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10/19/2025

The No Kings Protest, Part 2
A DEMONSTRATION OF DEMOCRACY & KINDNESS
Locally, A Helping Hand. Nationally, A Street Party

THE RHODE ISLAND STATE HOUSE

The State House steps.

I GOT TO THE NO KINGS RALLY EARLY, and everything was going swimmingly until I reached the cascade of marble steps leading down from the State House to the plaza below, where the protest was forming.
The Rhode Island Capitol is an elegant structure, fitting for a tiny state that has an oversupply of visual wonders, including its rugged coast and more than a few Colonial-era homes.
My problem was that the sea of marble steps below me came without handrails. As I’ve entered my 80s, I have found it difficult, and lately, impossible, to navigate downward stairs without something to hold onto.
At first, I seemed to be doing okay; one foot, both feet; one foot, then the other. But I began to feel dizzy; the family member I’d come with was too far ahead for me to signal; and I wondered if this little section of public marble was suddenly about to become a personal puddle of blood and skull.
“May I help you?” asked a woman somewhere below me. “I have balance problems sometimes, too.”
“Well, actually, that would be nice,” I said.
The woman bounded up the five or six steps between us, locked one of her arms firmly onto one of mine – I’m pretty sure she’d had done this before – and led me to the safety of ground zero.
I didn’t see her again as the crowd swelled into the many thousands – 15,000 is a common estimate of the Providence gathering – but her rescue perfectly captured the spirit of the afternoon.
She saw someone in trouble. She acted. And did so in the nicest possible way, which is to say she was both kind and competent.
Which is what it will take to reverse the terrifying, dizzying course that Donald Trump is laying out for the country.
My theory is that we cannot – nor should we – try to match his brand of cruelty with a version of our own guile. Instead, we must trust our resources of kindness, compassion and caring to sustain our communities and our country.
If we are to win back our democracy, we must not become a more successful copy of Donald Trump, we must champion a better alternative. Or, why does it matter?
And secondly, we must be skilled and proficient in our democratic undertaking. We must master the mechanics of politics, understand the levers of power and perfect the arts of communication.

YESTERDAY’S SECOND NO KINGS DAY protest in Rhode Island was both civilized and practical, and, from what I’ve seen and read, the same could have been said for demonstrations throughout the country.
The Providence protest had a serene, comfortable, at-home feel. Sure, anger and fear drove people to concoct colorful signs, dress up as inflatable creatures, write clever slogans. But they did all of this in a way that made you happy to be among friends, neighbors at a barn-raising, volunteers cleaning up after the flood.
But numbers absolutely count. It was good that people turned out by the thousands in my state, and by the millions across the nation. The battle for democracy depends on numbers. It’s not enough for one or two of us to vote; what matters is how many millions vote and do so in enough numbers to win.

WHY WAS THIS PROTEST SO SUCCESSFUL? On a practical level, at least in our New England neck of the woods, the weather couldn’t have been nicer for mid-October. Temperatures in the 60s, just a whisper of wind, deliciously blue skies. It put you in a mood.
Further, participants were determined to be peaceful, glad to show how that’s done. And none of this was an accident or unique.
A relative lives outside Philadelphia, and he wrote me this in an email:

I spent a joyful hour and a half at a No Kings rally near me. It was one of those side of the road with lots of signs and a bit of chanting things, and it made me grin the entire time. (No speakers.) People honked when they went by. OK, there was one pickup truck that said Support ICE, and they were laughing, and someone ran by brandishing a Trump flag. But it was a chill experience. When I left the throng of thousands, I drove along the route, honking my horn. And I ran into several people from our church, and a lot of others were planning to go to a different neighborhood one.

In its countrywide wrap up, the Associated Press described the mood nationally as that of a street fair:

Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as "Hate America" rallies. But in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, huge banners with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon.

The Rhode Island edition featured a “march,” from the State House down a slight bill to the Providence City Hall, then back for speeches.
A friend, who helped organize the event, said there was one unpleasant mini-clash, with a group trying stir emotions over transsexual rights. She described it this way:

The only sour note came as people were leaving — RI Turning Point, the Charlie Kirk org, set up tables on Francis Street across from the mall to hold a “debate” on why trans women shouldn’t be able to compete in women’s sports. About 20 very offended trans activists began screaming and yelling at them, despite our best attempts to de-escalate. They weren’t having it. The police, who are so roundly denounced by some, were fabulous. They just stood calmly between the groups and waited for it to die down.

