On October 18, 2025, American citizens from every state in the Union came together to form some 2,600 protest gatherings under the general title of No Kings in America. It is estimated that a total of over seven million citizens participated in this event, sponsored by a network of progressive organizations fighting against the agenda of Donald Trump and Republicans.
In an attempt to disparage this event, Trump and many Republicans called it a “Hate America Rally,” and “a Soros paid-for protest” that would be peopled by “antifa types,” “Marxists in full display,” “pro Hamas supporters,” and “people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.” What we actually saw was the antithesis of these characterizations. As Malcolm Ferguson wrote the following day in The New Republic, “much to the chagrin of the GOP, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., was not unhinged, not very far left, and entirely peaceful.”
I can say the same for the New York City rally, but I’ll let the following fifteen photographs make the case.
Four of the five painted portraits displayed in the photo above depict Donald Trump. He is a clown, he is a cartoonish dictator. He wants to be king and rule us, but her paintings depict him more as a royal jester, foolish. She mocks him, as do we all, in these protests.
Be reminded that No Kings was “America’s oldest political slogan.” Thomas Paine, writing in 1776, said: In America, the law is king! No King! No Tyranny! Paine continued, embracing the common man over King George (and other monarchs): “Of more worth is one honest man than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” Seventh Avenue on October 18 in mid-town Manhattan was full of such honest men (and women), a few of whom we see in the following nine photographs.
Donald Trump is our President, not our King. Still, even if this young woman (above) won’t bend her knee to him, many others have done exactly that, from Republican politicians who once held him in disdain to some of the wealthiest men in our country. He also has been given immunity from criminal liability for anything he does while in office–as if he were King–thanks to the Supreme Court decision, Trump vs. United States. And so, the hope that he may be prosecuted for crimes he already has committed or the hope that he must leave office, posed by the two signs seen below, seems quite unlikely.
Not only is Donald Trump unlikely to leave–willingly–at the end of his term, but he brings to his high office a “politics of cruelty” in the words of Robert Kuttner. Trump is a sociopath, as many have noted–not a good trait for a leader, clearly implied by the sign below.
Lack of empathy is a fundamental trait of sociopathy, and we have seen many examples of this in Donald Trump. I cite just one of hundreds–his mocking of the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition, at a rally in January, 2017. And, because empathy is so important for cooperation, communication, trust and conflict resolution, it is troubling that our president has none and even more troubling that someone like Elon Musk, to whom Trump has given so much power, has stated that “the fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is empathy.” This should concern every American; it certainly concerns the three demonstrators pictured below.
The expected role of a president is to unite all of his people, but Trump has constantly separated and divided us. The number of political writers and pundits who have called him Divider-in-Chief are legion. There is no denying the validity of the following sign.
For more than 400 years, the English speaking world has used the phrase divide and conquer to describe a means of achieving and maintaining political power through divisive measures. It would seem that, for Donald Trump, dividing is always about conquest, ruthless conquest.
Historically, few things were more ruthless and frightening that seeing a Jolly Roger appear on the horizon. It always meant conquest and often death. For the pirates who flew the Jolly Roger flag–and for Donald Trump–conquest was focused on gaining wealth. And so, whether he is killing “random citizens off the coast of South America,” or threatening to seize new territories (Iraq much earlier, but recently Greenland, Panama, and others), Donald Trump is behaving like a pirate. He also is “Stealing America” (just not in broad daylight) by leveraging the power of his office to garner new investments and promote his own business ventures. How else, for example, did he become at least $3 billion wealthier since 2024?
Were Donald Trump only enriching himself, the American people (the demos, to use the Greek word that defines our democracy) and both major parties would likely rebel and force him to step down (recall how three Republican leaders forced Richard Nixon to resign on August 7, 1974). But Trump has created an oligarchy to protect and promote his anti-democratic actions, pushing de-regulation and neutering agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and others. Also, Trump’s Administration is the wealthiest in history, boasting over a dozen billionaires.
Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, defined our democracy as government of the people, by the people, for the people…not the billionaires, as the two signs below assert. It is up to the people to actively protect our democracy, and seven million demonstrators did just that on October 18. Benjamin Franklin hinted at this need for us all to stay alert during the 1787 Constitutional Convention; when asked, “what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”, he repiled, “a republic, if you can keep it.” With the exception of Trump, all presidents understood the need to be vigilant and protect our democracy.
Possibly the closest parallel to today’s oligarchic/billionaire threat to American democracy was met a century ago when Theodore Roosevelt put forth this challenge to the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age: “To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”
Now, that “unholy alliance” has found new life a century after Teddy Roosevelt, prompting President Barack Obama’s Facebook post of July 5, 2022: “If we want democracy to flourish, we will have to fight for it. We’ll have to nurture it. And we will have to demonstrate its value, again and again, in improving the lives of ordinary people…”
Most Americans are aware that President Trump ran for his second term on a promise to enact retribution on many who had opposed him in the past, and we already have seen him demanding that the Department of Justice prosecute John Bolton, James Comey, Letitia James and several others.
When it comes to Barack Obama, however, Trump’s obsession with vengeance is deep and goes back to his “birther conspiracy”. Then, once in office for his first term, Trump tried to dismantle all Obama policies: the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the Iran Nuclear deal, and several Obama environmental regulations. And now (July 21, 2025), in his second term, he has accused Obama of treason and posted a fake, AI-generated video of Barack Obama being arrested and thrown into jail. This is not normal, to say the least…but it helps to explain the sign below.
Trump has a special obsession with Barack Obama (how often have we read statements claiming that Obama lives “rent-free” in Trump’s head?). Interestingly, he has a very different obsession with Vladimir Putin, on whom Trump lavishes praise, treats with unusual deference, calls “highly respected” and even “a genius.” This, of a man whose goal has been to weaken U.S. global influence and the international order that it has created for over half a century, a man who is dedicated to undermining democratic nations, particularly ours and those of NATO countries, a man who wants to destroy open markets which challenge his autocracy.
We know that Russians who oppose their government live in a climate of fear and repression and, with some regularity, are imprisoned and even murdered. In the past eight months in America–similarly to Russia–many citizens have been accosted and threatened, pepper balled and tear gassed, by ICE agents. And last week those agents even disrupted a children’s Halloween parade in Chicago. These experiences validate the first sign below–Trump is turning U.S. into Putin’s Russia.
However, Donald Trump is not only unleashing ICE (and other agencies such as Customs and Border Protection) onto the streets of liberal cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland. He is also deploying the National Guard and the Marines; and so the second sign below also makes a valid point. Trump might not actually be doing Putin’s work for him, but he most certainly is transforming a Putin dream into reality by turning our military against our own people.
The third and fourth signs below imply that Trump is actually being manipulated by Vladimir Putin: in one, as his puppet (again, legions have stated this, one being Hillary Clinton); in the next, as a brainwashed and hypnotized foreign agent in reference to the 1959 book by Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate, which was soon turned into a movie (1962: starring Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury).
The following four photographs refer to Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump’s “closest friend for ten years” (in Epstein’s words)–corroborated by Trump, who has said, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with.” Epstein was a pedophile, charged with child sex trafficking in 2019. There is no evidence that Trump “is a pedo,” as the second sign states, but the public has seen several photos of Donald Trump with very young girls seated on his lap in Epstein’s presence. These girls are the “children” referred to in the first sign. Somewhere between 36 and 80 women have stated that they were sexually molested–as children–by Epstein or his “friends” between 2001 and 2006.
The final two photographs make reference to “The List” and “Trumpstein Files.” In other words, what are known, properly, as the Epstein Files. These are a trove of documents which include transcripts of interviews with victims and witnesses amassed by FBI raids of Epstein’s several properties. Apparently, the House Oversight Committee has access to the Epstein Files, but the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (following Trump’s orders) will not allow their public release.
If Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who won a special election in September, 2025 to become the representative of Arizona’s 7th congressional district, is ever allowed to be sworn-in by Michael Johnson, hers would be the decisive vote to force a discharge petition for the release of the Epstein Files. House Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump oppose this release.
