The No Kings Protests

Earlier today, NPR reported that organizers “estimated that more than 5 million people” participated in yesterday’s No Kings protests. Axios also reported 5 million protestors without citing a source. The number of protestors is difficult to pin down because of the number of cities involved. But even Fox News blared the headline of “Millions show up across US” protesting. The Live Now Fox headline credited the organizers for the number of protestors. LiveNow from FOX “is the national news service powered by FOX Television Stations,” according to its About Us section. That the FOX stations support the belief that “millions” of people protested Donald Trump suggests that America’s population has or is mobilizing.

A review of news media reports citing police sources show that “thousands” protested during Saturday’s No Kings events in cities across the United States. The event was organized to counter the Washington D.C. military parade and to protest Trump’s policies. Organizers of the protests say that “millions” protested while a few official reports cite around 360,000 protestors officially reported. Because less than eight official counts have been released totaling a third of a million suggests that at least a million people protested across the country. But what about El Paso?

The El Paso Numbers

El Paso’s turnout near Cielo Vista was about 500 protestors, according to Texas Public radio. In Austin, “thousands” gathered near the capitol to protest. The Dallas police estimated that around 10,000 protested in Dallas. In San Antonio, at least 1,000 protestors protested during the No Kings protests.

Local news stations have only reported that “hundreds” attended the El Paso protests.

The El Paso Times, KTSM and KVIA reported “hundreds,” while KFOX/KDBC have not reported on yesterday’s events.

Cities like Phoenix officially reported 5,000 protestors while Ventura County reported around 12,000 protestors. In Los Angeles over 200,000 were reported by officials to have protested yesterday. In New York “tens of thousands” were reported while in Seattle 70,000 reportedly turned out. At St. Paul in Minnesota, around 25,000 where protestors were reported, even after the murder of a state official and the wounding of another led authorities to issue an order asking residents to “shelter in place” which led organizers to cancel the city’s No Kings protests.

The number of protestors far outnumbered the Washington DC military parade.

The Trump Parade

As people protested Trump policies across the nation, Donald trump attended the US Army 250th anniversary parade in Washington DC. Although the parade was intended to celebrate the Army’s anniversary, it has been criticized as a costly expense to celebrate Trump’s birthday. Although a quarter of a million people were anticipated at the parade, a much smaller crowd was showed up. No official count of those who attended the Army’s parade has been released. However, pictures of the event showed empty seats along the parade route and small crowds at the Washington Monument lawn.

Most news media outlets reported “thousands” of people attending the Army parade. None reported nearly one hundred thousand and much less a quarter-of-a-million as White House communications director Steven Cheung attempted to on social media.

Cheung also tried to minimize the No Kings protests by calling it “a complete and utter failure with miniscule attendance.”

Both White House official statements are inaccurate or worse, outright lies.

Donald Trump has not officially issued a statement about yesterday’s protests or his parade at the time of publication. However, early this morning, Trump posted on social media that it was “a GREAT Parade.”

Notwithstanding the false characterizations by the White House, the contrasts between the Trump parade and the protests across the nation show a popular movement against the Trump Administration less than a year into his second term.

Popular Movements

Popular movements are generally associated with the Arab world and in authoritarian countries like China, where in 1989, an unidentified man stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, stopping a column of Chinese tanks on their way to disperse Chinese protestors. Months of student protests led the Chinese government to impose martial law. Attempting to end the protests, the Chinese government opened fire on the protestors. By the time it was over, many protestors were killed. The exact number of those who died that day remains unknown to this day.

Popular movements attempt to force political change through collective action. Populism in the US has existed since 1849, when the first social movement – poignantly – the Know Nothings (American Party), a white Christian supremacy group opposed Catholics and immigrants. The Know Nothings joined the Republicans in the 1860 after the party fragmented over the issue of slavery. Several other popular movements have followed, including the Tea Party in the early 2000s, Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and Black Lives Matter in 2013. Several other movements, like the #MeToo movement occurred in between. But it was the death of Black man that mirrors much of what happened yesterday.

Police violence against minorities exploded into national protests on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck. Floyd’s death sparked demonstrations for three months in 2,400 communities across the country. The demonstrations came to be known as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

BLM used social media to organize, like yesterday’s No Kings protests.

Although characterized by the first-term Trump Administration as lawless and criminal, much like today’s Los Angeles protests against Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), much of the BLM protests, around 97.7% “had no injuries reported,” in other words they were peaceful. An Austin American Statesman 2020 “fact-checking” article supports the largely peaceful nature of the BLM movement.
During his first-term, Trump responded to the BLM movement like he has responded to the Los Angeles ICE protests. As The Washington Post’s headline read on February 8, 2021, the “Trump years launched the biggest sustained protest movement in U.S. history,” poignantly adding, “it’s not over.” That headline was during Trump’s first term. (paywall)

Things in El Paso were different but past protests may have helped to reduce the potential for violence. Nonetheless, the mayor’s decision asking protestors to “lawfully” protest harkens back to a former police chief who labeled protestors “hate” groups.

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Former Police Chief Greg Allen And Renard Johnson

On June 8, 2016, former El Paso police chief Greg Allen infamously labeled the BLM as a “radical hate group.”

Allen issued a statement later stating that his comments “were made during an emotional time.” Veronica Escobar, Beto O’Rourke and several other El Paso officials condemned Allen’s comments.

