With a side dish of football, chess, and Epstein
In July, I wrote an article about my thoughts of No Kings 1.
I expressed my bewilderment as to why one month after No Kings 1, no other protest seems to be forthcoming. It is my understanding that contemporary protest theory suggests that protests need to be repeated to get the effect they are looking for. After all, the Civil Rights Act and the end of the Vietnam War did not happen because a few million people took to the streets on one Saturday.
Well, these are unusual times. We should not assume that what worked circa 1970 will work today. So maybe the masterminds behind the No Kings protests have a 2025 strategy. But they are not telling us what that strategy is. So that leaves people like me to speculate about what the people in the back room are thinking. Here are my musings.
The real leadership of the political left has given up
Midway through WW2, American psychologists were asked to predict the behavior of Adolph Hitler. While they never met the man in person, they watched the newsreels and applied what they knew about psychology. They predicted that, even with obvious defeat, he would take his country to utter ruin and never surrender. He would commit suicide.
We should assume that the organizers of No Kings have access to reports from today’s psychologists who have done a similar analysis of Donald Trump and likely successors. When they combine their assessments with similar historical events, they see a future Republican oligarchy as a given.
For example, No Kings 2 happened on October 18. The East Wing of the White House was demolished a week later. That is not a sign the protest had some effect on the Trump administration. Maybe No Kings 2 accelerated that demolition just to show who is boss.
In other words, No Kings 2 — and the many small political battles — are only giving the appearance of “Well, we tried to stop the oligarchy before the oligarchy happened.”
Maybe the leadership and members of political left have already surrendered the near future of the USA. They are only making some noise to placate the masses while minimizing the damage. They are waiting for the Republicans to fall fully on their own sword.
Networking opportunities
A few political commentators have stated that — in less than one year — the Trump administration has implemented half of the objectives of Project 2025. It will be very hard to turn this political ship around. So why bother protesting?
Maybe there are networking opportunities. The protesters, especially the organizers at the local events, get the opportunity to get to know each other a little better. If the oligarchy does happen (i.e. martial law, obviously rigged elections, or suspension of elections), these people just might organize locally to provide resistance against the oligarchy.
If just 1% of that seven million take their dissatisfaction to the level of resistance, this could pose a big challenge to Republican rule.
The Republicans should not assume that they can control the masses to the same effect as the Nazis had with the 1930s Germans or the communists had with eastern Europeans after WW2. Resistance from the political left is not going away so easily.
So maybe No Kings 2 was an opportunity to start building that resistance.
Is this what the backroom people were thinking?
Credibility with non-violence
Violent protests tend to lose public support for the cause. Non-violent protests accomplish more change. Or so says modern protest theory.
The organizers of No Kings get a high grade in this regard. The short duration (two hours), quick dispersal of protesters, and funny costumes built rapport with the public and police forces.
I hypothesize that if the Trump administration had the police forces (and military) in its back pocket, the USA would already be in an oligarchic state. That obedient police force(s) is not there yet.
If anything, No Kings 2 demonstrated to the police forces that the protesters are indeed real people who have legitimate concerns.
Maybe this police softening is the psychological impact the No Kings organizers were trying to effect. It may have dividends later as the drama unfolds.
Setting the bait and trap
Sooner or later, the Republicans are going to force their oligarchy on the rest of the USA. So maybe the goal of No Kings 2 was to force the Republicans to make this move before they are truly ready.
Even though the Republicans are ignoring or downplaying the seven million Americans on the street, the people in the back Republican rooms must be a little scared: No Kings 2 was a solid protest — and did not give the excuse for martial law. Some Republicans could be talked into martial law before No Kings 2 grows to No Kings 3.
Let me put this in simpler words, No Kings 2 was a great move to draw the Republicans to make the first really stupid move in this drama.
By really stupid, I am talking about something similar to the Kent State shootings in 1970. That event flipped the public sentiment on the Vietnam war.
The Democratic Party is setting itself up for a long reign
Who are the No Kings organizers? Supposedly, the organizers are non-partisan. I suspect the Democratic Party probably has tendrils into this organization for both organizations have the same goal: remove Republicans from power. And being a No Kings organizer would be good experience to help rise in the Democratic Party later.
To stall the Republicans, there have been political battles fought in the legislatures and courts. And the political left is winning many of them. The battles it is losing are still stalling the takeover. These battles are important to continue credible elections in 2026, which will then then lead to credible elections in 2028. Without these battles, the USA would be in a one-party state by now.
Remember that 86 million American voters did not vote on November 5, 2024. If just 25% of them find their way to the polls in 2026, this could have a profound impact on the electoral result, something that could overshadow any voter suppression or gerrymandering techniques. There is potential to turn the electoral result around. The Republicans could easily go from a narrow win to a decisive loss, like a 40–60 split or worse.
