No Kings Days One, Two, and Three were mass protests. Millions of Americans came out in thousands of places to express their anger and despair over Donald Trump’s cruel and destructive abuses of executive power. They made themselves heard. They discovered they were not alone. Then they went home.
But this No Kings Day, coming up on Saturday, has a distinct deliverable: Making sure that every possible eligible voter is registered, knows how to vote, has a plan to vote – and ideally votes early.
“No Kings Day: Vote Early” will include some rallies and some marches, but the signature events will be voter registration drives, walks to the polls, and block parties.
The No Kings event in downtown Minneapolis will be a big festival – advertised as “Voters fest. Minnesota Music. Inspiring Speakers. Fun for Kids… NOT a March”.
In Floris, Virginia, residents are invited to a neighborhood cookout at Frying Pan Farm Park
In Black Mountain, N.C., participants will gather in the town square then march over to the Black Mountain Library to cast early votes.
In one of several events in Atlanta, participants will gather at Piedmont Park then march through midtown and finish with election protection training conducted by the ACLU of Georgia, Black Voters Matter, and other groups.
Among the many events in the Boston area, the Mass 50501 group will host an Authoritarian House of Horrors at Boston Common, featuring a six-room haunted house where each room is dedicated to one of the tactics from the Authoritarian Playbook.
At one of several events in Washington, D.C., participants will gather at Black Lives Matter Plaza carrying umbrellas with messages on them, focused on voting. Then they’ll march to the Capitol.
In Athens, Georgia, participants will meet in front of a Ben & Jerry’s near the University of Georgia to distribute voter information literature, then fan out in order to “talk with football fans” – 94,000 of whom will be in town for the UGA-Auburn game. Organizers say: “It won’t be hard to find people to chat with!”
There are at least 78 events in Michigan alone. “The battle is between the voting booth and the couch,” Ryan Bates, executive director of End Gun Violence Michigan, told the Michigan Advance. “We need to beat the couch, if we’re gonna save this democracy.”
He continued: “We’ve convinced the country that there is an urgent danger to our democracy, and it’s time to move beyond standing with a sign and using our power as voters to try and protect our freedom.”
Here’s how Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, explained it to MS NOW’s Chris Hayes:
It’s all been leading up to this. At a time when elites across America were collapsing – from big business, to media, to law firms, to even members of the Democratic Party, were seeing Trump come in with all this power and they were collapsing in front of him – normal people around the country weren’t.
That’s why we saw 5 million people at No Kings One, we saw 7 million people at No Kings Two, we saw more than 8 million people at No Kings Three earlier this March. And the point of No Kings One, Two, and Three was to send a message: “We’re not afraid. We’re not going to give up our constitutional rights.” And look, that message was sent. That message was heard.
The point of No Kings on October 17th is not to send a message. The point is to prevent an authoritarian from consolidating power. How do you do that? Well, you do it through boosting early vote to the biggest returns that we’ve seen in this country’s history. And you do it by recruiting for a volunteer force to push back against any kind of sabotage that comes our way. So at a high level, you’re going to see millions of people out at thousands of events, just like No Kings One, Two, and Three. But the specific outcome of that is going to be: Democracy reasserts itself.
Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo shared this message on Facebook:
We’ve protested, we’ve marched and now it’s time to Vote Early! Join me for #NoKingsVoteEarly in what will be one of the largest days of mass voter participation and election protection in our nation’s history. The more of us who vote early, the harder it will be to undermine our elections and the more of us who will be ready on Election Day to stop voter suppression and any election interference. Let’s go!
Organizers are advertising resources that encourage people to check their voter registration, check their state voter ID laws, know their rights, and know what to do if they see federal agents at the polls.
Relatedly, the American Prospect reports on how “Thousands of people are preparing to protect the midterm elections and mobilize immediately if President Trump interferes with the results.”
May Day Strong has hosted more than 750 “solidarity school” training sessions nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates have spent a record $25.5 million on voter education, with more than 67,000 new volunteers signing up for the group’s People Power list.
“The AFL-CIO has recruited and trained more than 50,000 volunteers to protect polling sites, especially in communities of color and places that ICE is targeting,” the Prospect reports. “Freedom Trainers, Indivisible, and the Immigrant Defense Network are likewise running trainings, as are numerous unions, faith groups, and community organizations.”
Another Shooting, Followed by More Protests
Protesters are demanding that ICE leave New York City after yet another shooting – this one of Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was shot in the neck Thursday afternoon when ICE agents opened fire on his vehicle with his 5-year-old son sitting in the back seat.
