No Kings

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  Trump has triggered nationwide protests.

 April Rubin at Axios:

Nearly 7 million protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday to take part in rallies against President Trump and his administration.

Why it matters: This latest round of protests comes as the government shutdown approaches its third week and opposition to Trump's military crackdown on Democratic-led cities grows.

According to a statement from the "No Kings" protest organizers, Saturday's turnout was "one of the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history" with over two million more people taking part than participated in similar protests in June of this year.

Driving the news: More than 2,700 events were planned as part of the protests across 50 states as of Saturday, as well as several internationally, including in London, Paris, Rome and Lisbon, Portugal.

Organizing groups include the American Civil Liberties Union, American Federation of Teachers, 50501, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible and MoveOn.

"Across cities and towns, large and small, rural and suburban, in red areas and in blue areas millions of us are peacefully coming together for No Kings to send a clear and unmistakable message: the power belongs to the people," Katie Bethell, MoveOn executive director, said in a Saturday statement.

...

The intrigue: Protests in 2025 have reached a wider swath of the U.S. than at any other point on record, according to a Thursday report from the Harvard Kennedy School.The current protest movement has reached deeper into Trump-voting areas than at almost any time during his first administration, the analysis found. Though those protests tend to be smaller than the nationwide average.

I for one do think it's possible for America to find a president better than one who, faced with claims he is dumping shit on Americans, posts a video showing himself dumping shit on Americans. https://t.co/ClCD1oZUY5

— George Conway 🇺🇸🚫👑🐸 (@gtconway3d) October 19, 2025

Split Screen

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.

From Waging Nonviolence:

April Rubin, Rebecca Falconer at Axios:

Millions of protesters across the U.S. took to the streets in demonstrations against the Trump administration on Saturday, in stark counter-programming to the president's Washington, D.C., military parade that evening.

Why it matters: "No Kings" protest organizers said the widespread movement marked the biggest single-day anti-President Trump protest during his second administration.

...

State of play: More than 5 million people took part in "No Kings" demonstrations in over 2,100 cities and towns across the country, with an additional 300 "Kick Out the Clowns" rallies being held.Philadelphia saw more than 100,000 attendees and Chicago 75,000, while smaller towns such as Pentland, Michigan, reported 400 in a town of 800, organizers said.

Newsmax is saying about 10,000 there. That’s small for some protest rallies today and a huge waste of our military $$$ when the world is on fire… https://t.co/AP7Rh2NWu3

— Barbara Comstock (@BarbaraComstock) June 14, 2025

Libertarians Boo Trump

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  Neither is the condition of the conservative and libertarian movements.

Brittany Gibson and Peder Schaefer at Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/25/panderer-libertarians-jeer-trump-at-their-convention-00160023 

If Donald Trump came to the Libertarian National Convention to make peace on Saturday, it could hardly have gone worse.

Within minutes of beginning speaking — and after enduring sustained jeering and boos — the former president turned on the third party, mocking its poor electoral record in presidential elections even as he appealed to them for their endorsement.

“What’s the purpose of the Libertarian Party of getting 3 percent?” Trump asked the crowd, which proceeded to pelt him with jeers. “You should nominate Trump for president only if you want to win.”

The libertarians in attendance didn’t want to hear it, as hecklers chucked insults at Trump all night. “Liar,” they called him. “Panderer,” they shouted. “You crushed our rights,” they belted.

The raucous reception laid bare the difficulties confronting Trump in his effort to expand his base and cut off a third-party threat, not only from Libertarians, but also from independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Despite the Libertarian Party’s relatively small following, its 2020 candidate, Jo Jorgensen, drew more votes in some close states than the margin separating Trump and now-President Joe Biden.

“If we unite, we are unstoppable,” Trump told a crowd split between Libertarians and Trump supporters. “You have to combine with us.”

In response, the Washington Hilton ballroom erupted in boos. Trump was met with a chant to “debate” Libertarian candidates, and every time Trump fans in the room tried to start a “We want Trump” chant, libertarians yelled “End the Fed,” referring to the Federal Reserve.

“If he thinks he is going to win our nomination, he’s more delusional than I thought,” said Chase Oliver, one of the presidential candidates for the Libertarian Party, at a press conference after Trump spoke.

Gaza, Students, and the Election

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.  The Gaza war is politically dangerous for Biden -- though perhaps not as much as it seemed earlier this year.

