We live in strange times. We live in a time when it can be intimidating to speak out against governmental abuses, because of the potential repercussions or false accusations as to what that critique means. In some ways, these times remind me of the early days after 9/11 in the U.S., where, if you objected to the U.S. Government torturing people, you were accused of supporting terrorists or being anti-American.  

Such accusations are not just nonsensical, but they are also powerful in chilling speech. The truth, of course, is that two things can be true at once. One could always decry the horrific attacks of 9/11 and also decry the violence and inhumanity in many of the responses to 9/11. The accusations leveled at critics of the responses, however, made continuing to speak more daunting. I discuss this narrative issue in my book.  

I’ve posted about the strategic use of fear to silence people, on my blog and on my University’s Faculty blog in relation to completely different contexts. Governor Pritzker of Illinois gave a commencement address, in which he asked how to tell when a person is on the right side of history. He said: “There's a simple answer. The wrong side of history will always tell you to be afraid - the right side of history will always expect you to be brave.” 

The ”No Kings” protests yesterday required people to be brave for a number of reasons. 

Competing narratives about earlier protests, largely in Los Angeles, abounded in the tense days of the past week, as I discussed at length in my last post. The President threatened force against protestors of his military parade, planned for the same day, saying such protestors were people who “hate our country.” The Federal Government had federalized the National Guard and sent in Marines to Los Angeles in response to earlier protests, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had claimed the federal government was going to “liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country.” 

Things were tense leading into Saturday’s No Kings protests. 

The day began on a dark and tragic note, with the “politically motivated assassinations” of former Minnesota state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in their home in the early hours. A state Senator, John Hoffman and his wife, were wounded in an attack, allegedly by the same gunman, in their home. That the suspect dressed as a police officer, including driving a police vehicle, made an already horrific sequence of events that much worse. In response to the suspect still being at large, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz asked people not to attend the planned protests in Minnesota. Fears were further stoked by the discovery of “No Kings” pamphlets in the car the gunman left behind at the crime scene, which raised questions as to whether the protests were a potential target. More will be said as this tragic situation unfolds. 

It is perhaps a relief, then, that the protests themselves turned out to be largely peaceful, with some organizer estimates at 5 million people, with others as high as 12 million people, in terms of turnout. Pictures from various protests can be seen here. There were some isolated incidents of violence, mostly against protestors and some instigated by law enforcement, such as in Los Angeles, where an “unlawful assembly” was declared and local law enforcement fired teargas and non-lethal bullets at protestors. Some reports suggest that this happened at a separate gathering from the No Kings protests. For the most part, however, the protests were heavily attended at over 2100 sites and were largely peaceful. 

Although a strategic decision was made by the “No Kings” organizers not to have a formal protest event at the Government’s military parade in Washington, D.C., there were isolated protests there. There has been public commentary that turnout at the parade was lower than the 200,000 people expected, possibly in part because of the weather, which required the parade to start early. Social media users, however, have claimed responsibility for a lower turnout, saying they posted videos in the days before the parade, with instructions on how people could reserve tickets but not actually attend. 

No doubt there will be competing narratives about these competing events. From a legal perspective, however, the largely peaceful protests of millions of people yesterday will go far to counter the narratives advanced earlier in the week about alleged “insurrection,” or of the claimed need to invoke the Insurrection Act. Similarly, it should make it difficult, factually, for the U.S. Government to continue to claim a need to federalize the California National Guard or to bring in the Marines, as legally disputed as those claims always were. 

The No Kings protests began with considerable, justified fear of violence and governmental repercussions. People arguably chose, however, to be on the right side of history by making the brave choice. The massive, largely peaceful protests are likely to go a long way to change disturbing political and legal narratives that have been brewing in recent days, for now at least.