As many as 5,000 people participated in a protest on Friday at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan. There have been frequent protests in the Marble Hill neighborhood of Manhattan where the shooting took place, outside the Columbia Presbyterian Allen Hospital in the Bronx, where Belgal was initially taken, and outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is being held in solitary confinement, with a bullet still in his neck.
The Week in the Courts
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., struck down the Trump administration’s plan to check state voter rolls against a federal immigration database. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote that DOJ “cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people.” She called it “startling” that the Civil Rights Division claimed that its “tools to protect the right to vote” gave it the authority to demand voters be removed from the rolls.
Another federal judge in Washington ruled that CNN, MS NOW and Politico are likely to succeed in their case against Trump for banning them from the White House because he didn’t like their coverage. Judge Timothy Kelly wrote that there was “simply nothing in the record” to suggest any due process as required by the Fifth Amendment. He wrote that the link between the ban and the organization’s protected First Amendment speech was obvious, and that there was “no evidence” to support Trump’s post-facto assertion of national security grounds “or any direct evidence that national security was even on his mind then.”
A federal judge in New York on Sunday and then again on Monday ordered the Trump administration to stop running taxpayer-funded pro-Trump ads on national television. Judge Jennifer Rochon wrote that “Plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on their claims that Defendants acted contrary to law and exceeded their statutory authority.” According to Common Cause, more ads ran on Monday afternoon, but DOJ said that was only because didn’t see the order right away. Now, however, similar ads are on the White House’s YouTube channel. Politico reports that Rochon extended her order on Wednesday.
Another federal judge in Washington ordered a halt to tree-cutting at the East Potomac Golf Course. In a hearing on Monday, Judge Ana C. Reyes described herself as “furious” at being deceived by DOJ attorneys who had assured her there were no plan for tree removal. “I had said at the May hearing that I didn’t want 10 trees chopped down without someone having notice,” Reyes told DOJ attorney Marissa Ann Piropato. The Park Service cut down 430. “On what universe did anyone in your office think that that was acceptable?” Reyes asked. When Piropata said “we did our best in providing notice,” Reyes shot back: “You did not do your best! You did your absolute worst!” In her ruling, Reyes concluded that the trees were cut down because Trump had demanded “haste.” She said that “What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case.”
A federal judge in Arizona ordered DHS to return Ahmed Soliman to the United States, five months after the 31-year-old Egyptian man, who has lived in Phoenix, Arizona, since he was four, was sent to Equatorial Guinea, a country where he knew no one, was held in indefinite detention, and was beaten. Judge John C. Hinderaker wrote that Soliman’s removal “without notice of the country of removal and a meaningful opportunity to raise a country-specific claim against removal” violated his due process rights.
A magistrate judge in Virginia cleared a former FEMA official’s name of false claims knowingly leveled by then-DHS secretary Kristi Noem and Elon Musk. William E. Fitzpatrick ruled that “For reasons unfathomable to this Court,” the two had “engaged in a coordinated public relations campaign to impugn the personal and professional integrity” of Mary Comans, “a singular employee with an impeccable record of public service.”
A California judge blocked a proposed massive reorganization at the USDA that would have eliminated the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, the nation’s premier agricultural research facility, and would have moved the Forest Service headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, among other major changes. Judge Vince Chhabria wrote that “If the agency wishes to move forward with its plans to close offices and relocate employees, it will soon have the opportunity to convince Congress of the merits of those plans.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit alleging that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and envoy, is breaking the law by acting as one of the country’s top diplomats without undergoing Senate confirmation or filing financial disclosures.
Democracy Defenders sued ICE for detaining people, taking their IDs and work papers, then keeping the papers after they’re released. The suit says that people lost jobs and feared leaving their homes due to their lack of documentation.
End Notes
From the Newshouse in Syracuse, N.Y.: “Thousands protest Trump’s Syracuse visit in Clinton Square.”
From the Chicago Sun-Times: “‘Broadview Six’ judge testing claims made by Boutros, others in tainted case.”
From the New York Times Magazine: “Inside the Group of Texans Accused of Being Antifa Terrorists.” A ridiculously long article that eventually gets around to the draconian sentences given to participants in an anti-ICE protest gone wrong outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. This summed it up for me: “[Benjamin] Song shot a cop,” a defense attorney said. “It was a clear opportunity for the Trump D.O.J. to overreach on everyone else who wasn’t Song. That is the story of this case. And it was ridiculous, until it became unspeakable.”