Photo: Speakers at the “No Kings” rally in a small Midwest city.
At the ‘No Kings’ rally June 14 in a small Midwest city, I asked a reporter covering the event about estimating the crowd size. ‘What is your method?’ ‘How many do you think there are?’ I suggested about 500, which is what appeared later in the news story. Nationwide, estimates came in around five million.
My local estimate ranged from 400 to 500, derived from my method as a former reporter. The reporter started out around 300, although had received the higher number from one of the speakers at the rally. A full-time farmer, college economics major, and Vietnam-era Navy pilot, he is good with numbers.
Since the rallies began in Spring, the numbers have been increasing. That is encouraging for anyone concerned about the future of our democracy. Early on most of the participation seemed to come from older people. More recently, it’s been encouraging to see more young people, and in the small Midwest city, more Latinos. And marching along the main street, fewer middle fingers and more thumbs up and car horns.
While these numbers are encouraging, other numbers are depressing. Two: Minnesota lawmaker and her husband murdered by a man radicalized by right-wing ideology. 1.8 million: Followers on X of a right-wing influencer spewing lies and conspiracy theories about the cause of the murders. 3 million: Fox prime time viewers. 146,649: Average daily circulation of New York Post, which ran a misleading headline linking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz with the assassin.
Party ‘off the rails’
As news about the murder of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband burrowed in, the ‘No Kings’ rally program went forward with songs, and one speaker’s view of history and challenges we face as a nation. A former member of the Republican party, he said that he disengaged when it “went off the rails” in the 1990s. Another departure occurred around then with our local state senator, who switched to the Democratic party and continued to be re-elected.
My recollections of that time include observations in my role as a small-town newspaper editor. Newt Gingrich, the anti-choice movement, rise of Fox, among other factors congealed into the political mess we have today. We can only hope that enough Americans who still believe in representative democracy, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution, will continue to rally.
A look back at how we got here is found in a book by historian Julian E. Zelizer, Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party (2020, Penguin Random House). “From the Contract with America to the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics,” says the Amazon summary. There is no rational logic to burning down your house just because you don’t want to repair or clean it.
We need more people like the ex-Navy pilot, farmer, and former Republican at the rally who are moved to speak out. The ascending derangement of the Republican thirty years ago “taught me that the party became way more important than the country for someone who willingly answered the call to my country and flew into combat in Vietnam,” he said. “That was the last straw, and I haven’t looked back.”
Not the first fight
He shared a historical perspective, citing historian Heather Cox Richardson. “This isn’t the first fight for democracy in our country,” he said. “We’re all familiar with the 1850s in what culminated in the Civil War, and one that may be less known, but more similar to what we’re going through with the gilded age in the 1890s to the 1920s. We saved our democracy twice. Now we’re in the middle of another battle, I don’t know where if we’re at the beginning the middle of the end.”
How it all shakes out will be influenced by two significant groups, the billionaire tech ‘bros’ and state attorneys general. Three, if you consider the military. In a fascist regime, while industry retains economic power, it can be controlled by a dictator. “And I haven’t seen a better way to control businesses than to unilaterally use your pen on tariffs,” the rally speaker said. “You can decide who the winners and losers are by one person.”
Attorneys general in ‘blue’ states “are probably playing the role of protecting us in the legal realm, and we need to be supporting them,” he said. “I feel that what we’re doing here today is a part of that.” In Minnesota we are very grateful for having a state attorney general who is at the forefront, Keith Ellison.
Two weeks ago, Ellison was in this small Midwest city speaking to an overflow crowd at the local community center. Ellison and other blue state AGs have filed at least 14 lawsuits against the federal government. He said they began the groundwork in March 2024.
The local newspaper reported, “Just because I’m not depressed about this fight we’re in doesn’t mean I’m happy to be in this fight,” Ellison said. “I would really, really rather just protect Minnesotans’ pocketbooks and help them afford their lives. … I’m in no way tired. I can do it for four and a half more years, no problem. But I will tell you that it is a shame when we swear an oath to uphold the laws of the country, and then the head of state just starts violating them.”
It is both encouraging and humbling to have such leaders who actually care about citizens, stand up for truth, and have the courage to accept the personal risks that may follow. To see those risks become deadly as they did with Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, should galvanize great multitudes to step up and generate the power to rescue and restore our Constitutional government. May the rallies continue.