At the end of Donald Trump’s first term in office, Presidential historian Michael Beschloss stated: “I have never seen a president in American history who has lied so continuously and so outrageously as Donald Trump, period.”
By January 4, 2021, Washington Post fact-checkers had documented 30,573 false or misleading claims made by Donald Trump during his first term, and their diligence led to being nominated for the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade.
Even though presidential historians call Trump “the most mendacious White House occupant ever,” the Truth Decay cited in the first sign below is not limited to Donald Trump. It defines his entire Party.
And so, the second sign hints at another source: Republicans as a whole. Many in the GOP, desperate to demean these nationwide rallies, claimed the demonstrators were being paid. For example, Texas Senator Ted Cruz said (with no proof): ‘”There’s considerable evidence that George Soros and his network are behind funding these rallies, which may well be riots all across the country.”
As Bill Adair, who began PolitiFact in 2007, told David Corn last year, Republicans, by the 1990s, “took liberties with the truth, and Democrats were so careful….[and] the culture of the party was cemented by Newt Gingrich when he helped Republicans take over the house.” This was 1994; Newt Gingrich became House Speaker; and the entire Republican Party adopted his “savage politics” of lies, distortion and blind partisanship. In the following decade, Karl Rove insured its continuation and expansion.
As Dana Millbank makes clear in his book, The Destructionists…, ever since Newt Gingrich, the Republican Party has viewed Democrats as the enemy–not merely the opposition. It abjured bi-partisanship, circled the wagons, and got very little done. Gingrich’s 104th and 105th Congress passed a total of 505 laws, a much lower number than previous Congresses. This trend has continued under Republican majorities, and our 118th Congress (01/2023-01/2025) passed only 274 public laws, making it one of the least productive Congresses in modern history.
Indeed, Do Your Job, Congress. But since Republicans no longer wish to operate in a bipartisan manner, I will quote Sidney Milkis (Professor of Politics at UVA) who wrote that “Republicans have been enthusiastic about President Trump taking unilateral action [more than 45 executive orders in the first two weeks of his administration] to pursue Republican objectives.” In other words, Congressional Republicans are letting the President do their job, a dereliction of duty that–as the second sign states–we must never forget.
Senate Republicans are equally guilty of silently acquiescing to Donald Trump in abdication of their responsibility. As Steve Benen writes, “The president taps a loyalist with dubious qualifications; obedient Senate Republicans do what the White House tells them to do; and the nominees are confirmed to powerful positions that many of them clearly shouldn’t have.” And that is how, today, we have Morons Governing America.
The “morons” are not limited to President, Vice-President and Speaker of the House, pictured on the second sign below. The Senate, of course, played no role in approving those three; but it did approve Trump’s Cabinet. Many of these, like Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Linda McMahon, have little to no experience or qualifications for their positions. The single quality all share is total loyalty to Donald Trump.
In June the Economic Times published an article titled “JD Vance says US was ‘governed by complete morons’ before Trump took office.” This, of course, is pure projection. All Biden’s appointees were highly qualified and enjoyed bi-partisan Senate approval. Over a decade ago, political writers like Steve Benen and Paul Waldman already pointed out how projection–the ascribing of one’s own feelings and sins onto others–defines the Republican Party
The rejection of bipartisanship has weakened the system of Checks and Balances that our Forefathers built into the Constitution as an insurance that no branch of government would become too powerful. It is a system based on accountability and cooperation. Speaker Johnson has now allowed the House of Representatives to remain closed since September 19, 2025. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin accuses him of “surrendering” Congress and its role to the Executive branch, to Donald Trump: “He has completely surrendered the legislative power of the people.” This is a complete abdication of responsible governance. But there is logic to Johnson’s madness: to abandon our system of Checks and Balances would enable the creation of an Imperial Presidency where Donald Trump could rule as King)!
