No Kings Photo Report From the Front Line

Post 90 – Tales from the Road

I attended the NO KINGS rally in Bloomfield, New Jersey, on Saturday.

ON THE MARK

It was one of the most enthusiastic, well-run protests I’ve attended in a long time. The sense of unity was palpable.

MISSING THE MARK

I haven’t been to many protests since Trump was first elected in 2016 because I’ve been greatly dismayed by their lack of discipline and focus. And I almost didn’t attend this rally because of what I saw at a “pro-Palestinian” rally at Rutgers in April 2024.

People at that protest carried signs promoting causes that not only had little to do with the Palestinian cause, but that also served as rallying cries for MAGAs. What does “Defund the Police” have to do with the Palestinian cause, anyway?

One of the chants repeated throughout the Rutgers rally called for “intifada.” “Intifada” technically means “uprising,” but its public perception is often associated with suicide attacks. Couldn’t they have found a better word to use than that?

These bad looks probably contributed a great deal to Trump’s reelection and support for his crusade against higher education. I doubt Trump’s attacks on colleges really have much to do with “antisemitism.” But it’s easy for him to convince millions of people that they do, and thereby gain support for his assaults on science and knowledge. All he has to do is point to pictures from rallies at Rutgers and Columbia.

DISCIPINED AND FOCUSED

This rally, on the other hand, was quite disciplined and focused. I only saw one instance of somebody pursuing their personal agenda. And it was the only thing there that I thought didn’t belong at this rally. It was a single Mexican flag hanging from the back of a pick-up truck.

And I may not have been the only one who felt that. When the driver pulled up, protesters walked away. Throughout the two-hour rally, I didn’t see one instance where other protesters came within fifty feet of the Mexican flag, and I saw nobody interacting with the truck driver.

WHO WAS THERE?

Using the Benjamin Franklin method, I estimated that about one thousand people participated. And because it is an issue, I took note that about 90% of these people were “white.” About 10% were “people of color.” No one I spoke with had a foreign accent.

This is important for many reasons, one being that although some media have portrayed protesters as being mostly undocumented immigrants, it’s safe to say that the vast majority in attendance at this rally were not.

Another reason this is important is that it shows, at least in this area where “whites” make up significantly less than 90% of the population, that people who are presumably not the targets of Trump’s deportation efforts care passionately about Trump’s deportation and other anti-American policies.

I also counted 89 people whom I estimated to be 30 years old or younger. Of them, 73 were female and 16 were male.

Too bad we didn’t have Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Joan Baez, or any of the hundreds of younger musicians there to share the power of song and lead the people singing.

THE AMERICAN IDEAL

Last week, describing the “American Ideal, ” I pointed out that a big part of why we declared independence from the British Crown, is the principle that we the people don’t need to be told how to run our lives by a king, queen, or prince; pope, rabbi or imam; business executive, market forces, TV programs, or “influencers,” IF we can govern ourselves responsibly through representative democracy.

That makes this sign perhaps the most important one at the rally:

Whether one believes in God or not, both the words on this sign and the “American Ideal” can only be true if no one person or group of people has a monopoly on truth. Despite the religious fervor among many MAGAs, a king ruling America is antithetical not only to the American Ideal but also to Judeo-Christian values.

Here are some good one-liners from the rally:

Thank goodness for this one:

And then there were these:

I applaud everybody who, long before the smoke clears, continues to

Keep the Flame (of Democracy) Alive!

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