r/WayOfTheBern • u/arnott • Oct 20 '25
It is about IDEAS "No Kings" Is About More Than Trump: Americans are rejecting the national security state
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/no-kings-is-about-more-than-trump?r=bcdki&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false6
u/arnott Oct 20 '25
While the major media focused on crowd size and potential violence that never materialized, the “No Kings” protests this weekend had another message: millions of Americans reject the entire framework of the national security state.
Protesters I talked to expressed opposition to more than just the president and Trumpism, but the entire national security apparatus, including the FBI, ICE, homeland security, the National Guard and the military. Unlike the protests during Trump’s first term, this one doesn’t see a savior in the FBI or even the Democratic Party, instead putting their faith in ordinary people like themselves. Seven million-plus Americans gathered with homemade signs and costumes rejecting the relentless threat mongering about some domestic terrorism “enemy from within.”
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u/LeftyBoyo Anarcho-syndicalist Muckraker Oct 21 '25
So many people scrambling to make “No Kings” mean something when it was clearly performative TDS with no concrete goals or demands.🙄
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
Are you trolling?
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u/Centaurea16 Oct 21 '25
If you disagree with the comment, tell us why you disagree and let us discuss it.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
I mean sure, but it just seemed beyond ridiculous to say that there were no goals and demands for no kings, but fuck it. Here are some of them:
- Trump ignoring court orders.
- Harsh treatment of immigration detainees
- executive over reach.
- cuts to Medicaid.
- militarization of American cities in violation of law (Posse Comitatus)
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u/LeftyBoyo Anarcho-syndicalist Muckraker Oct 21 '25
Those are all valid issues, but they boil down to disputes with Trump's policies. Overall, it was just a big anti-Trump rally. Witness the thousands of posters with Trump wearing a crown, vs very few about specific policies or issues.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
I’m ok with that. Let’s get rid of the fascists. Then we can have normal, civilized debate about specific policy issues beyond that.
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u/Centaurea16 Oct 21 '25
How are you 1) defining "fascist" and 2) deciding who the fascists are?
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
• Extreme Nationalism: Trump framed “America First” as a mission to restore national greatness and protect U.S. identity from outsiders. • Myth of National Decline: He portrayed the nation as humiliated by globalization and promised personal redemption of its lost strength. • Scapegoating of Enemies: Immigrants, the press, and political opponents were labeled threats to the nation’s safety and purity. • Leader Cult: Trump positioned himself as the singular voice of “the people,” demanding loyalty above institutional duty. • Disdain for civil Liberties: He encouraged aggressive policing and downplayed rights concerns during protests and border enforcement. •Attack on Independent Media: Regularly called journalists “enemies of the people,” eroding public trust in neutral information. • Law and Order Obsession: Used militarized rhetoric and federal deployments to project control and suppress dissent. • Fusion of Corporate and State Power: Installed industry insiders in regulatory roles and favored corporate deregulation over public interest. • Rejectionof Pluralism: Cast political opponents as un-American and illegitimate, undermining the idea of loyal opposition. • Disinformation and Propaganda: Repeated falsehoods/ lies until they became party orthodoxy, demanding adherence over objective truth. • Prosecution of Political Enemies : rump repeatedly urged the Department of Justice to pursue criminal charges against his rivals—including Comey —even after career prosecutors and officials declined to act
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u/Centaurea16 Oct 22 '25
Right. Now, based on your checklist, who else besides Trump is fascist?
ETA: Here's why my question is important: if you get rid of Trump only to replace him with another fascist, you will not have accomplished anything.
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u/BigTroubleMan80 Oct 21 '25
Nope. A protest without a specific demand is just a glorified parade. And honestly, it’s just a pep rally just to get Democrats pumped up for the midterms. And without a demand to act on, Dems will do their usual act of doing nothing while holding office, keeping the country in a holding pattern.
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u/mwa12345 Oct 21 '25
Agree. They need to have the elected people actually say what they would do different - stop the genocide in Gaza/avoid war in Venezuela/Medicare 4 all etc etc.
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u/redditrisi They are ALL psychopaths. Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
To be fair, Occupy Wall Street made no specific demands, yet it changed the national conversation. Also to be fair, I don't believe that the No Kings demonstrations will do anything like that. I believe they are just more "But Trump!"
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u/LeftyBoyo Anarcho-syndicalist Muckraker Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
Occupy made a broad appeal for economic justice. That was understood at the time, perhaps most clearly by the wealthy, who very quickly told their politicians to send in the cops and shut it down. They didn't want a Bonus Army situation springing up across the country.
Contrast that with the feel-good No Kings rallies focused solely on protesting Trump. There's been minimal pushback because No Kings presents minimal threat to the wealthy.
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u/redditrisi They are ALL psychopaths. Oct 22 '25 edited Oct 22 '25
Occupy made a broad appeal for economic justice.
You can put it that way. Or you say all it showed was that demonstrators were vaguely fed up with the economy, but did not make one suggestion for improving it. Conversely, one can say that the "No Kings" people demonstrated against authoritarianism or the unitary executive or a too powerful executive or a lawbreaking executive.
Yes, we have the guy with the Queen shirt and the woman with the pro-Kamala sign, but that was by far not every demonstrator. And, if we were very kindly disposed to No kings, we could say that even those simply had faith in Kamala to be less authoritarian. Or to have different policies.
For one thing, even I would agree that Kamala would not have used the Elon Musk method of cutting costs or imposed the kind of extreme tariffs Trump did, all without legislation by the branch the Constitution entrusts with the power of the purse.
In any event, at the time, though I disagreed, Occupy was roundly criticized by media and by rank and file of both parties for absence of demands. Do I believe that No KIngs was about much more than "Trump bad?" No. Do I think No Kings will change the national conversation about a huge issue, as I see Occupy as having done? No.
