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“In America, We Don’t Do Kings”

Tomorrow, millions are expected to take to the streets to protest Trump’s authoritarian rule.

While the “No Kings” protests have been planned for weeks to coincide with Trump’s birthday military parade, their significance has grown as Trump took the unprecedented step of unlawfully commandeering California’s National Guard to respond to a largely peaceful protest against ICE in Los Angeles.

From ignoring court orders to disappearing people to foreign countries, Trump has tested the resilience of America’s core rights and freedoms since his first day in office. On Saturday, people across the country will stand up against him and his agenda.

We know that Trump will pretend that these protests are a threat to people’s safety so that he can use the military to suppress core, protected First Amendment speech. Some states are following Trump’s lead, with the governors of Texas and Missouri already calling up their guards in anticipation of the expanding movement in large, progressive cities.

The right to protest is one of the most dear and basic freedoms our constitution protects. But under the Trump Administration, when constitutional rights don’t serve Trump’s agenda, they are to be ignored.

Below is messaging for how to speak up against his brutality.

Trump isn’t using the military and the National Guard to protect freedoms—he is using them to take them away.
  • The right to say what you want, even when the government does not like it, is one of our core freedoms.
  • People across the country are standing up against authoritarianism, and the Constitution gives them the right to do so.
  • Using the military to crack down on peaceful protesters shows Trump’s blatant disregard for our rights.
  • Trump demands loyalty, and because he can’t fire citizens when they don’t act in a way he likes, he is waging war against them.
  • His suppression of dissent will only get worse if we do not put a stop to it now.
Trump doesn’t want safety—he wants to create chaos so he can justify his brutal and illegal use of force.
Turning the military into a weapon of the White House is a line we cannot cross.
  • The military’s job is to protect our nation from foreign enemies, not to bully peaceful protesters.
  • The military is not trained to serve as domestic law enforcement, and even trained police officers engage in brutal actions, like firing non-lethal rounds at journalists and beating people with truncheons.
  • Trump’s commandeering of a state’s military signals an aggressive escalation in his authoritarian path and a willingness to stamp out any dissent among the American people.
Protest is critical, and Trump’s use of our military means it is even more important to fight back.
  • What this administration wants is for people to be afraid so that they don’t show up.
  • We cannot give away power—that is how we lose it permanently.
  • And we know the fight matters. We are winning in court and have seen this administration already backtrack on some of its worst instincts.
  • Instead, we need to show up, and fight for each other and especially all those targeted by this cruel administration.

Speaking Up

  • “If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question…I can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community, and throughout California and throughout the country.” – California Senator Alex Padilla, after federal agents arrested him for asking a question at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference.
  • “Veterans of our military agree that President Trump’s takeover of Los Angeles is not only illegal – it poses a dangerous and serious risk to Americans who may find themselves in the crosshairs of troops ordered to act against their fellow Americans.” – California Governor Gavin Newsom
  • “President Trump has repeatedly fabricated national crises throughout this term in office as a pretext for acting with extraordinary emergency powers rightfully, and historically, reserved for true emergencies facing our country…In Los Angeles, the President is again manufacturing a national crisis to expand his command over Americans, and may be prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act. This is an affront to state sovereignty and domestic rule of law and should not be acceptable to the people of California or anywhere in America.” –  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
  • “Thousands of workers remain unjustly detained and separated from their families. At this very moment, immigrant communities are being terrorized by heavily militarized armed forces. The Trump regime calling in the National Guard is a dangerous escalation to target people who disagree with them. It is a threat to our democracy. The federal government should never be used as a weapon against people who disagree with them.” – SEIU President April Verrett’s statement on David Huerta’s release from federal custody

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