know theirs, be careful with your electronic devices. Respect others’ needs for safety and security.

But by all means, do protest against a proto-monarchical authoritarian state which doesn’t align with the intents of the nation’s founders — a nation founded and based on laws, not a man.

~ ~ ~

I’m not able to attend a rally today, but I’m already watching media coverage. It began better than I expected:

This was the top of my Google News feed, which is better coverage already than the last two No Kings rallies. In my home state Michigan, USA Today affiliate the Detroit Free Press reported there were 100 rallies planned across the state, even offering a map.

Expanding the coverage in Google News, though, I see a new trend. Particular outlets are insisting No Kings doesn’t have an effective point (MS Now), is bad group therapy (WSJ), may not be effective (WaPo), may not build an effective political movement (NYT).

Oh, we get it — the corporate-owned media doesn’t want the simple theme, No Kings, to break through to any more of the public. Their overlords are just fine with a demented orange pseudo-monarch; they’ve become comfortable with their kneepads.

But this country was build on that simple theme, No Kings. Those same media outlets began and thrived under the premise that their speech was a right a king couldn’t threaten.

It’s right fucking there in their ability to print their toxic trash undermining the point of this and the previous No King rallies. What a bloody shame these outlets can’t see their efforts are a reflection on their own effectiveness, their own value to the news-consuming American public.

The myriad signs carried in previous rallies and again today are bullet points under the theme. This nation will have no king. It wants to remain a democracy and it’s willing to take action to do so.

The number of participants will underline that point. Pooh-poohing this as bad group therapy is a poor attempt to deny that it is a group, it is big and growing bigger, and it is telling the world and the pseudo-king they can articulate their grievances just as 56 signers did in 1776.

~ ~ ~

This is NOT an open thread. It’s dedicated to the No Kings rally. If you attended or observed, please feel free to share below. Links to photos with attribution are appreciated.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE — 07:35 PM ET —

I’m sharing a few links here because you can be certain major news media outlets will understate today’s rallies if they don’t suppress it at all.

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116308893837230088

Really great thread from Chicago:

https:Rpc.social/@Crell/116307951584576537

Hello, Escondido:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309217876510656

And San Diego!

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116308375909420421

Super crowd in St. Paul MN:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309217380437862

Lots of observations like these from red locales:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309200459383467

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309132415851158

From Trump’s media market:

Honolulu, no ka oi!

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309049802309640

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309020714831671

Asian aunties for the win!

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309170836760450

And anti-Nazi grammies:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309066407284087

Looks like one heckuva party in Kansas City:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309064014366254

Props to Covington KY:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309146157342488

Hey Ogden UT:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309095386385496

You go, Missoula MT!

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309034068776107

Boston showed up big:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309081092590428

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309068920970418

Bon jour, Paris!

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116307722112594391

Shout out to Sydney Australia:

https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/116309228437626260

If you see links to other rally locations I haven’t posted here, please share in comments.

My wife and I will go to one of a dozen or so neighborhood protests instead of the big one downtown. I figure that two people make a more noticeable difference in a crowd of 500 than one of 50,000. Plus, it’s an awful lot easier to get there.

My sign is Woody Guthrie themed: one side is “All you fascists are bound to lose” and the other is “This land is our land.”

Rayne said this but it bears repeating. Respect your fellow protesters’ privacy. Take pictures only after asking and receiving permission. Don’t post other people’s faces to social media.

I am not good at estimating turnout, but this one looked like it was even bigger than the last. And, it was cold. We deplored our fascist overlords and offered up the biggest cheer for removing Susan Collins, regardless of which of the candidates we nominate. Local businesses were prominently handing out snacks and otherwise being supportive – a sign they see little contrary pressure. This Blue Wave is coming.

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Just got home from one of the dozen or so suburban protests around KC, all of which were scheduled to end that would allow folks to then go to the major KC protest in the middle of the metro area this afternoon. It is a bright sunny day, but temps were around 35 this morning when the protest began.

The vibe at my event was very much a lively block party with about 3000 or so of my neighbors, but with less food and more snark. The event was located along a four lane road that bisects a local park, and the crowd lined both sides of the street and along a cross street, filling the air with signs, songs, and flags. Passing cars honked, and whenever an 18 wheeler went by and blasted their big horns, the crowd went nuts. The biggest cheer like that happened when a red fire department support vehicle from a neighboring suburb drove through and tapped their lights and siren — not to get through the road on the way to a call, but in a big sign of support for the protests. (I’m guessing they were out on a grocery run or something like that.) The firefighter on the passenger side of the vehicle leaned way out of his window, cheering and shouting and raising his hand in a fist to thank the protesters, and the protesters returned the favor themselves.