IN THE AFTERMATH, the worrywarts, the scolds and the Monday Morning crabby coaches will say that big, peaceful, block party protests aren’t enough to back down the ICE agents and other storm-troopers-in-training, or to counter a Republican Congress that won’t do its Constitutional duty in restraining the president, or to scare a criminal president into going straight.
Of course, that’s all true. It will take more than a protest in June and another in October to turn the country around. But yesterday’s demonstration was a solid step forward and one to be cheered and celebrated. Just think if there were no mass demonstrations, no protests, no rallies. What would the worrywarts and the scolds be saying then?
What took place this weekend was both joyous and profound.
Personally, it was a moment to be cherished, when a stranger acted like a friend and offered me her helping hand, maybe one that was lifesaving.

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10/13/25

10/13/2025

3 Comments

THE “NO KINGS 2” PROTESTS
The Good, Bad & Ugly. Mostly the Good.

THE FIRST "No Kings'" rally in Middletown, RI, June 14, 2025

AS 2025 DRAWS TO ITS SAD, soul-shattering close, nothing I will do this year will be more important – at least to me – than showing up for this Saturday’s No Kings protest.
If it all works out as planned, my participation will be immensely insignificant.
That is, if the turnout exceeds the 5 million headcount that sponsors estimated for the first No Kings Day back on June 14, whether I’m present or not will be of no consequence.
A drop of water in the ocean, one seat in a sold-out soccer stadium, a kernel of corn on a vast Midwestern farm.
And, let’s be honest, if the day produces the largest demonstration in American history, that might have no practical effect in stopping Donald Trump’s evolving dictatorship.
Critics will say that it was just one day, so what the heck. No practical impact. Nobody got elected. Or un-elected. No legislation was enacted. Nothing happened. Nothing changed.
Or that, in one city, in one state, maybe in several places, the protests will turn ugly and produce enough head-banging, shots-fired viral video to accelerate Trump’s continuing campaign to turn American soldiers against American citizens.
Or, maybe the whole thing it will be a flop. Just thousands, not millions, nationwide.
Or, regardless of size, big, small or medium, it will provide fodder for to rightwing lies and distortions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson got a head start on the smear campaign, according to Politico, by describing a planned No Kings event in Washington, as a “hate America rally.”

HERE’S ANOTHER THING. I really don’t like big protests or even bite-sized ones.
For one thing, I’m pretty sure that somebody is going to say something stupid. They’ll say something that I completely, totally don’t agree with. But lots of people will cheer. And by being present, it will seem like I’m in solidarity, one-for-all/all-for-one. It’s guaranteed.
I’ll give you an example that still rankles. Back in the Black Lives Matter days, egregious, vicious racist police conduct generated this slogan: “Defund the Police!”
I know enough about government that if you want to reform some out-of-control public service, you have to spend MORE money, not less, such as bigger salaries for police, more money for training, and lots of cash for added mental health professionals and others to help police do non-police work.
So, on Saturday, I don’t want to hear an antisemitic chant like “From the river to the sea,” or some anti-Palestinian slurs or “This time, don’t just shoot his ear.”
For that matter, my ideal protest is an event with no-speeches, no music, no chanting, no sloganeering, and which lasts no more than 15 minutes, just long enough to get a credible headcount and maybe some drone photos to prove it. And that’s a wrap.

WHICH IS NOT HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS.
Democracy is messy, imperfect, mixed-up, noisy, infuriating and disorganized. People have to put up with all sorts of companions, buddies and fellow travelers, including misanthropes like yours truly.
And if ever our country needed a humongous day of protest, it is now, nearly 10 months into the most dangerous, cruelest, despotic, corrupt presidential administration in history.
We need every single body possible to say “no” to Donald J. Trump. No to savage roundups of immigrants, no to troops on American streets, no to absurd health policies, no to acceleration of climate destruction, no to bullying professors, no to racism, no to desecration of a great country.
So thanks for the people who are planning No Kings Day 2 in thousands of cities and towns across American. It is our privilege to protest. Our duty to protest. it’s the least we can do.
Just don’t ask me to chant, chat or sing during the bus ride from Newport to Providence for the hopefully biggest-ever, most fantastic rally ever held at the Rhode Island State House.
I may try to make a small sign.

