Republicans Cast This Weekend’s ‘No Kings’ Protests as ‘Hate America’ Rallies, Raising Organizer Fears of a Crackdown

Republican politicians are deriding this weekend’s scheduled “No Kings Day” protests as nothing less than a series of “hate” rallies aimed not just at President Trump, but at the United States itself. The rhetoric is leading some liberal activists to worry about the risk of widespread arrests. The No Kings movement emerged earlier this year, inspired by an AI-generated online image in which Mr. Trump portrayed himself wearing a crown. The first protest was organized by the liberal activist group Indivisible, which coordinated with civil rights groups, voting rights groups, and labor unions.That protest at more than 2,000 American cities and towns was held on June 14, Mr. Trump’s 79th birthday, to coincide with a military parade at Washington, D.C., that same day. Organizers estimated that more than 5 million Americans participated in the June events. The next protests, set for Saturday, are expected to be even larger. Republicans have been quick to claim the events are being run by “radical left” types who are simply hell-bent on hating the president. The rhetoric from GOP leaders, however, has gotten more extreme in recent days. Speaker Mike Johnson last week referred to the No Kings protest as a “hate America rally” and claimed that Senator Chuck Schumer is only blocking a government funding deal so he can win praise from the protesters. The speaker went on to say the rallies are being run by the “pro-Hamas wing” and the “antifa people” in the Democratic Party. The House majority whip, Congressman Tom Emmer, went even further at a press conference this week. The government shutdown “is about one thing and one thing alone: to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in D.C. next week,” Mr. Emmer said. Mr. Trump himself has not been more measured. On Wednesday, he told reporters in the Oval Office that “very few people are gonna be there,” and said the activists just “want to have their day in the sun.”One of the founders of Indivisible, Ezra Levin, told USA Today in an interview on Thursday that people planning to protest should be afraid of a crackdown by the Trump administration, given the president’s rhetoric. “If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention. These folks are serious. They are actively trying to take away your constitutional right to peaceful protest, and that is how authoritarian regimes work,” Mr. Levin told the outlet.“They fear more than anything one thing, which is the mass, peaceful, organized population pushing back against their unpopular designs on the system.”Other liberal lawmakers and commentators are urging their supporters to show up for the protests, but to be careful. Mr. Trump and his administration have not yet ruled out an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which would grant the president broad authority to crack down on protests within the United States. “This is a really important day. It’s a day for this country to stand up and say that we’ve had enough with the destruction of democracy, the building of Trump’s censorship state, [and] the evisceration of our health care,” Senator Chris Murphy said in a video posted to Instagram on Thursday.He specifically singled out Mr. Emmer for his claim that those attending the No Kings protest are part of the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party. “What Republicans are basically telling you is that they hate free speech. They hate free speech when it isn’t conservative speech — when it isn’t pro-Trump speech,” Mr. Murphy said. “They’re trying to get you to stay home,” he added. “Their tactics will work if we don’t show up.”One policy that has some activists especially concerned is known as National Security Presidential Memorandum Seven, or NSPM-7. That memo — signed by Mr. Trump in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk — directs key agency officials to conceive of a “comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation.”The memo describes ideas worthy of investigation as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity;” “extremism on migration, race, and gender;” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Republicans Cast This Weekend’s ‘No Kings’ Protests as ‘Hate America’ Rallies, Raising Organizer Fears of a Crackdown

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