As for “the point” of the event, it was clearly “No Kings” but also noting that the King has plenty of minions doing plenty of mischief in Congress, the Missouri state capital and in local offices.

There are both school board and city government elections in ten days, and there were candidates and volunteers for these folks making the rounds and giving folks a very practical way to express themselves — VOTE!

The city has two Democratic state legislators, and I saw both of them gladhanding the crowd, and the same with a couple of progressive school board members. No sign of the Republican State Senator or the conservative school board members, though.

There were signature gatherers for various statewide election propositions, including a clever one who came dressed as the Easter Bunny. Petition gatherers generally have to approach the people they want to sign their sheets, but the Easter Bunny had folks coming to her on their own! She didn’t have to work the crowd, but simply planted herself in a prominent area and folks streamed to her all morning.

But the signs . . . oh, the signs and t-shirts.

“Only SHE can wear the CROWN” as the caption beside a hand-drawn image of the statue of Liberty being held by what looked like a high school young woman.

“No FAUX-KING Way!! above an image of Trump wearing a crown with an X through it, and “NO KINGS” at the bottom, held by what appeared to be a grandma in her 80s.

Another handmade sign had four hats — a German Wehrmacht hat from WWII, a truckers cap with a Confederal flag on it, the classic red MAGA hat, and a white Klan hood — with words above reading “Same Shit” and below “Different Hat.

“Super Callous Fragile Racist Sexist Nazi FOTUS” with a footnote explaining that FOTUS is “FELON of the United States”

“Even the Suburban Moms are here” held by — naturally — a suburban mom, who proved her street cred as she left, saying she was heading to take her kids to their soccer matches this afternoon.

“I’m a better Christian than MAGA, and I’m an atheist!”

“Could some please explain which crimes get you deported and which ones get you elected President? It’s so confusing”

“If only children were as protected as the Epstein Files”

Anagram signs can be tough, but this one worked well: a big MAGA went down the left side of the sign, with Morons Are Governing America going off each letter across the sign. There were also smaller messages on it as well, like “The wrong ICE is melting” and “If you elect a rapist, expect to get fucked.” Yes, it was all spelled out at a family friendly rally, and I didn’t see anyone have a problem with it.

“I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA”

“I prefer crushed ICE”

T-shirt: An ICE logo was in the middle, with “Keep Immigrants” above it and “Deport Racists” below it.

Gotta love pissed off suburbanites, and the amount of “you gotta vote next month!” conversations happening all around me made me very happy indeed.

Thank you for sharing the messages on some of the signs. Made me laugh.

Best one: I’m a better Christian………..

Haven’t seen any great amount of reporting. MS news has it listed as starting at 8 p.m. for B.C. so thank you for listing the sites where we can watch the protests.

It is great to see the number of protests around the U.S.A. and the high number of people attending. Some media organization will try to down play the importance of these demonstrations but they send a clear message to politicians. Then when people vote a Republican out of office it demonstrates protests and democracy works.

To all those who went to the demonstrations Thank You. The U.S.A. was established as an interesting new way of arranging government. It did not provide for Kings or dictators. This form of government has been doing fine for 250 years. Many other countries adopted similar styles of government and they work well there also. To the No Kings protestors and organizers, good job. Trump and his corporate buddies do get the message. The message maybe, if you continue down this road your share values may drop and you may also become road kill if you upset Trump. Just look at how many of Putin’s former friends are now dead by “mysterious” means.

It’s a beautiful spring day for a Royal Flush. We’re going to one of several events here in Berkeley. I dusted off my TRUCK FUMP sign from the 2017 Pink Hat March.

I thought of you as I read a lot of the signs at the protest I attended.

: )

(“Like” button thingy)

I saw Bluesky posts showing crowds getting to rally in DC:

Just got back from the Indivisible sponsored No Kings in Tulsa. Bigger than I imagined; smaller than I had hoped. But this is the same part of the state that has a faith healer university and sent Markwayne Mullin to the US Senate, so we take what we can get.

I saw a sign at our rally saying something like “Missouri to the nation: Sorry about Josh Hawley.”

This was my third No Kings March in Philadelphia. Today was the largest. Also, the crowd seemed more diverse than in the past, younger and less white.

I was so incensed by the Jeremy Peters article in the New York Times today that I composed a letter to him explaining that although claims to be unbiased, it was essentially a hit piece on the No Kings marches.

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Good on you for writing to Peters. The rally hadn’t even been begun but NYT’s Peters had a position staked out already.