Lately, the Supreme Court has sided with Republicans and the Trump Administration to immunize the President from prosecution for any “official” act done while in office, to make redistricting easier and voting harder, and to counter our lower courts’ ability to protect our constitutionally rights by denying lower courts the ability to issue nationwide injunctions. Much of this has been done without explanation through what are called shadow dockets. In other words, the Roberts Supreme Court has relinquished much of the Judiciary’s power of Checks and Balances (as Johnson has done in the House).
The first sign suggests that 2/3 of the Justices appear beholden to one Party and even one man. The second sign, as I see it, says our Constitution in its totality says “No Kings;” How is it that these conservative Justices, who consider themselves Originalists, have lost focus on this original meaning of its text?
Freed by the Supreme Court to act in ways usually considered illegal, the Trump Administration is physically attacking its own people (more on ICE later) and coercively attacking our various public and private institutions, and abandoning Americas long-standing role in providing international aid to the world’s needy. Article after article from reputable, non-partisan sources, just in their titles, capture what can be called the “sado-politics” of this Administration: “New Year’s message from Republicans: Yes, the cruelty is still the point;” “Adam Serwer On New Book: ‘The Cruelty Is The Point’ In Trump’s America;” “The Party of Malice;” “President Trump’s First 100 Days: Attacks on Human Rights, Cruelty and Chaos;” “No words can capture the cruelty’ of President Trump’s latest attack on humanitarian aid–Oxfam.”
Cruelty and Hate are connected, of course, but the former is and act, the latter an emotion or feeling. Much of hate stems from fear, of differences, of the other, of identities unlike our own. One recent study in the National Library of Medicine on Hate and Political Violence found that Trump supporters “disproportionately exhibit racist and xenophobic/anti-foreigner attitudes, and these attitudes are associated with a positive endorsement of both January 6 and the use of political violence.” As the first sign indicates, Hate Can’t Make Us Great.” It diminishes us, narrows our perspective, rigidifies our thinking and shrinks our ability to see different viewpoints. Love, of course, has just the opposite effect on us, clearly indicated by the second sign.
As with Love, Joy also broadens our perspective, makes us resilient, healthier, and what is more healthy than a wonderful, broad smile (as in the second photograph)? Both JOY… and the Laughing Woman are truly acts of resistance, in that they are the opposite of what Trump and our elected Republicans wanted to see in these demonstrations. Remember, they predicted and were hoping for anger and violence (along with small crowds). What better way to comprehend this than to watch Joy Reid’s video on Instagram (and elsewhere): “You Got What you Wanted–Why So Angry?”
Bill Press, writing for The Hill in Washington, DC, said that without the “warning” from House Speaker Mike Johnson, he would have stayed home on October 18,; instead, he went to the No Kings rally at 3rd and Pennsylvania. “If Johnson had shown up, he would have discovered…a ‘love America’ fest.” He goes on to say that the one word heard more than any from all the speakers that day was love: “We love the Constitution. We love the rule of law. We love democracy. We love America….The entire atmosphere was festive and positive.”
In concert with the first sign below, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in March wrote an open letter to the American People warning that “the administration of President Donald Trump is acting as if the government can do whatever it wants, even if it violates our rights and takes away our freedoms.”
Until recently, most Americans have taken their freedoms for granted, whether to assemble, to vote, to travel, to marry, to own property, to petition the government, and so many more. Millions of immigrants have come to America in search of these freedoms. However, Richard M. Ebeling, Professor of Ethics at The Citadel in South Carolina worries that “the hope, dream, and however imperfect reality of America as the great experiment in liberty will have been turned away from and finally lost. The story of America will have reached its end, and everyone in the world will be the worse for it.”
Professor Ebeling is right to worry, given that, in early March of this year the United States has been added to an international watchlist because of its “rapid decline in civic freedoms.”
On the surface, it may appear that there is no difference between the freedoms we just mentioned and people’s rights. One might argue that the only difference is semantics. However, in general usage, “freedoms” are often perceived as a distinguishing American identity; “rights,” or “human rights,” are perceived or applied in a broader, universal manner. To be more precise, those American freedoms are found in our Bill of Rights, which are the first ten amendments to our Constitution (ratified in December, 1791). They are therefore specific to the United States of America. They also represent a contract between we the people and our government.