Maybe the goal is to convince some of those 86m voters to vote. Those votes are not likely to go a Republican way.
If the Republicans can be discredited electorally in 2026, then the leaders of the Democratic Party would point to the follies of the Trump administration as its main campaign message to “get out the vote” in 2028 and 2032. And we could argue that the Democratic Party has been in this mode of thinking since 2016.
In other words, if the political left can hold on to elections while letting the Republicans further prove their ineptness in governance, the Democratic Party will be the only viable alternative. The USA will become a de facto one-party state — albeit with the D’s holding the reins of power. The R’s will be kept as a weak foil to give the appearance of a democracy.
If so, for the next decade, the real elections in the USA will be the internal elections of the Democratic Party.
With the right political theatre, the D’s might get over this little Trump hump. No Kings 2 was one act in this play.
The Democrats can smell the opportunity of total power heading their way.
You are overthinking things, Dave
Maybe. But I will use a football analogy here. Before the game, the opposing teams study each other. They devise plays to exploit their opponent’s weaknesses. They concoct plays to minimize their opponent’s strengths. To not go through this thinking before the football game means more losing than winning. A football team cannot win solely on the talents of its players.
Politics is no different. And I think the “political overthinking” has been enhanced in the last generation. While the political game moves much slower than a football game, be rest assured the wiser planners are making all sorts of plans, based on their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses and responses.
I, you, and all other readers of this article are not in the back rooms. Our opinions are not welcome. THEY expect us to protest when THEY tell us to protest.
Maybe THEY have a good plan. But I am not confident, even with the successful No Kings 2.
But we can speculate. I have proffered five possible explanations. I don’t know which is the most correct.
The Epstein Files
A bit off topic, but there is a connection here.
Let’s just admit that we (myself included) have been couching this story for far too long. This is not a story of one rich man sharing his women with a few other rich men, with a little corruption to keep the sex coming. We have been manipulated to believe this is not as bad as it really was.
Let me get real blunt:
The Epstein affair was a multi-million-dollar business. Its luxury resorts required cooks, cleaners, handymen, bartenders, etc. Buildings and grounds require maintenance. A lot of money was required to pay staff and keep the doors open. This business even had its own jet. Where did it get that money?
Hint: Thousands of rich men paid money to have sex with 15-year-old girls.
These men came from all aspects of upper society. Businessmen, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, professional athletes, and politicians. Many members of upper New York society knew what was happening in these resorts. While many of them chose not to partake, they continued to associate with those who did.
Jeffery Epstein died in 2019. The Democrats had the Epstein files on their desk from 2021 to 2024. Yet they did nothing with the files.
Now the Democrats are braying to open these files. Why is it so important now, but not then? Maybe because this issue could now help give them that long reign of power I talked about earlier?
Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG)
My Medium writings sometimes state that the near future of the USA has already been decided. We can only wait for all the various forces to sort themselves out. There is not much we average people can do to change the outcome, including attending protests.
There are only two outcomes: (1) a full Republican oligarchy or (2) a bumbling surface democracy that is likely to lead to a repeat of 2016 and the decade after. That’s kind of like two last-place teams playing their final game of the season to see who is really in last place.
My lukewarm fans know I am introducing a third outcome: a new democracy for the USA. This democracy has no political parties. It teaches citizens to vote for good character and capacity for governance. It has a culture to bring out consultative decisions — for the betterment of society. It is the kinder, wiser democracy we so yearn for.
This TDG will not be a protest movement like No Kings 2. Rather it will be neighbors meeting together, for about 10 hours a month. Their first task is to write a local TDG constitution. As the early TDG builders get better at TDG governance, this movement will grow.
If the Republicans find their oligarchy, they will be quite busy suppressing the resistance. They won’t have the resources or focus to persecute a group that could cause problems 10 or 20 years later.
If the Democrats find that 10-or-more-year reign, they will do just enough “good things” to stay in power. Improving democracy won’t be one of those good things. This is not the government we want. Think of how they handled the Epstein files.
Conclusion
To use a chess analogy, I believe No Kings 2 has moved its queen to a dominant spot on the chessboard. It has taken options away from the Trump administration, for the time being.
After making a dominant move, a good chess player anticipates the next moves from the opponent. It has a play in mind for each of those moves. But even a well-planned and executed series of plays will only put the Democratic Party back in power. Kind of Pyrrhic victory, is it not?
Rather than continue to hope and wish the back rooms of the protest movement make the right plays at the right times, maybe it is time for us to build that new democracy.
Rather than continue to hope and wish the Democratic Party governs more for the people than for itself, maybe it is time for us to build that new democracy.
We can start building that democracy anytime.
Would that not be more effective than protesting when told to protest? For underlying reasons we do not understand?
Published on Medium 2025
They Say You Want a Revolution
