advertisement

‘No Kings’ protests as an indication of healthy democracy

On Saturday, millions of Americans at more than 2,500 separate locations across the country gathered to protest the policies of the Trump administration under the rubric No Kings.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson labeled these “Hate America” rallies. Various Republicans said the rallies appease the “terrorist” wing of the Democratic Party, and that the rallies would be packed with “Hamas supporters, antifa types, and Marxists.”

However, another observer had a more benign description. He expected an “NPR tote bag crowd.”

What I saw were citizens exercising the constitutional “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I hope those words are familiar to Speaker Johnson because James Madison wrote them.

Politicians generally dismiss — at least publicly — polling data that goes against their views, but Republicans might do well to focus on how Americans are reacting to the first nine months of the second Trump term.

Recently, You.Gov, at the behest of The Economist, asked Americans about 40 different administration policies and found support for seven of them, such as no tax on tips or transferring TikTok to American ownership.

However, a majority opposed the other 33. For a couple, respondents were largely split fairly evenly, but for nearly 30 of the issues the spread was 20 to 50 percentage points against.

What the respondents really did not like were attempts by the administration to silence, coerce or otherwise squelch opponents, whether they are late-night TV hosts, federal judges, lawyers, inspectors general or vocal opponents.

Even on the president’s signature issue of immigration, he is under water, though opinions predictably break along partisan lines. However, as much as many want our borders to be secure, they don’t support cruelty or the militaristic tactics.

The “No Kings” meme refers to the fact that the president has chosen to act unilaterally via executive orders as opposed to submitting bills to Congress, even though Republicans have majorities in both houses and political reality dictates that presidents have a narrow window in the first year of their term to push legislation through before the focus shifts to the midterms.

Executive orders might allow one to move fast and break things, to use the parlance of Silicon Valley, but, according to the publication Lawfare, there are 222 active lawsuits against Trump administration orders. As such, significant changes in policy are being argued over in the courts by lawyers instead of being debated by the people’s representatives in Congress.

Thus, the protests were not just against policies that a large number of Americans don’t like, but also against the manner in which the government is currently operating — or not operating. The Congress is literally AWOL as Speaker Johnson’s House has been out of session now for weeks as the government shutdown drags on.

Instead, it has been the elegant and forceful words of judges, rebuking the Trump administration, that have reminded us of the fundamentals of the American system of government and what the law says.

In a unanimous opinion by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a ban on the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago, the court wrote: “Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protesters advocate for myriad legal or policy changes … Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest.”

Just so. Exercising the rights deemed essential by our founders is not an expression of hate, but an act of citizenship. Those worried about the health of our democracy should take heart.

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.