It might be helpful to go back and look at the two previous No Kings rallies and see if your state had more/fewer rallies across the state. I am certain the number of rallies in Michigan have grown several times over, as an example.

I also know that Sinclair TV stations’ websites are minimizing the rallies — providing a basic story but reducing impact and number of the rallies. Don’t trust TV sites, IOW.

I am really feeling the FOMO this evening. Mr. Chocolate had a ticket to the PWHL takeover game in Detroit today to watch his Victoire team (who won 3-1, woot!). That meant I was Parent on Duty for our autistic son. He’s not fond of large crowds so I didn’t attempt attending.

But had I been able to go, I could have attended 3 different rallies and 1 sing along. And I was pleasantly surprised by some of the smaller towns around me that were holding No Kings protests. A couple of them had rallies in October. But I’m not sure about a few of the others.

So to your point, Rayne, I also think Michigan had many more rallies than previously. I’m waiting to see what the attendance numbers are from the local media vs the local Indivisible groups.

Aw shucks, I should have shared a link to the virtual No Kings rally! It was meant for folks like us who are caretakers and the folks who need our care.

Local media will understate the numbers. They always do. They will also marginalize attendees including those of significance. My sibling got to meet with our lieutenant governor today — bet his attendance won’t get a mention at all.

I think your title’s response to MS NOW’s weak argument that No Kings protests have no point is entirely on point.

Thinking MS Now was being obtuse — we just don’t know if it’s deliberate or not.

I just got back from the one in St. Paul. There were 150-200K of us in front of the Minnesota state capitol, and despite what NYT, WSJ, et al. say, I think we were all perfectly clear on what the point is. I suggest to them that if they would get off their knees and pull their heads out of Trump’s nether orifice they would understand it too.

Also, why does a mass gathering have to “have a point”? My friends and I have gone to every one of these rallies (on New Haven’s Green and at Tweed Airport back when Avelo was carrying deportees). Today turned prohibitively cold for stupidly dressed me, but seeing so many others willing to express their own convictions always ameliorates the sense of isolated helplessness that has festered all winter–deliberately (while this administration lacks any strategy in Iran, I believe Stephen Miller–with Trump’s blessing–strategized this campaign to demoralize and depress the American public) exacerbated by the drip by drip Epstein revelations and Trump’s “excursions” in Venezuela and Iran.

Wanting a “point” is like wanting a hierarchy: it’s a relic of (definitionally patriarchal) rules that serve mainly to render opposition to power powerless, to maintain the structures that protect the status quo.

There may be a reason pieces asking “what’s the point” are being promulgated.

Think about this in terms of DARVO. What’s the point of Trump’s war on Iran? Where’s the strategy? Trumpists are desperate for a reason to get out from under these questions; it’s convenient to flip this on its head and ask the left what’s the point/where’s the strategy.

The point and subsequent strategy are far more simple than the answer they can’t produce about Trump’s misadventure in the Middle East.

Good turnout here in a suburb of Sacramento, easier to get to and we wanted to see who our people were. Indivisible support crew said about 700 (it’s a busy intersection with sometimes 100 cars waiting at stop light in three lanes) at peak count. Indivisible had posted more than a handful of suburban sites in Sacto valley including bridges, so perhaps the easier access will help our total national count.

I was surprised by the number of big trucks whose drivers were honking in support but glad to see it. I was in an inflatable costume (mild sauna effect) so more focused on where my feet were than tracking signage. Although can testify there was lots of creativity!

One variation on ‘Supercalifrag…’ noted above, was this: Super, Callous, Fragile, Rapist, Greedy, a-Lying, Pedo-POTUS. Sort of broke the rhythm but I liked it.

I was in a foothill Sac suburb, gathering signatures to qualify a local initiative for the ballot. The crowd at the courthouse was the second-largest I’ve ever seen (I live in a conservative community, so the biggest was an anti-public health rally during Covid), and yes, less gray and white than prior NK rallies. Drive-by support was raucous and very much pro-demonstrator. A good day to stand up and be counted.

Photo story: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/no-kings-protests-held-to-rally-against-trump-22157289.php

Minneapolis, St Paul, DC, Rome, Berlin.

woke up feeling very low energy, but scrolling bluesky and seeing all the great turnouts in towns large and small, i am now putting on my hiking shoes and gonna head down the path to our local rally/march. will check back in upon my return…

the local Fox news station is the only one I noticed NOT sharing much about it here in central NC. the others have coverage all over their webpages, and interviews.

