What you need to know about tomorrow

Millions of Americans are expected to gather Saturday for another round of ‘No Kings’ rallies to protest the authoritarianism of President Donald Trump, who, in recent months, has confronted National Guard and immigration agents in blue strongholds, pressured the Justice Department to bring charges against his political enemies and used his power to exert control over media giants.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has claimed that the more than 2,500 protests are being organized by “the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people,” the actual groups helping to mobilize protesters include Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign and the American Federation of Teachers.

“I’m sick of these people,” Johnson complained on News last week.

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If the size of June’s anti-King protests is any indication, Saturday’s events will be widespread and massively attended. The one in late spring attracted about 5 million people and is believed to be one of the largest single-day coordinated protests in U.S. history, organizers said.

And while an event map shows huge clusters of protests planned in blue areas, there are still more than a dozen in deep red Wyoming and Oklahoma.

“This is bigger than a political disagreement,” states the official ‘No Kings’ website. “This administration has defied our courts, deported American citizens, taken people off the streets, and cut our services, all while orchestrating a massive donation to its billionaire allies. Enough is enough.”

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This time, there will be one in Washington, DC. For the June events, organizers asked people to keep their protests outside the capital, where Trump was holding a less attended military parade on his birthday, saying they wanted the “center of gravity on June 14 everywhere President Trump is not.”

D.C. is one of the cities where Trump has deployed National Guard troops out of state since August, and the White House says violence there is “out of control.” In reality, violent crime rates in DC have dropped significantly from a peak in 2023 and remain dramatically lower than they were in the 1990s.

Republicans like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott say they already plan to deploy National Guard troops to the protests, describing them as a “planned demonstration linked to Antifa.”

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He is one of several Republicans who indicate they expect the protests to turn violent, even though the June gatherings were largely peaceful. There was a fatal shooting at a Salt Lake City protest and some people were injured by people who ran over protesters with their cars.

Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, told News themezone on Wednesday that it’s obvious to him why the GOP is criticizing the marches.

“I don’t think it’s that complicated,” he said. “The only thing an unpopular authoritarian regime fears is massive, organized, peaceful popular power. That’s all.”

People interested in organizing a protest in their area can do so using the ‘No Kings’ toolkit.