However, with the founding of the United Nations a century-and-a-half later (October, 1945), most of the world’s countries adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). These rights are not granted by any government. They are considered universal, inherent to our humanity, and apply to every human being, regardless of race, religion, nationality or gender. And so, the sign below, printed by the New York chapter of the ACLU, lists two specific types of people and two specific rights, all of which the Trump Administration and the Republican Party are attacking. On the other hand, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights absolutely protects trans people, immigrants and free speech. Only the right to abortion is not recognized.
I chose to gather these next six photographs under the rubric of we the people, even though only the last two apply those words. We the People, after all, are the first three words of our Constitution’s preamble, meaning that everything that follows–the defining of the government’s power–derives from the people. The people are the real authority. Government serves the people. The people own the Constitution, AND the people are responsible for interpreting and protecting that Constitution.
However, who is included in We the People constantly changes, especially in regard to voting, which is different in each state. At first it was only property-owning white men; then all white men; then women (in just a few states, but not all until the 19th Amendment in 1920); after 1924, Native Americans could vote; after 1943, Chinese immigrants could vote, then all Asians by 1952; . To paraphrase Kermit the Frog’s “It ain’t easy being green,” It ain’t easy to gain and retain the vote in America.
A very few states gave free black men the right to vote quite early–1791 for Vermont–but these were soon taken away. Only with the 15th Amendment of 1870 were people of any race and color given the vote, but states found ways to around this as well, leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965–and now this Act has been twice weakened by Supreme Court rulings: 2013 and 2021.
Susan B. Anthony’s speech on voting of November 1872 encapsulates the issue: “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet, we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.” And so, We the People, whoever they may be, continue to fight for their rights, as she did–to protect our Constitution and our Democracy against fascism and tyranny, through resistance and protests, as do all the demonstrators pictured below.
The woman directly below embodies her dedication to the cause by completely transforming herself into the Statue of Liberty, or, to use the proper title given it by its French sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, Liberty Enlightening the World. The torch in her hand is a metaphor of enlightenment, illuminating the path to liberty and freedom; it became a beacon of hope for immigrants, a guiding light of American democracy. Her crown, with its long spikes, represents the rays of the sun spreading throughout the world. She is understood to be a symbol of democracy, representing enlightenment and freedom. Democracy, a mass public action by informed citizens, in a single figure.
Due Process: such a cleverly constructed sign, its letters simply cut out of a piece of cardboard. Due Process is fundamental to Democracy, in that it requires a government to give everyone notice and an opportunity to be heard before an impartial tribunal or jury. The Trump Administration, with Republican backing, is ignoring due process in its unlawful rounding up of immigrants and its deporting them without a fair hearing.
The Rule of Law, simply stated, demands that all people (and institutions) are subject to the same laws. In other words, “no one is above the law.” By targeting political opponents, defying judicial orders, and arbitrarily withholding funds already appropriated by Congress, the Trump Administration is willfully ignoring the Rule of Law.
Restoring the Rule of Law necessitates Restoring the Constitution–the Constitution is the supreme law of the land; among its core principles are checks and balances and the separation of powers. Among President Trump’s acts that have violated the Constitution are: using the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport people; punishing organizations for their diversity programs; running for a third term; challenging the right of people of color to be a U. S. citizen; gathering private information on American citizens; punishing political enemies…and more.
Donald Trump has often labeled his political opposition and critics Enemies from Within, accusing them of being more dangerous than Russia and China. He has specifically applied the term to such Democrats as Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi: “Those people are more dangerous — the enemy from within — than Russia and China and other people.”
On September 30 of this year, in Quantico, VA, he even asserted that he could use the U.S. military against this “enemy within”. I find this astounding and completely indefensible.
Do Republicans and Trump really intend to use our military against us, like Hitler’s SS did in Germany in the later 1930s, murdering Jews, Roma, and others targeted by the Nazi government; like Mussolini’s fascist government did in Italy between 1943-45, killing ca. 15,000 civilians; like Deng Xiaoping’s People’s Liberation Army of China did in 1989 in Tiananmen Square, killing several thousand citizens; like Yeltsin did during Russia’s Black October of 1993, using the military to attack Parliament, resulting in at least 150 citizens killed?