Sareen Habeshian at Axios:

College protests against Israel's war in Gaza are dominating headlines. But only a sliver of students are participating or view it as a top issue, according to a new Generation Lab survey shared exclusively with Axios.

Why it matters: The poll hints that the war — and the accompanying protests — might not hurt President Biden's election prospects among young voters as much as previously thought.

By the numbers: Only a small minority (8%) of college students have participated in either side of the protests, the survey of 1,250 college students found.Students ranked the conflict in the Middle East as the least important issue facing them out of nine options.

It landed behind health care reform, racial justice and civil rights, economic fairness and opportunity, education funding and access, and climate change.

What they found: The survey found that three times as many college students blame Hamas for the current situation in Gaza than they do President Biden.Some 34% blame Hamas, while 19% blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 12% blame the Israeli people and 12% blame Biden.

Zoom in: A large majority (81%) of students support holding protesters accountable, agreeing with the notion that those who destroyed property or vandalized or illegally occupied buildings should be held responsible by their university, per the survey.A majority also said they oppose the protest tactics: 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable and 58% say it's not acceptable to refuse a university's order to disperse.

Another 90% said blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable.

The other side: Students were still more likely to say they support the pro-Palestininan encampments than oppose them.45% said they support them either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.

Trump, Violence, Racism, Anti-Semitism

 Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

The innuendos to violence worked leading up to and on J6, with enough wiggle room in his mob boss language to give him semi-plausible deniability. Will it work again? Not with a big group uprising like before, but now it is the intimidation of isolated incidents that he wants. pic.twitter.com/a9PKuUwGd1

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 23, 2023

"Soros backed animal" is a nice racist two-fer https://t.co/paNi6XFagC

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 23, 2023

Armed Protest

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  The January 6 insurrection was not the only case of armed protest.

At NYT, Mike McIntire reports that protesters are increasingly bringing firearms:

This month, armed protesters appeared outside an elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake. In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors.

In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day. A group led by a former Republican state legislator protested a gay pride event in a public park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Men with guns interrupted a Juneteenth festival in Franklin, Tenn., handing out fliers claiming that white people were being replaced. Among the others were rallies in support of gun rights in Delaware and abortion rights in Georgia.

Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger.

But the effects of more guns in public spaces have not been evenly felt. A partisan divide — with Democrats largely eschewing firearms and Republicans embracing them — has warped civic discourse. Deploying the Second Amendment in service of the First has become a way to buttress a policy argument, a sort of silent, if intimidating, bullhorn.

...

A New York Times analysis of more than 700 armed demonstrations found that, at about 77 percent of them, people openly carrying guns represented right-wing views, such as opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and abortion access, hostility to racial justice rallies and support for former President Donald J. Trump’s lie of winning the 2020 election.

In 2018,  Joanne Freeman wrote of the antebellum Congress:

More often than not, such bullies were Southerners or Southern-born Westerners. So-called fighting men promoted their interests and silenced their foes with insults, fists, canes, knives, pistols and the occasional brick, giving them a literal fighting advantage over “noncombatants,” who were usually Northerners. Sumner’s brutal caning was far from the only violent incident in Congress.

 

Trump, Pardons, Protests, Racism, and a Confession

 Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  DOJ has charged the head of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy.

In the fall, the Claremont Institute claimed:

Contrary to almost universally false news accounts, which have done great damage, John did not ask the Vice President, who was presiding over the Joint Session of Congress where electoral votes were to be counted on January 6, to “overturn” the election or to decide the validity of electoral votes.

Yesterday, Trump admitted that overturning the election was the whole point:

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had “absolutely no right” to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are... pic.twitter.com/9kz05Jwi7y

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) January 30, 2022

 

Trump also gave a speech this weekend.

NEW -- Trump has a new message for this midterm election year: There should be massive protests in DC, NY and Atlanta if prosecutors go after him and, if elected in 2024, he will pardon the January 6 mob that attacked the Capitol and assaulted police.https://t.co/3ZvocWj6bT

— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) January 30, 2022

"Let’s take a step back and drill down on [one] word [of] Trump’s: 'Racist.' It seems to come out of left field...Except that three of the key prosecutors investigating Trump as well as the chair of the House committee, Bennie Thompson, are all Black."https://t.co/HrqlxVbR4l

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 30, 2022

Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.

