There’s another giant “No Kings” protest scheduled for this weekend, and right now all I can think about is how disgusting it is that this is the closest thing to a mass-scale antiwar protest in the United States right now.
The problem with the “No Kings” protests is right there in the title. They’re saying “We don’t want a king, we want a president!” But Donald Trump is not a king. He is a president. And that’s the real problem: US presidents are extremely evil men who do extremely evil things.
Donald Trump is a US president who is doing US president things. US presidents consistently murder people with unforgivable acts of mass military violence, mistreat immigrants and marginalized communities, and promote tyranny for the benefit of corrupting special interests in defense of the US empire and the capitalist status quo. That’s what their job is. If they weren’t willing to do these things, they wouldn’t get the job.
Trump is not some freakish aberration; he is the product of the same American political status quo as his predecessors. He became president the same way they did, and the powers he now wields were given to his office via mundane executive, legislative and judicial decisions and precedents before he was ever elected.
But because the “No Kings” protests are organized by liberal defenders of that same political status quo, the demonstrations cannot address any of this. The whole thing is designed to be as large and inclusive as possible while also ensuring that it doesn’t disrupt the established order in any meaningful way. They make no real demands. They coordinate the demonstrations with police and government officials. Protesters show up for a few hours with their brunch signs and their orange guy shirts, and then they go home without inconveniencing anybody.
They are not protesting against the US empire. They just want a more polite, photogenic empire.
They are not protesting the corrupt oligarchic political system which gave rise to Donald Trump. They just want the corrupt oligarchic political system to give rise to presidents who make them feel less uncomfortable.
The problem is US presidents, not kings. The problem is the US empire, not Trump. The United States needs drastic, revolutionary change, not daytime protests designed to be as inoffensive as possible. As long as Americans are protesting against fictional monarchies and easily replaceable oligarchic puppets instead of resisting the actual imperial machine, the abuses are going to continue.
The war in Iran is the most obviously evil American war in generations. People should be flooding the streets in every major US city. Washington DC should be on fire. Soldiers should be deserting en masse. Instead we’re seeing these stupid fluffy lib theater conventions where people get together to do nothing.
Americans of conscience should be feeling deeply embarrassed right now.
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Caitlin Johnstone 