In each of these cases, the true enemy from within is a government that could contemplate and justify such actions. As one American citizen, Dan Adair, from Knoxville wrote on October 22, 2025: “To paraphrase the Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly, ‘Trump has found the enemy, and it is Trump’.”
Whether the government of the USA under Donald Trump and Republicans is fascist remains up for debate. However, Fascism, defined as “an authoritarian, ultranationalist poltical ideology…often associated with the far right and characterized by a dictatorial leader who uses military forces to help suppress political and civil opposition” sounds exactly like what Trump wishes to achieve as president. What is arguable is whether the model for “Trumpism” is derived from European fascism or from “distinctly homegrown…and profoundly American trends” (as Daniel Bessner states is the case in his article, “This Is America.”).
Whatever…it’s fascism…so the four signs pictured below assert, and I concur.
An ominous knock on the door is a metaphor for fear and oppression in a police state. Fascism demands a police state; how else will it effectively suppress dissent and totally control its people? The USA is not a police state…yet…but on October 3 of this year, Naureen Shah published an article for the ACLU titled, “Trump is Abusing His Power to Build a Dangerous, National Policing Force.” In it, she notes that “we are witnessing the build out of a national paramilitary policing force…to intimidate people and consolidate President Donald Trump’s power.”
In line with the sign below, Rear Admiral Jamie Barnett (USN retired) writes, “In America, the military does not enforce our domestic laws….We have always known that tyrants use the military against their own people.”
American soldiers fought fascism in World War II, but our black soldiers were already familiar with the enemy. They saw the parallels between fascism and racism, and history has shown the rest of us how Nazi officials studied US laws from Southern States in order to mold the groundwork for their persecution of Jewish people. This connection escaped nobody who was paying attention; so, for example:
In 1943, Vice President Henry Wallace warned Americans a month after race riots in Detroit: “We cannot fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home. Those who fan the fires of racial clashes for the purpose of making political capital here at home are taking the first step toward Nazism;”
Langston Hughes responded to this event with more artistry in his poem, Beaumont to Detroit: Looky here, America / What you done done / Let things drift / Until the riots come […] You tell me that hitler / Is a mighty bad man / I guess he took lessons from the ku klux klan […] I ask you this question / Cause I want to know / How long I got to fight / BOTH HITLER — AND JIM CROW.
The fact that the Trump White House just designated Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” this September should give us all pause. Most Americans are anti-fascists (even today, not only during WWII). They value their Constitutional rights and their freedoms, beginning with the First Amendment. Lauren Regan, writing for the Civil Liberties Defense Center, turns a mirror to the White House and the Trump Executive Order against Antifa: “Fascism rejects democracy. Fascists sign executive orders (no democratic process involved) that seek to malign or punish their political opponents, because that is the only way they can take more control from the people in a democratic country. Fascists attempt to undermine democratic elections, erase actual history, and manipulate words to falsely justify their propaganda.”
Sound familiar?
Besides the relationship of American racism to fascism, racism also affects people’s ideas about emigration and immigrants. Anti-immigrant sentiments are driven by racial prejudice of “the other” and by fears of losing a white-dominated society, often called in the USA the White Replacement Theory. J. D. Vance, our Vice-President, has warned about how an immigrant invasion will replace voters. The word “invasion” is hyperbole intended to instill fear; “replacing” voters is utter nonsense, as no non-citizen can vote in our elections.
As the first sign tells us, all our ancestors were immigrants (unless we are Native Americans), and a driving concept of our identity as Americans is that we are “a nation of immigrants.” In truth, immigrants have contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and a vast array of social services for the citizenry. Nevertheless, the White House press secretary has called all immigrants “criminals,” and Donald Trump has referred to them as “animals” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The third sign brings truth to power on this subject (even with some typos).