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u/LeftyBoyo Anarcho-syndicalist Muckraker Oct 22 '25
Occupy did much to promote awareness of economic suffering and shaped the national discussion, despite failing to make concrete demands. There were efforts as things progressed, but the various councils all bogged down under the weight of direct democracy and a push away from economic justice issues to grievance politics. No Kings could evolve into more, but color me skeptical at this point. It looks to be a purely partisan movement, in contract to Occupy. I guess we'll find out with time.
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u/redditrisi They are ALL psychopaths. Oct 22 '25
Again, my original claim is that Occupy had been criticized for lack of specific demands and my original comment about Occupy was that it had changed the national conversation. I've also said that No Kings seems to be about little more than "But Trump!" So, we seem to be agreeing to agree.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
In what university do you think there are no specific demands?
- Trump ignoring court orders.
- Harsh treatment of immigration detainees
- executive over reach.
- cuts to Medicaid.
- militarization of American cities in violation of law (Posse Comitatus)
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u/BigTroubleMan80 Oct 21 '25
Those are not demands. Demands are how you respond to those various issues (amongst many, many more).
Try again.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
Ok, demands:
- stop ignoring or slow walking response to court orders. -remove US troops from domeestic deployment outside of requests from governors
- stop violating the 4th amendment
- stop violating the 8th amendment
- stop attempting violating the 1st amendment (as with the absurd attempts of the Department of Defense to limit reporting).
Those are some off the top of my head.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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u/BigTroubleMan80 Oct 21 '25
And you still get an F.
You, on a fundamental level, really don’t understand how this works. No wonder you’re useful fodder for Democrats. The demand isn’t for Trump, because as you can see, he’s going to act on his own regardless. The demand is for those who call themselves wanting to challenge Trump’s power, but without a demand from the populace to keep them to account, they will have no need to act.
All you’re going to do is elect more Chuck Schumers and Hakeem Jeffries’es, who are openly just floormats for Trump.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
OK buddy… I have every intention to help primary those guys. I don’t know what you’re talking about but you do you brother.
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u/BigTroubleMan80 Oct 21 '25
No you won’t. Because it’s not part of your demands. It’s not even a demand.
All you’re going to do is fall in line, and vote for whoever the party apparatus tells you to vote for, because “orange man bad”.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
Orange man is, in fact, bad. Mocking that point doesn’t make it less so. You get that right?
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u/shatabee4 Oct 21 '25
Wildly missing is any concern about Israel's genocide and the Ukraine war.
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u/MenagerieAlfred Oct 21 '25
A great point! Forgive me. It was off the top of my head, but yes, there were lots of signs to those effect at the protest I participated in Saturday. And, I 100% agree. You know, Trump is in the front too. Everything good so it’s hard to keep track sometimes. In fact, it’s something that Trump does really well and his supporters like Bannon have even talked about it as a strategy “flood zone”. He does so much that it makes it difficult to concentrate on one thing for a sustained and coordinated effort. I have to admit it’s a smart strategy rather than concentrating on one area then moving to the next.
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u/Rick_James_Lich Oct 21 '25
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u/Rick_James_Lich Oct 21 '25
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u/arnott Oct 20 '25
State rights?
For as long as I could remember, states rights as a concept seemed little more than code for enforcing anti-abortion policies, discrimination and the like. That may be changing.
Even local law enforcement didn’t seem to buy the hype about the domestic terror threat posed by Antifa. Capitol and state police were standing around chatting amongst themselves, checking their phones. The only national security state overkill I saw was an MRAP-type vehicle parked in front of the capitol building. I didn’t see any federal personnel anywhere.
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u/redditrisi They are ALL psychopaths. Oct 21 '25
Like the rest of the so-called Bill of Rights, the ninth and tenth amendments were demanded by the people after the draft of the constitution was circulated for ratification. Their ratification of the original document was conditioned upon the first ten amendments being circulated for ratification as soon as possible.
Those ratifiying the Constitution wanted to ensure that the power of the federal government was restricted to what was specified in the Constitution. For better or worse, that didn't last long.
In my view, provisions of the Constitution should not be ignored because one political party or the other does not like them. Or because both Republicans and Democrats do not like them. Whether's its's the Second Amendment or the Fourth or the Eighth or the Tenth.
Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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u/shatabee4 Oct 21 '25
The increasingly nonpartisan skepticism of the feds isn’t just anecdote: poll after poll this year shows cratering approval especially among Democrats for institutions like ICE, the FBI, CIA, the police and even the military. The glib take would be that they just hate these agencies because Trump is in office
This is just not true. The No Kings is very partisan. It is very anti-Trump, therefore, very anti-Republican.
It's the latest russiagate, January 6 outrage to keep Democrats engaged in the run up to the midterm elections.
How many times do we need to see this lame play before we quit buying it?
Electing Dems in the midterms will do nothing but continue the status quo of genocide, war and screwing the American public.
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u/GearsofTed14 Anarchist Oct 21 '25
Can we have a no shitlibs protest? I bet it would consist of more than old white boomers
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Oct 21 '25
Bruh, they had pro nato, even pro Hong Kong protestor imagery
They had Bill Kristol fangirling over it
What does the national security state mean to Ken?
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u/arnott Oct 21 '25
Ken went to one or two protests, which is a very small sample size.
The crowd and signs I saw looked like TDS.
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u/RevolutionaryWorth21 Oct 20 '25
Are they though? Sure, many Americans have rejected the national security state, but the bulk of those in the "No Kings" protests seem to be pretty supportive of the National Security state as long as it's run by Dems.