Coast-To-Coast Anti-Trump Protests Planned

Timed with Donald Trump’s planned military parade in Washington, D.C., thousands are set to take part in “No Kings Day of Defiance” protests across the country—denouncing both the spectacle and what they see as Trump’s push toward American authoritarianism.

According to CNN, the organizers of the more than 2,000 protests, which will occur in all 50 states say that the protests are a rejection of “authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy,” all of which have been epitomized by the second Trump administration. There are also numerous protests planned in other countries.

As more attention has been given to Trump’s actions in Los Angeles, where he has deployed both the National Guard and the Marines, more momentum against the mass arrests and increasingly indiscriminate and clandestine actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has picked up.

The actions in Los Angeles have led to protests in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas, and Washington, where, in addition to Trump’s potentially unconstitutional and controversial use of the National Guard and the Marines to quell protests, governors like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe respectively deployed and activated their state’s National Guard troops, characterizing their moves as reactions to unrest.

Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the organizations behind the No Kings protests, described the number of people protesting as a historic mobilization.

“Even conservative estimates say that 3.5 million people turned out for the Hands Off mobilization in April. That’s already 1% of the population of the US,” Levin told CNN. “No Kings is on track to exceed that by millions more. This is historic.”

Although political protest has proven fundamental to securing the rights and freedoms of Americans, Trump has taken a hard line, promising to deliver “heavy force” to “any” protestors at the military parade in Washington, D.C. In his comments, Trump also cast protestors of his immigration policy as un-American and people who hate the country.

An assertion that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was left to clarify during a June 10 briefing, saying that Trump was in support of peaceful protest.

“The president supports peaceful protests. He supports the First Amendment. He supports the right of Americans to make their voices heard,” Leavitt responded after being questioned about Trump’s planned restrictions at the parade, following his use of military force against immigration policy protests in Los Angeles. “He does not support violence of any kind. He does not support assaulting law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their job.”

Military parades are uncommon in America, and as former Army officer Brandon Friedman argued in an op-ed for MSNBC, the one Trump has orchestrated marks a clear line in the sand for military officers and political figures.

“President Trump’s military parade is, of course, troubling for its similarity to those that often take place in other countries like North Korea or Russia. In rare cases, such France’s Bastille Day parade, they are something of a celebration of democracy. But far more frequently, they are shows of force and expressions of belligerence. It’s arguable that they’re signs of deep-seated insecurity on the part of weak autocrats who demand them. What is inarguable is that an endless parade of tanks and missiles is often the calling card of fascists,” Friedman wrote.

That “calling card” as he describes it, underscores the urgency behind the latest round of protests against the Trump administration’s increasing hostility to opposition, which the No Kings movement says has galvanized its resistance on its website.

“They’ve defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services,” the group wrote on its website. “They’ve done this all while continuing to serve and enrich their billionaire allies. The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us. On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t — to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.”

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