The Trump Administration is rounding up immigrants through mass deportations. It claims that, in the first 250 days of this term, 400,000 “illegal aliens” have been deported and another 1.6 million have voluntarily “self-deported.” However, as the sign below suggests, American citizens are not immune to this indiscriminate dragnet. In fact, the main agencies (ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and CBP, Customs and Border Protection) charged with carrying out deportations, have already taken in over 170 U.S. citizens. They have been “dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents;” at least three were pregnant; one “had the door of her home blown off.”
ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has been tasked by the Trump Administration to operate even in sensitive areas like schools and churches with a goal that each of its 25 field offices is to make at least 75 arrests per day. ICE tactics are brutal, as anyone using social media has observed on a daily basis. They are violent. They use excessive force. Where we expect police to try to de-escalate situations, ICE agents escalate from the outset against unsuspecting people who are simply going about their daily tasks. They are aggressive. They behave with impunity. They often refuse to provide any information about the people they have arrested. Several people have compared them to the Nazi German Gestapo; one of these was an Immigration Judge, Dana Leigh Marks. Ergo, the sign immediately below.
The wearing of masks by these agents has taken a curious and highly politicized turn.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many right-wing individuals refused to wear masks as a way to show their disdain for the government that had mandated mask wearing in public. To them such mandates were an infringement on their personal freedom. Now, some of these same people have become ICE or CPB agents and not only wear masks but balaclavas or other total head coverings. They also do not wear normal uniforms nor any identifying badges. With their identities completely obscured, they roam our city streets, heavily armed and in gangs. They are frightening, and their behavior is indefensible. To quote one article, “These federal agents have been seen swinging batons, smashing car windows, using explosives to blow the door off a home with children inside, emerging from unmarked vehicles with weapons drawn, shooting into a family vehicle, and grabbing people off the street and putting them into unmarked vehicles.”
Why such egregious behavior, we may ask? My answer is that, beside the obvious interest in creating fear, the simple fact of covering ones face and thus becoming anonymous can embolden a person to act with fewer inhibitions, engage in antisocial or even illegal behaviors. The psychological term for this is deindividuation. Such anonymity can encourage a loss of self-awareness and weaken ones usual adherence to moral standards. The mask may also loosen normal restraints and promote role playing. The term for this is disinhibition. This is amplified when one is in a large group, where responsible behavior is diffused among the members.
And so, Masks Are Chickenshit in the sense that they enable these agents to abandon their social norms and hide who they really are.
I wonder if their families know what these men are doing?
The sign below says many things, but asks, in the end, simply for Human Dignity. As such, it is a request to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Trump Administration is dismantling these rights.
In February, the ACLU noted that “In just one week, President Donald Trump has launched the most systemic and aggressive assault on human rights in U.S. presidential history.”
Two weeks later, a panel of United Nations experts published an exhaustive plea from which I offer one sentence: “We are concerned by the attempts of the new US administration to weaken domestic human rights protections, harm the international human rights and humanitarian systems, roll back decades of progress on gender equality, and undermine international institutions and civil society worldwide.”
In April, Amnesty International noted: “One hundred days into his second term, President Trump has led with cruelty and chaos, creating a human rights emergency that has affected millions of people by suppressing dissent, undermining the rule of law, and eroding norms and institutions essential to the protection of human rights.”
This is not a good look!
The sign below, printed by the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, seems nonsensical until we realize, in early April, ICE issued a social media post claiming that its mission was not only to keep out illegal immigrants, but also ideas.
In other words, TO HELL WITH THE FIRST AMENDMENT!
Backlash rapidly followed: “Calling ideas ‘illegal’ is the language of authoritarian regimes—not a serious immigration policy.” “Remind me again whether we’re supposed to be a free country?” “This post subverts everything our constitution stands for.”
The post disappeared shortly thereafter, but we mustn’t forget that Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk had essentially been arrested because of the ideas they expressed.
Every demonstration for the soul of America needs to remember Georgia Congressman John Robert Lewis [1940-2020] who was badly beaten on that Bloody Sunday of March 7, 1965 while marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He spoke one version of these words at the same place on March 1, 2020 (four months before he died) to commemorate that day which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965:
Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.
