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Three suggested readings for No Kings Day [1]

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Date: 2025-06-13

Paul Krugman has a simple message: This Is Not A Drill.

There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls. What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.

Timothy Snyder analyzes exactly what is happening: Trump’s Civil War.

Earlier this week Donald Trump called for a second civil war at a US military base. This scenario can be resisted and prevented, if we have the courage to listen, interpret, and act. And this Saturday we will have the occasion to act. ….In the end, and in the beginning, and at all moments of strife, a government of the people, by the people, for the people depends upon the awareness and the actions of all of us. A democracy only exists if a people exist, and a people only exists in individuals' awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together. This weekend Trump plans a celebration of American military power as a celebration of himself on his birthday -- military dictatorship nonsense. This is a further step towards a different kind of regime. It can be called out, and it can be overwhelmed. Thousands of Americans across the land, many veterans among them, have worked hard to organize protests this Saturday — against tyranny, for freedom, for government of the people, by the people, for the people. Join them if you can. No Kings Day is June 14th.

Snyder is not wrong to call this a Civil War; January 6 was our modern day Fort Sumter. Too many people are still in denial about it — and too many are now openly celebrating it.

Many of us are struggling to navigate unfamiliar territory, trying to wrap our minds around what is happening. The NY Times had a commentary from two human rights experts who fled Russia. They offer up the words Russians have used to summarize — from long experience — the assorted ills that are being imposed on us.

We both grew up in Russia in the early 2000s and lived through the country’s gradual slide into authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin. In our 20s we started working in human rights. Now we live abroad, knowing that a return to Russia would almost certainly mean jail. Over the recent months we have been noticing something worrying: The same markers of authoritarianism we know from our youth have been appearing in America. Our American friends often struggle to describe what exactly is happening. That’s because, in part, they simply don’t have the language for it. We do. Over decades of facing dictators, Russians have developed a rich vocabulary to make sense of authoritarian reality — a weave of neologisms, coded jokes, doublespeak and Aesopian language. Some of these terms have already started to crop up in America. Words like “oligarchy” and “gulag” have been pressed into use as people try to make sense of President Trump’s administration. But there are lots more. We decided to write a handy phrase book — a sort of short glossary of authoritarianism — to help Americans name their new reality. Because when we can describe what is happening, it becomes a bit easier to fight it.

It’s alarming to read what follows, with the shock of recognition, but here we are.

Please try to take time to read through all of the above. They offer some clarity of thought in a time of chaos.

June 14 is being promoted as “No Kings Day” — but if it only lasts for a day, that’s not enough. We must push back and keep pushing back as long as it takes to turn things around. And then we have to push on even farther, so that we actually learn from our mistakes and do something about preventing in the future.

“The world is made by the people who show up for the job.”

June 14 is when we need to show up — and every day after that.

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