After "No Kings Day": What's Next?
Continuing our resistance to the Big Bad Bill and strengthening our commitment to nonviolence
The No Kings rallies were a spectacular success. People turned out in droves in all 50 states. About 5 million people participated in overwhelmingly peaceful protests!
I participated in a visibility that was the biggest and most spirited of any in my life, and I’ve been to many.
No Kings Day of Defiance was certainly one of the biggest demonstrations in the history of our country, possibly the largest.
In contrast, the Trump military parade was a bust.
There’s a picture of him standing across from empty bleachers. There were reports the event was very disorganized. That’s what happens when you fire competent professionals and replace them with inexperienced loyalists!
The main question now is, What’s Next?
I’ll answer that in two ways.
First, I’ll talk about how we need to be laser focused on stopping the long term damage from the disastrous reconciliation bill now in Congress.
Then, I’ll go into the imperative for long term strategic thinking around nonviolent resistance.
Luckily, there are a lot of powerful scholars and activists we can learn from.
IMMEDIATE CALL TO ACTION: KILL THE BIG BAD BILL in CONGRESS
Trump has been doing everything he can to distract us from his disastrous and deeply unpopular bill. I suspect Trump instigated the aggressive ICE enforcement action in LA to provoke dissent that would distract from his Big Bad Bill working its way through Congress.
It worked- for now. When’s the last time you heard the media talk about what’s happening with that bill?
Where the Bill Stands Now
After conflicts in the US Senate, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee passed a version of this bill different from the House. They are using a budget tool called Reconciliation that will enable them to pass the bill along party lines with a simple majority vote. To understand more about that process, read this article in NPR (itself threatened by budget cuts).
Republicans are determined to pass the bill in the full Senate by July 4th- but we have a real shot to stop it: we only need 4 Republican votes to stop it in the Senate.
If the bill is passed by the full Senate, it will need to be voted on again in the House, which gives us another chance to stop it: the bill only passed the House by one vote, so a little effective organizing could kill the bill in the House.
What Makes This Bill So Bad
The major problems with the bill (that I identified in a prior essay) remain. It still gives dramatic tax breaks that go mostly to the very wealthy, and cuts vital services to people to pay for them. Millions of people including children will go hungry, and millions will be denied healthcare, some of whom will die.
Despite the cuts in services, the tax breaks to the very wealthy are so big, this bill will undermine the fiscal stability of the country by exploding our debt.
The bill would cut green energy tax breaks including:
tax credits for residential rooftop solar installations.
incentives such as the Energy Efficient Home Improvement credit — which helps homeowners make improvements such as insulation or heating and cooling systems that reduce their energy usage and energy bills.
Incentives on Electric Vehicles (EVs).
This will all lead to cuts in US manufacturing around clean energy and higher costs for consumers on energy.
The Senate just released updates to the Bill that are even worse, if you can believe it. According to policy analysts at Government Executive, “A provision added to the Senate iteration of Republicans’ proposed budget reconciliation package would give the White House $100 million to reorganize federal agencies as President Trump sees fit, without congressional input in what critics decried as an “abrogation” of Congress’ power and responsibility.”
Republicans are fighting amongst themselves about the bill. Any changes in the Senate version can make passage in the House difficult.
From AP: “Notably, many Republicans in Congress have advocated to protect the clean-energy credits, which have overwhelmingly benefited Republican congressional districts. A report by the Atlas Public Policy research firm found that 77% of planned spending on credit-eligible projects are in GOP-held House districts.”
Here’s what you can do to kill the bill:
Contact your representative in the US House and your two senators in the US Senate, and tell them to stop the tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires, keep food and healthcare for our fellow Americans, and keep support for clean energy, so Kill the Bill.
Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senators’ or Representative's office.
The bill needs to be voted on soon by the full Senate, where it can only lose four Republican votes. We can get those four votes in the Senate, to kill the bill.
If the Senate passes a bill, it will go to the House for a vote. Since the bill only passed the House before by one vote, we have another opportunity to kill the bill in the House.
We’d be better off with NO BILL than this bill.
Join a group. My favorite organization is Indivisible because they are strategic, committed to nonviolence, and effective. They have chapters in every Congressional District: you can find a group near you here. There are many other good groups organizing against this horrendous bill.
What’s Next #2: BUILD NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE TO AN AUTHORITARIAN POWER GRAB
We need to harness the powerful energy from Saturday’s No Kings protest into long term action. Fortunately, there is a body of research showing the most effective way to stop authoritarians: the key is building a nonviolent movement. This requires more than one demonstration: it requires strategic and sustained nonviolent actions that build power.
A preeminent leader in the field is the scholar Gene Sharp who devoted his life to the study of nonviolent resistance to authoritarians. Interesting story – a friend asked Gene to write an essay on nonviolent resistance to an authoritarian. It was used successfully in one country, then copied and shared among resistance movements around the world.
Responding to the demand, Gene developed his essay into a book titled, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. He kept improving the book through several editions and published his final edition in 2012 when he was 84 years old (he died six years later at age 90).
I encourage you to read From Dictatorship to Democracy. It’s the best I’ve seen on the topic - it’s very clearly written, and a practical blueprint for opposing authoritarians. I may do a book study group about it on Zoom, record the session, then circulate the recording widely. I will certainly do another Substack essay describing Gene Sharp’s blueprint in more detail.
The main things to know now:
Authoritarians require the submission of the people they rule. Withdrawal of cooperation weakens the regime. When broad enough, nonviolent non-cooperation can remove legitimacy and topple a regime.
Our mission now is to expand and deepen our nonviolent resistance to Trump’s grab for power.
This is done through a series of nonviolent actions. Gene Sharp describes 200 methods including strategically chosen protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, stalling, and non-compliance with offensive orders.
Each action can be used to bring more people into the movement. Through conversations and attractive actions, we can move people from on the fence to on our side.
To succeed, we must have a deep commitment to nonviolence, as a moral and practical imperative. See my recent essay on this topic, including some key organizations and resources for you. Nonviolent movements have a much higher success rate than violent ones – and give you the moral high ground.
Relatedly, as many people as possible should have training in nonviolent protest, to serve as Peacekeepers who can help keep events nonviolent, even in the face of provocation. This worked powerfully in the Civil Rights movement, and can work again now.
I’ll tell you more later (and you can read From Dictatorship to Democracy yourself), but those are the main points for now.