John Lewis was a brave, powerful, charismatic, yet humble leader, someone never afraid of speaking truth to power as he worked to make America a better place.
It is a bit early to tell, but I see many indications that the newly-elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Kwame Mamdani may share some of these character traits. The open fan seen below refers to Mamdani, a 34-year old democratic socialist who won over two seasoned (if flawed) opponents by–besides exuding energy, affability and charisma–basing his campaign on making New York City affordable.
Instead of linking any articles on this fascinating politician, I encourage you to watch and listen to this video post by Robert Arnold (computer programmer, poet, activist who labels himself @defiance13_ on social media). Robert should be an American treasure in my opinion. Here is his post: Robert Arnold, “On Help and Humiliation: Mamdani, SNAP, & Power.”
It’s getting late. I’ve said too much already, I fear. Peace Is Power is about embracing inner strength, mindfulness , compassion to achieve a better world. It’s very Buddhist. Let me simply offer Yoko Ono’s 2019 installation at MoMA, also titled Peace Is Power.
We already have considered signs that focus on fascism, and this plea for Academic Freedom (below) is anotheer response to the incipient fascism issuing from the Trump Administration. A presidential Executive Order has directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle her department, and on March 11 she laid off half of her workforce. The long goal is for the government to control everything that is taught, even in private colleges and universities, and all faculty appointments. This, of course, would make a mockery of the concept of Academic Freedom. It also indicates a major step towards fascism, which can only thrive with an oppressed and uneducated citizenry.
Hanah Stiverson, from Human Rights First, encapsulates the issue: “President Trump’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and curricula that teach the complexities of race in America, are part of a larger strategy to demonize education content that disrupts a fascist myth of national ‘purity’ and strength.”
Please read what this woman wrote on her sign. It is a direct transcription from Anne Frank’s Diary from Wednesday, January 13, 1943. Anne was thirteen when, in hiding from the Nazis, she wrote these words two years and a month before she died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Terrible things are happening outside (in Amsterdam, 1943), as also we have seen daily in Los Angeles, Chicago and some other cities this year because of ICE raids. …poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes (Amsterdam, 1943), as also was Diana Galiano in Chicago on November 5, 2025 by ICE agents… men, women, and children are separated (Amsterdam, 1943), as also was a family in lower Manhattan two months ago by ICE agents… Children come home from school to find their parents have disappeared (Amsterdam, 1943), as happened to Febe and Angelo Perez in Texas on September 23, 2025, when their mother, Kenia Perez, was deported to Honduras and a family friend, Jeff is now tending to the 6 and 9 year old children.
People like to say that History Repeats Itself, and in this case, one is tempted to say that Anne Frank could just as well be writing about the USA in 2025 instead of Amsterdam in 1943. This is not repetition, of course, but recurring themes based on similar patterns of human behavior. Nevertheless, these three examples of uncanny similarities between 1943 Holland and 2025 America unmask the violent, dehumanizing suppression that these two regimes share.
I, the person holding up the History Has Its Eyes on You sign, and many others can only hope that there will be some resolution in the future–hopefully the near future–to the many injutices and anti-democratic actions of the Trump Administration and its many supporters in the republican Party.
I selected these 116 photographs from the New York No Kings demonstration of October 18, 2025 out of many more that I took because I either liked the composition for artistic reasons or I liked the sign and its legibility. Often both reasons pertained. But, as this last sign says, there were Too Many Damn Things for this woman to isolate and march under. To just name a few issues that I was unable to capture: an anti-Muslim stance; the legendary demeaning of women; a disdain for unions and workers; the avoidance of health care for all; the rejection of Black Lives Matter; a disrespect for Latino(a)s; a hostility to LGBTQ people; the gun problem; the mass incarceration problem…etc.
There will be more demonstrations. There will be more signs. There will be more Americans on the streets of our country. There will be more Democracy if we can keep it!
Fantastic post, Tyko! Thank you for doing such an amazing job of visually documenting such an important day during a crucial time in America’s history.