On May 31, 2020, El Paso police responded with tear gas and bean bag rounds during a BLM protest, according to comments made by Verónica Carbajal before city council asking for changes in how El Paso police respond to protests. Prior to the BLM protests, a protest by Montwood Highschool students turned violent.

In 2003, around 100 Montwood High School students protested a change in school schedules. The “turning point” to when the protest “turned violent” was when the “police showed up and began using excessive force,” the panel investigating the Montwood riots heard from students and parents. The resulting civil lawsuit forced the city to pay about $25,000 for consultants to review El Paso police procedures during riots and $190,000 to cover medical expenses and attorney fees.

Likewise, the City of El Paso settled a lawsuit filed by Emma Bower after El Paso SWAT teams converged on a BLM protest in 2020. The lawsuit also forced the city to make changes to how it issues permits for protests.

During the BLM protests, Ricardo Samaniego issued a statement that he stood “in solidarity with all who are grieving the loss of George Floyd who was murdered before our very eyes,” asking El Pasoans to protest peacefully. Before yesterday’s No Kings protests, Samaniego did not issue any official statements regarding the protests. However, Renard Johnson issued a statement on Friday stating the City of El Paso has created a “comprehensive public safety plan to ensure that demonstrations are conducted safely and lawfully.”

Although Greg Abbott ordered 5,000 Texas National Guard troops to be deployed across the state ahead of the No Kings protests, El Paso was not on the list where the national guard would be deployed.

It is unclear why Johnson felt the need to ask El Pasoans to protest “lawfully” considering that the Texas governor did not feel the need to send National Guard troops to the city.

Was Yesterday Effective?

It is estimated that around half a million people protested during the BLM movement.

Yesterday’s No Kings protests drew somewhere between 1 million to 5 million people.

Although yesterday’s protests generated attention and more than one million protestors, the open question remains, will it be effective? Already, before the protests, the Trump Administration has backtracked on a key issue for the protestors, the targeting of immigrants for detention with workplace raids.

On Friday, the Trump Administration paused ICE raids at farms, hotels and restaurants. The pause on the ICE raids likely has more to do with the economic ramifications of the mass deportations than yesterday’s protests. Nonetheless, the low turnout at Trump’s parade compared to the protest turnout may be an inflection point for the nation.

The 3.5% Inflection Point

There is an argument based on the belief that when 3.5% of a country’s population mobilizes to demand change it achieves its goals. An inflection point is when momentum shifts towards greater success than failure.

It is estimated that America’s population is around 340 million making the 3.5% threshold to be around 12 million Americans. Using the 3.5% metric, yesterday’s protests did not achieve the inflection point needed to force changes in the Trump Administration.

Although the Black Lives Matter did not reach the 3.5% threshold it, nonetheless, shifted public opinion on how the public views officer-involved shootings, especially when it comes to Black people while also helping to make organizational and policy changes in police departments. Similar to what happened to the El Paso Police Department after the Montwood riots and the BLM protests.

Black Lives Matters was characterized as the “largest movement in US history” by The New York Times (paywall) in 2020. That was before yesterday. About half a million protested during the BLM movement. It is believed that at least twice as many protested yesterday.

Like with all movements attempting to make structural changes around institutionalized systems, there are arguments against the need for change and outright distortions about the movement.

FOX News Commentator Argues The Democratic Party Is Driving No Kings

Organizers behind No Kings says that it is a decentralized movement not led by any one group. This fits the description of a national movement. The Trump Administration has attempted to minimize the No Kings protest as an “utter failure” and maximize the Trump parade as a success. Both are clearly disinformation.

Fox News commentator Asra Nomani has published a series of opinion pieces arguing that the Democratic Party is behind the movement. She has put together, what she describes as a database bolstering her argument.

Nomani is an Indian Muslim journalist who has published a series of articles and opinion pieces about radical influences. In two recent pieces, Nomani argued that a “massive network of Democratic organizations [are] funding and orchestrating,” as what she describes as the “supposedly spontaneous uprising” of the No Kings movement.

In a second opinion piece the following day, Nomani argues that according to her database, the Democratic Party is connected to movements in around 95 cities. The problem for Nomani’s analysis is the disconnect between a social movement driven by social media with a traditional movement dependent on traditional communications. Nomani also seems to ignore that the No Kings movement involved significantly more than the 95 cities she cites in her database.

At best, Nomani can demonstrate that the Democratic Party helps and funds some of the members of the No Kings movement, but she cannot establish that the Democrats are driving the movement.

The underlining problem with her analysis is that philanthropy has had a long history in funding social movements throughout history. Governments, including the US government, have funded social movements in the past.

That an organization like the Democratic Party supports a movement like No Kings is not unique nor does it support the idea that the party drives the movement.

That the Trump Administration has yet to rally behind Nomani’s analysis is telling in itself. Instead, Trump supporters are using disinformation tactics to attempt to minimize the No Kings movement.

The organizing page for the No Kings movement has been clear from the onset about its decentralized nature and its “partners”.

Taking the example of the BLM movement, yesterday’s events are likely to force changes with the Trump Administration. Even before yesterday’s protests, Trump had already capitulated on a key point of the protests, ICE raids in workplaces. The raids are not ending at all workplaces but have been curtailed by Trump in significant places where migrants tend to work. Americans are likely to start seeing further capitulations from the Trump Administration in the coming days because of the protests.