Come Join Us on Saturday

A brief break from my usual crime-fiction coverage …

While Republicans struggle to portray this coming Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings Day” protests as “hate-America rallies,” that couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, these peaceful demonstrations will make clear once more just how strong public opposition is to Donald Trump’s reckless, authoritarian policies and the corruption pervading his administration.

Participation is expected to be heavy. “Across the country,” reports The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper, “2,000 No Kings protests are scheduled for ... Saturday, according to a post from the Indivisible project. There are plans in major cities like Los Angeles; Boston; Washington; Chicago; Atlanta; New Orleans; Kansas City, Mo.; and Bozeman, Mont. Planned protests stretch into Canada and as far south as Madrid, a town in Mexico.” Organizers estimated that the last No Kings Day demonstrations, on June 14, 2025, drew in excess of five million people in more than 2,100 U.S. cities and towns.

My aim is to join a march, beginning at 11 a.m., that will lead north from Seattle’s Pier 52 ferry terminal to Seattle Center, a distance of a little over 1.5 miles. Like so many other Americans, I believe it’s important to resist Trump’s efforts to consolidate power in his own hands; his increasingly violent anti-immigration tactics; his economy-weakening tariffs; his incessant lying and his hostility toward the news media that would hold him accountable; his animosity toward women’s rights and voting rights; his intention to undermine our education system and steal away affordable health care; his efforts to hollow out the federal workforce and consequently increase unemployment; his destruction of America’s international alliances; and his moves to turn both the U.S. justice system and the military into partisan tools he can employ for personal protection and to shut down dissent.

A bully, a con man, and a convicted criminal, Trump has shown no respect for American democracy or the rule of law. We cannot sit idly by and watch him tear down our nation in pursuit of his own gains. As President Thomas Jefferson reportedly said, “When tyranny becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” We must be the resistance.

Click here to find out how you can take part in these No Kings Day rallies in your own area—not because you hate America, but because you love it too much to see its ideals sabotaged by a greedy, disrespectful man and his fellow right-wing ideologues.