No Kings Day, Part One
Newark, Delaware, April 19, 2025
And once in a great while, someone will light a lantern—or even two—that will shine forth for democratic principles that are under siege and set the world ablaze. — Heather Cox Richardson
And sometimes, as in our own era of Constitutional crisis, in order to stop the fascist tyranny arising within our own government, a network of liberty-loving Americans, organized in mass resistance against the forces that seek to control the national narrative by imposing limits on the flow of information, will honor the principles of democracy as established by the rule of law and fill the public squares and streets of the nation in defense of those principles, especially the right to freely speak truth to power. In the words of Caitlin Johnstone, “It is only because the rich and powerful are able to do things like buy up media companies, rig algorithms, fund think tanks, decide what films get made, decide who gets famous and who remains marginalized, silence and deport political dissidents, and restrict access to information by deeming it ‘classified’ that our abusive political norms are able to be maintained. If information was truly democratized and freely flowing, nobody would tolerate being impoverished, sickened and oppressed for the benefit of a few oligarchs and empire managers.”
“Like the Founders,” writes Robert Hubbell in Today’s Edition Newsletter, April 19, 2025, “our pledge is made to ‘each other’ — a mutual endeavor for the common good. Take pride and comfort in knowing that the cause is bigger than any one of us and will outlast all of us because we will refuse to give up.” On this auspicious day here in Newark, Delaware, the pictures tell the story about how a band of citizens gathered in solidarity to reaffirm their collective commitment to the principles of “liberty and justice for all” the ethos that comprises every stitch of the universal thread of democracy that binds us together that no King can corrupt.
As hundreds of demonstrators took to the sidewalks of Newark on Saturday, Thats Another Fine Mess author Tom Cleaver reported “The wind is shifting against the traitors.” A major tell-tail Cleaver cited are comments by NYT’s columnist David Brooks who preciently wrote in advance of No King’s Day, “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power. People throughout history have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault.”
In another comment reflecting the shifting winds of political power, Norman Eisen writes in The Contrarian: “I live about a mile from the White House, but even at this distance, when the wind is blowing north, you can smell the desperation. Trump is losing, Elon is laying low(er) and likely on the way out of government and they and their cronies had another shambolic week.” For all the details read Eisen’s comprehensive report, Trump’s autocracy is growing —but patriotic opposition is growing faster at: contrarian+publishers-roundup@substack.com
Meanwhile, here’s proof from Newark, Delaware that as Bob Dylan crooned, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.”
Great post, Stew. Good to see you covering the local protests with photos, and your words are very forceful too.
Stew, thank you for another fine set of photos. It's wonderful that people are catching on and speaking out. Please keep me in your loop.