Here in Bluff, Utah about 40 people (out of 250) and several dogs marched along the highway. Festive crowd. Only one driver’s finger lifted to us. Many cars cheered and waved. Surprisingly, several cars with Utah license plates (with American flag on them) honked and waved. Some tourists in town joined us. Slow but steady headway in changing opinions.

We led the walk with a large American flag in front. A simple, direct message.

WTF does the Journal editorial page know about anything, really. Having just returned, buoyed, from a massive, high-energy march downtown in my deep-blue college town—and having participated on every previous NK event day—I can say they have all been great group therapy. I’m continually impressed and encouraged by the creativity, caring, decency and commitment of my countrymen.

For so many folks, the mess over which Trump is presiding is dispiriting. “It’s so bad, and so big, and I’m so small that it overwhelms me.” It makes folks feel alone and impotent.

And then an event like No Kings happens, and every bit of that is challenged.

I discover that I am not alone, but surrounded by neighbors who share my outrage.

I am not impotent, but have an avenue for action and making my voice heard.

I learn that there are politician and candidates who seek me out, to gain my support, to build and build and build an organization to push back.

And by the end, I am not dis-spirited but re-spirited, by all that “creativity, caring, decency, and commitment” of my neighbors.

Indivisible did a great job organizing the event in my sleepy little coastal county of southwest Oregon. Every coastal town had an event and though mine is the smallest, a pretty good number turned out and the energy was fantastic.

It’s not so much Indivisible though the organization provides infrastructure for organizing. It’s really local folks who choose to step up and be the local organizer who make rallies happen.

Thanks to all of those folks who made this 3rd event take off.

Back home. The protest was bigger than the last one, probably more than a thousand people. This was the closest one for ~30K Seattle residents. Lots of friendly car horn toots and waves from motorists, only one negative response.

Favorite signs:

Two paths diverged in the wood. America chose the psychopath

Don’t make me repeat myself -History

Red Card #47

My favorite was carried by a marcher with a golden retriever.

“He doesn’t have a dog”

Attended No Kings in Olympia, WA. Best attendance yet. An escalation this time, as we marched through downtown, tying up traffic for over an hour. The signs were richer and more varied than past demos.

I estimate that 1 out of every 30 residents in my low-population rural county turned out to demonstrate, and there was a LOT of support from drivers passing by (horns with thumbs up, etc).

This county is purple and went for Trump by a narrow margin last election. People are pissed about ICE and about Iran and the price of gas and diesel. Surprising to me about the number of jacked-up pickup trucks going by that were obviously in support of the demonstration. I joined a group of Veterans Against Trump which was comprised of a few from Korea, many from Vietnam, and quite a number from Afghanistan and both Iraqs, some with purple hearts. I carried a Canadian flag, which drew many comments, none complimentary of the orange jackass.

RESIST

I read they had 200 people out in Quincy, CA, population 2000.

That’s *more* than 3.5 percent! Great job, Quincy!

I saw about half a dozen signs referencing this theory, with the exact figure in each one. Maybe it’s a Yale thing…

Torrance (South Bay region of Los Angeles) NK 3 – more people there than the large one last June. I would estimate 5000-6000 showed up. My favorite sign:

ok, i’m back! so glad i went. huuuuge turnout for my mid-size PacNW town. got there as the march started off so was at the front. we went downtown several blocks then circled around, at which point we could look down the alleys and see the marchers still passing by. awaiting an official count, but definitely the largest turnout of the three rallies/marches so far. incredibly well organized by Indivisible, TroubleMakers and another organization I can’t remember.

when all the marchers returned to the rally spot there were people holding up signs bearing the names of the different neighborhoods in the area. i went to mine and added my name to the contact sheet and talked with several women (and one man) about future planning. for now, we’re gonna meet up for a walk along the water to brainstorm ideas for other actions we all can take. a good, inspiring day.

Good turnout today in Gainesville, FL – more than the last two NKs, though not overwhelmingly so.

Fewer pro-fas than previously; more police presence, but I didn’t see or hear about anything besides routine traffic control.

Got a lot of positive response for my sign: “Investigate EVERYTHING!”

In our small Northern California town we had about 500. The next town down the road had around 900. In aggregate this is about 30 percent better than the last No Kings.

Reports indicate that today’s “No Kings Day” has surpassed the previous two in both size and scale, with anti-Trump protests conducted today internationally. This momentum has finally given the long-rumored National Strike a definitive date: May 1st.

On May Day, the goal is a total U.S. general strike—no work, no school, no shopping. While a single day is a start, I support a three-day strike that would truly show the White House that power resides with We The People, not with Trump and his goons.