3 Comments

10/1/25

10/1/2025

3 Comments

HARVARD:
The Ideal Deal Is No Deal;
But 2nd Best Would Be . . .

YET ANOTHER CHILLING ANNOUNCEMENT came this week from the White House, suggesting that Harvard University has agreed to a deal with the Trump Administration.
The only glimmer of hope is that the statement came from Trump himself, since the president almost never tells the truth.
Still, that Harvard and the Trump autocracy are even talking is dispiriting, since the university’s resistance has been a rare moment of hope that the Trump juggernaut can be stopped.
The stakes are enormous. If Harvard, the nation’s oldest and arguably most important university can be bullied, how likely is it that lesser colleges, to say nothing of other kinds of institutions, will be willing or able to fight back?
That’s why its so important to mortals who’ve never set foot in Harvard Yard that the university should make no deal.
No. Nyet. Nope. Nada. Nein. Zero.
The symbolism is important: Eggheads, 1 / Knuckleheads, 0.
More critical is the lesson that every schoolyard scholar learns the hard way: there’s no such thing as a deal with a bully. The tormentor always wants more. And more.
The Trump administration, falsely claiming egregious antisemitism at Harvard, withheld billions in federal research dollars and demanded severe control over campus governance.

A 2nd BEST DEAL
Trump said on Sept. 30 that Harvard would agree to finance $500 million to operate “trade schools.” What other concessions might be on the table wasn’t clear.
But if Harvard ends up making a deal, I have some thoughts that might help Harvard – and the rest of us.

ABJECT APOLOGY – The administration will issue an apology – signed personally by Trump with his trademark scrawl, like the one he used on the Epstein “birthday drawing.” The document admits the government’s violations of the university’s First Amendment free speech rights, and apologize for the strain it has put on the university’s students, faculty and administrators.
FINANCIAL TERMS – The government agrees to pay the university a penalty of $500 million, in addition to court-approved legal and administrative costs resulting from the government’s abuse of its powers.
DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE – The university intends to use some of the above-cited penalty payments to establish a Harvard University School of Democracy, to study defense of democratic governments against becoming dictatorships. The Administration agrees to make its officials available for symposia, research and other initiatives.
FOREIGN STUDENTS – The government acknowledges foreign students have been demonized and disadvantaged by the administration’s false or exaggerated antisemitism claims. The government, at its cost, will undertake remedial measures to make these students whole. Select students, who need transportation from their home countries to the Cambridge, Mass. campus, will be offered free passage aboard Air Force One and Marine One aircraft.
TRANSSEXUAL RESEARCH – The federal Department of Health and Human Services agrees to provide Harvard and its partner universities sufficient grants for comprehensive research and teaching initiatives into the experience of individuals experiencing and seeking gender change.

HARVARD’S FUTURE
There’s no question that Harvard has much at stake if the Trump Administration succeeds in extracting concessions, or if Harvard fights and loses its legal challenges.
Indeed, although Harvard has enormous resources - $53 billion in endowment funds, nearly 25,000 students, 20,700 faculty and staff, the federal government has far more financial and legal (illegal) firepower.
Harvard wins on the merits.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled in favor of the university, cancelling funding cuts.
“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote.
But who knows how an appeals court, or the Trump-compliant Supreme Court would rule.
A loss could mean a far diminished Harvard, and in the worst case, maybe a failed institution.
But in settling with Trump, and the precedent that sets, Harvard has to ask itself this question:
What’s more important: Harvard University’s survival? Or continuation of the United States as a democracy?

3 Comments

10/19/2025

The No Kings Protest, Part 2A DEMONSTRATION OF DEMOCRACY & KINDNESS Locally, A Helping Hand. Nationally, A Street Party

10/13/25

THE “NO KINGS 2” PROTESTSThe Good, Bad & Ugly. Mostly the Good.

10/1/25

HARVARD:The Ideal Deal Is No Deal;But 2nd Best Would Be . . .

Categories

The No Kings Protest, Part 2
A DEMONSTRATION OF DEMOCRACY & KINDNESS
Locally, A Helping Hand. Nationally, A Street Party

THE “NO KINGS 2” PROTESTS
The Good, Bad & Ugly. Mostly the Good.

HARVARD:
The Ideal Deal Is No Deal;
But 2nd Best Would Be . . .