Rising This Week: No Kings 2.0
Trump's militarization and fear-mongering won't stop the second wave of protests from dwarfing the original.
All Rise News will clearly state where the law stands as a barometer for your power.
Donald Trump’s efforts to demonize and try to criminalize peaceful protest have grown more flailing and desperate as No Kings 2.0 approaches on Sat., Oct. 18.
There’s been Trump’s absurd campaign to brand “antifa” as terrorists, even though anti-fascist activists are not a formal group and there is no such thing as a domestic terrorist organization under U.S. law. The First Amendment wouldn’t allow it, which is why Trump’s identical declaration about antifa during his first term went nowhere.
During a recent interview with me, former FBI counterintelligence official explained: “It’s by design that as a country, we’ve decided we don’t want political leaders designating … a group of people they don’t like a domestic terror organization and unleashing the full force of the federal government on [entities that] don’t exist and [people] he doesn’t like.”
No Kings 2.0 protesters and organizers haven’t been intimidated, even as Trump’s campaign escalates.
‘A scare tactic’
On Sept. 25, three days after his most recent anti-”antifa” edict, Trump purported to supercharge the power he doesn’t have with National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), instructing four of his cabinet members to use the power of the state against other ill-defined boogeymen like “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” and their “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions.”
As more than 300 nonprofit groups wrote in an open letter, the memo lays the groundwork for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to target people and groups disfavored by Trump for investigation or prosecution because of their speech or associations.
Lawfare’s
aptly describes the memo as a “weird mix of nonsense and menace” because it is based on a conspiracy theory and directs government resources against perceived political opposition in violation of the First Amendment.In other words, according to former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord: “It doesn’t do anything on its own.”
“It is a scare tactic,” McCord told All Rise News. “It tells the federal government to use all current tools to target people based on their political views, and I expect the government will use those tools aggressively.”
Trump 2.0 has been filled with executive actions like those targeting major law firms, university funding and birthright citizenship. Those who fought back against the clearly unconstitutional actions quickly won in court. Others, including some of the world’s most powerful law firms and prestigious universities, folded from the beginning.
That’s why Nonprofit Quarterly viewed NSPM-7 more as a “legal blueprint for intimidation” than for enforcement, relying more on fear and self-censorship than lawful power.
‘After a few moments of laughter’
Congressional Republicans appear to be fully on board with Trump’s incendiary and reckless conflation of protest and civil society with terrorism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson labeled No Kings 2.0 a “hate America rally” drawing from the “pro-Hamas wing” of the Democratic party and people aligned with “antifa.” Johnson also seemed to suggest a link between the shutdown and the protests, a proposition both ludicrous and chronologically impossible. Organizers announced No Kings 2.0 well before the government shutdown.
This was the response on the No Kings website:
“After a few moments of laughter, the No Kings coalition issued the following statement.”
“Speaker Johnson is running out of excuses for keeping the government shut down. Instead of reopening the government, preserving affordable healthcare, or lowering costs for working families, he’s attacking millions of Americans who are peacefully coming together to say that America belongs to its people, not to kings.
“We’ll see everyone on October 18.”
On Sept. 30, No Kings 2.0 organizers estimated that they already had more than 2,110 planned protests and events across the United States and internationally, surpassing the number organized before the first.
As last week drew to a close, a federal judge in Chicago became the latest to block Trump’s troop deployment in a U.S. city. She issued that ruling after disclosing that she had received threats as soon as she was assigned the case.
‘Don’t believe him’
In early February, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein distinguished between Trump’s real, claimed and imagined powers in an essay titled “Don’t Believe Him.”
“He may believe he has the power he is claiming. That would be a mistake on his part — a self-deception that could doom his presidency. But the real threat is if he persuades the rest of us to believe he has power he does not have.”
The list of self-aggrandizing Trumpian deceptions has grown long over the past eight months, and it’s become more important than ever for journalism to state simple declarative facts.
There is no Department of War, and it is not engaged in war on American cities.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeth’s nickname for his Senate-confirmed position has no official force.
Only Congress can create or rename a government agency, as it did when Harry Truman signed legislation creating the Department of Defense and discarding the pre-World War II era name that Trump now wants to resurrect.
Trump did not declare antifa a domestic terrorist organization because there is no such organization or legal concept in the United States Code.
NSPM-7 amounts to a White House press release announcing a plan to use the machinery of government, through pliant cabinet members, to unlawfully harass civil society groups and individuals based on their First Amendment-protected speech and associations.
Trump has no power to override a constitutional amendment by executive fiat.
Whether seeking to cozy up to power or sensationalize for attention, some news organizations casually parrot Trump’s rhetoric of war without emphasizing the limits of his power.
In doing so, they sacrifice accuracy, enable abuses of power and mislead audiences about basic civics.
Demand fundamental fact-checking on these basic concepts and support journalists and news organizations that provide it.
In the Courts
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case inviting them to gut the vestiges of the Voting Rights Act: Louisiana v. Callais, a likely vehicle to upend Section 2’s protections against diluting Black voting power through racially gerrymandered maps. According to Politico, voting rights groups predicted that such a ruling could let Republicans redraw 19 more House seats.
Before oral arguments take place, look out for my scheduled interview with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project director Sophia Lin Lakin, which is scheduled to air on Tuesday.
Also on Wednesday, a federal judge in California will hear oral arguments about whether to temporarily block the Trump administration from using the ongoing shutdown to fire thousands of government workers.
In a legal filing, the federal government disclosed that they sent notices of the following mass layoffs.
Department of Commerce: approximately 315 employees
Department of Education: approximately 466 employees
Department of Energy: approximately 187 employees
Department of Health and Human Services: between approximately 1100 and 1200 employees
Department of Housing and Urban Development: approximately 442 employees
Department of Homeland Security: approximately 176 employees
Department of Treasury: approximately 1446 employees
Last week, a federal judge suggested during daylong oral arguments that she would likely order Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from immigration custody because the government did not demonstrate serious efforts toward his eventual deportation. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis could issue her written opinion at any time.
Court watchers also will be looking out for the Ninth Circuit’s ruling over the deployment of the National Guard in Portland.
On the Streets
The more than 2,100 protests and events for No Kings 2.0 on Saturday make for a crowded interactive map.
Find protests in your area by clicking on the map below:
You can find other listings for upcoming protests and opportunities for civic engagement at theblop.org and mobilize.us.
On the Phones
Three federal judges demanded that Trump stop his deployment of the military into U.S. cities.
The Ninth Circuit overruled one judge already, in a case that will be reviewed en banc. A separate panel in that court just heard another case over the deployment of troops in Portland, Ore., and the Seventh Circuit will hear another related to Chicago.
Whatever the outcome of those appeals, people calling Capitol Hill are alarmed.
Note: Since congressional call records aren’t usually publicly available, the app’s internal data offers a rare glimpse into this form of civic engagement. See our previous coverage here for context about how the information 5 Calls collects fits into the bigger picture.
Last week’s Top 5 topics were:
Stop the Deployment of US Military to Police Americans (19,571 calls)
Oppose a Blank Check Federal Budget Deal - GOV SHUT DOWN (8,881 calls)
Extend the Affordable Care Act Premium Tax Credits (5,307 calls)
End Trump’s Dictator Rule (4,443 calls)
Demand Speaker Johnson Swear in Rep Grijalva (4,301 calls)
The group’s weekly dashboard can be found here.
The figures for layoffs are astounding. Thanks for including!