He’d do it all again if given the chance.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 31, 2022

“He could have overturned the election.” This is an admission, and a massively un-American statement. It is time for every Republican leader to pick a side… Trump or the Constitution, there is no middle on defending our nation anymore. pic.twitter.com/Bp3dfn7cBe

— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) January 31, 2022

Lafayette Square

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses how Trump weaponized the federal government for his political benefit.

A year ago, officials forcibly cleared Layfette Square shortly befoe Trump's Bible photo op.  Many interpret a recent report as suggesting that the photo op did not motivate the clearance. Ryan Cooper at The Week:

The inspector general (IG) of the U.S. Park Police recently published a report taking issue with this history. The "evidence did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park on June 1, 2020, so that then President Trump could enter the park," wrote IG Mark Lee Greenblatt, who instead found that the park was cleared so that some fencing could be put up.

...

Now, the report does say that the clearance had been planned for days to install some fencing, and that happened long before Trump decided to visit. But it also says that the specific time of the clearance had not been settled, and that at about 6:10 on that day, Attorney General Barr came out of the White House and asked the USPP commander: "Are these people still going to be here when [President Trump] comes out?" to which the commander responded, "Are you freaking kidding me?" and hung his head.

USPP personnel insisted to the IG that Barr's request did not affect their plans (a highly dubious assertion), but it was actually the Secret Service who initiated the park clearance. "At approximately 6:16 p.m., contrary to the operational plan and before the USPP gave the first dispersal warning, the Secret Service entered H Street from Madison Place … the Secret Service lieutenant later apologized for the early entry onto H Street during the operation but did not explain why it occurred." About seven minutes later the clearance began in earnest.

A very obvious question would be whether Barr, or someone else from the White House, ordered the Secret Service to start attacking the protesters. The IG did not even try to figure this out: "[We] did not seek to interview Attorney General William Barr, White House personnel, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officers, MPD personnel, or Secret Service personnel," it reads. The presence of the BOP is another giant question mark: "The USPP acting chief of police and the USPP incident commander told us they did not request the BOP's assistance and did not know who dispatched them to Lafayette Park on June 1." One wonders why they bothered even writing this report at all.

Happy Constitution Day

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.

At NYT, Michell Goldberg writes about UD marshals gunning down suspected Portland killer  Michael Forest Reinoehl.

Even if Reinoehl’s killing was justified, in a country where the rule of law held, the government would have treated it as regrettable. For Donald Trump’s administration, Reinoehl’s death was cause for celebration.

Calling Reinoehl a “dangerous fugitive, admitted antifa member, and suspected murderer,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement, “The streets of our cities are safer with this violent agitator removed.” Trump, in a Fox News interview on Saturday, said of the killing, “That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.” (Perhaps needless to say, law enforcement is not permitted to kill suspects in “retribution.”) Trump continued the theme at his Nevada rally Sunday night, saying to cheers, “We sent in the U.S. marshals, it was taken care of in 15 minutes.”

Trump, of course, defended Kyle Rittenhouse, a supporter of his charged with killing two people at a protest last month, and who, like Reinoehl, claimed self-defense. For the president, it’s not Reinoehl’s alleged actions that justify extrajudicial killing. It’s his politics, and those of his victim. Trump and Barr are all but declaring certain Americans beyond the law’s protections.

Marissa J. Lang at WP:

Hours before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in early June amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd, federal officials began to stockpile ammunition and seek devices that could emit deafening sounds and make anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire, according to an Army National Guard major who was there.

D.C. National Guard Maj. Adam D. DeMarco told lawmakers that defense officials were searching for crowd control technology deemed too unpredictable to use in war zones and had authorized the transfer of about 7,000 rounds of ammunition to the D.C. Armory as protests against police use of force and racial injustice roiled Washington.

In sworn testimony, shared this week with The Washington Post, DeMarco provided his account as part of an ongoing investigation into law enforcement and military officers’ use of force against D.C. protesters.

Katie Benner at NYT:

Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who described Mr. Barr’s comments on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish a police-free protest zone near the city’s downtown for weeks this summer, according to two people briefed on those discussions. Late Wednesday, a department spokesman said that Mr. Barr did not direct the civil rights division to explore this idea.

The directives are in keeping with Mr. Barr’s approach to prosecute crimes as aggressively as possible in cities where protests have given way to violence. But in suggesting possible prosecution of Ms. Durkan, a Democrat, Mr. Barr also took aim at an elected official whom President Trump has repeatedly attacked.

