I support any action that gets people into the streets. The No Kings rally raises valid concerns about authoritarianism, corruption, and concentrated power. And any space where pro-Palestinian voices are present is important.
Especially right now.
With a precarious ceasefire agreement in place, we should be focusing more, not less, on Palestine. Israel has already broken the ceasefire, and history tells us it will again.
We cannot afford to treat this as background noise.
That said, we should be honest about the limits of this event:
- It is pre-approved and non-disruptive.
It poses no real threat to power and, by design, avoids confrontation.
- Asking participants to register doesn’t seem kosher.
It adds a layer of control, undermines the safety of anonymity, and raises questions about who’s collecting that data and why (profit!). That kind of gatekeeping doesn’t belong in grassroots movements.
This erodes the awareness around data privacy.
We should not normalize the tradeoff of privacy for convenience.
- Most of all, the rally singles out Trump, as if he alone represents authoritarianism. That’s misleading.
We need to get money out of politics. Mass surveillance, militarized policing, corporate control, and state-sponsored violence all predate Trump and have expanded under all elected parties in the US and Canada.
The crisis is not one man, it’s a class system that protects wealth and punishes dissent. The real struggle isn’t left versus right. It’s top versus bottom.
No Kings comes so close! But until that’s named directly, we’re just managing symptoms, not fighting the disease.