Two actions to take right now: October 18 protest, Government shut-down vote
Put October 18 on your calendar for the next nationwide protest
Who cares? Who will notice if you do – or don’t – participate in the next nationwide No Kings demonstration on Saturday, October 18? Who is the audience for this?
Certainly not the people in power in Washington. They won’t notice and they wouldn’t care if they did. They are not the audience.
There are three important audiences for this demonstration. Each audience needs to hear a clear message:
- The audience: The people on the front line who are fighting for democracy right now. There are people demonstrating literally in the face of ICE and oppression in LA, DC, Boston and now Chicago. There are lawyers winning cases defending immigrants, voting rights and free speech (even though the Supreme Court may overrule them all). There are Governors and Mayors standing up and taking action against masked thugs snatching people off their streets. There are ordinary people sitting on grand juries and refusing to indict people on politically-motivated charges.
- The message: We have your back.
- The audience: The elected officials who are waffling. You know who they are: the Senators and Representatives who are always “concerned” but seldom actually vote to protect democracy. Many of them are up for re-election in 2026. And there are also Governors and Mayors who are not standing up to protect people.
- The message: We’re taking names and we’re going to vote.
- The audience: You, your friends and your neighbors who are being beaten down by waking up to some new fresh hell every morning. The kind of news that would have ruined your whole year in the past hits you 4 or 5 times a day now (probably more if you spend all day glued to the news). It makes us all feel helpless and hopeless – which is what they want.
- The message: You are not alone and, together, we are not powerless.
We don’t have the details on local action on October 18 yet, but expect it any day. We’ll post it on our “Demonstrate!” page as soon as it becomes available. Watch our home page for updates.
Stand up. Show up.
Urge Congress to take a stand on the September 30 budget show-down
This is a more difficult call. The government shuts down September 30 unless the Republicans can keep it running. The Republicans can only do that if seven Democrats cross over and vote with them. Historically, Democrats have worked against government shut-downs. Just last March, despite push-back by some, Senate Democrats (led by Minority Leader Schumer) gave the Republicans the votes they needed to keep this regime funded.
Now, there’s a strong argument to go the other direction. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich summed it up: “The U.S. government runs out of money September 30. …Keeping the U.S. government funded now is to participate in the most atrocious misuse of the power of the United States in modern times. So I for one have decided that the best route is to shut the whole f*cking thing down. Morally, Democrats must not enable what is now occurring. Politically, they cannot remain silent in the face of such mayhem.”
It may not be quite that clear, though. This is one of the few times in this Congress that the Democrats have any real leverage. Sooner or later, though, Democrats will have to vote to get government back up and running. If they have a clear “ask” and get a win for a shut-down, fine. But strategically, if the Democrats don’t have a clear “ask” and a clear end-game for a shut-down, it could just look like a temper tantrum and a win for the regime.
So deciding what to push for is a tougher call on this one. We’ve put together a simple explainer to help you come to your own conclusion and decide what action you want to push for, with links to other resources if you want to dig deeper. Click on the button below to reach that resource.
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