...

The most extreme form of the federal sedition law, which is rarely invoked, criminalizes conspiracies to overthrow the government of the United States — an extraordinary situation that does not seem to fit the circumstances of the protests and unrest in places like Portland, Ore., and elsewhere in response to police killings of Black men.

The wording of the federal sedition statute goes beyond actual revolutions. It says the crime can also occur anytime two or more people have conspired to use force to oppose federal authority, hinder the government’s ability to enforce any federal law or unlawfully seize any federal property — elements that might conceivably fit a plot to, say, break into and set fire to a federal courthouse.

Congress has stipulated that a conviction on a charge of seditious conspiracy can carry up to 20 years in prison.

DOJ? https://t.co/iPpptrlMzy

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2020

Three Generals and an Admiral

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law. 

Two retired generals, one active general, and one retired admiral defend the Constitution against a lawless president.

It's Seven Days in May in reverse.

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis has broken his silence:

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors.
...

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite. Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

This memo from Gen. Milley is pretty interesting--I'd even say startling. pic.twitter.com/25Q5eyuspb

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 3, 2020

Milley's letter is more of a bombshell than Mattis's (which is no small thing itself). Milley is the sitting CJCS affirming that the military must remain true to the Constitution. Like, almost as a response to something going on around him.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 3, 2020

In The Atlantic on Tuesday, Mike Mullen Seventeenth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.

Whatever Trump's goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.

Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.), 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO. at Time:

 Our active duty military must remain above the fray of domestic politics, and the best way to do that is to keep that force focused on its rightful mission outside the United States. Our senior active duty military leaders must make that case forcefully and directly to national leadership, speaking truth to power in uncomfortable ways. They must do this at the risk of their career. I hope they will do so, and not allow the military to be dragged into the maelstrom that is ahead of us, and which will likely only accelerate between now and November. If they do not stand and deliver on this vital core value, I fear for the soul of our military and all of the attendant consequences. We cannot afford to have a future Lafayette Square end up looking like Tiananmen Square.

The House Is Not in Play

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Stuart Rothenberg at Roll Call:

Of the major political handicappers, not even one of them thinks the House is likely to flip in November.

Mot the folks at the Cook Political Report. Not the analysts at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. And certainly not my colleagues at Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, who in a recent column argued that the most likely House result is anything from “a GOP gain of five seats to a Democratic gain of five seats.” (For more on that, watch Nathan’s recent CQ Roll Call video.)

He cites these reasons:

• Trump's unpopularity
• Democratic fundraising advantages
• GOP recruiting failures 

The Trump albatross is getting heavier.

Steven Shepard at Politico:

Nearly seven-in-10 voters say things in the U.S. are pretty seriously on the wrong track, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Only 31 percent of voters say the country is headed in the right direction, the lowest mark recorded in POLITICO/Morning Consult polling since President Donald Trump took office in early 2017. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed from May 29-June 1 say the country is on the wrong track.

 Grant Smith, Joseph Ax, Chris Kahn at Reuters report on a Reuters/Ipsos poll:

The survey conducted on Monday and Tuesday found 64% of American adults were “sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,” while 27% said they were not and 9% were unsure.

The poll underscored the political risks for Trump, who has adopted a hardline approach to the protests and threatened to deploy the U.S. military to quell violent dissent. The Republican president faces Democrat Joe Biden in November’s election.

More than 55% of Americans said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the protests, including 40% who “strongly” disapproved, while just one-third said they approved - lower than his overall job approval of 39%, the poll showed.

A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Biden’s lead over Trump among registered voters expanded to 10 percentage points - the biggest margin since the former vice president became his party’s presumptive nominee in early April.

Monmouth:

Most Americans say the anger about black deaths at the hands of police officers that led to recent protests is fully justified, even if they do not feel the same about the actual actions. A majority of the public now agrees that the police are more likely to use excessive force with a black person than a white person in similar situations. Only one-third of the country held this opinion four years ago. The Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll also finds that the number of people who consider racial and ethnic discrimination to be a big problem has increased from about half in 2015 to nearly 3 in 4 now. In other results, President Donald Trump’s job rating has ticked down again as opinion that the country is headed down the wrong track surpasses 70% for the first time in Monmouth’s polling.