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civil disobedience
As SNAP Ends, No Kings Protesters Must Unite With the Abandoned Poor
Do members of the educated professional class remain faithful to the corporate Democratic Party, or do they form a new connection with the starving victims of US fascism?
Nov 01, 2025
We have two colliding forces—“end-of-the-world fascism”, or EWF, and mass civil disobedience. Clearly, one will defeat the other. Right now the odds favor EWF—the fascist home team has a superior gerrymandering game; oil industry, tech, and armaments cash piled up to the peak of Mount Everest and beyond; control of the means of incarceration; and a huge project of global concentration camps. The EWF also has control of the federal budget which they have resolutely employed to assemble a Gestapo-like army to terrorize state enemies on a whim and shape the ethnic character of the entire nation to match the paranoid nightmares of President Donald Trump’s MAGA base.
EWF has a fetish for violence, both as a means to terrorize scapegoats and political opponents, and as the cornerstone for theatrical entertainment. The MAGA base has a craving for vicarious blood and guts.
The EWF also has the devotion of corporate CEOs, who might, in exceedingly rare instances, still possess vestigial aspects of moral conscience, but seldom at levels capable of altering predatory habits. Some corporations might object to the mass arrest of their exploited “undocumented” workforce, but not with the passionate joy they express toward federal subsidies and tax breaks. There may also be a huge corporate windfall coming as mass detention creates a growing pool of slave laborers.
The EWF also has a deep, perhaps mystical connection to the US psyche—the beaten masses of America contribute a limitless market of dislocated, broken people with a huge appetite for bread and circus distractions. Some people can be overworked, underpaid, and barely sustained on “free market” crumbs, yet howl with delight at the spectacle of those even less fortunate being ground beneath fascist jackboots. The EWF has secret access to the neural undercurrents of our shared circuitry.
Hungry people will be in the streets in a few days; how do those of us who currently have been consigned to be bystanders respond?
The forces of US resistance have historically ebbed and flowed. Movements have been co-opted by seductive schemes. US resistance now drags the half dead corpse of the Democratic Party on our backs. Protesters have a collective mindset burdened with the habits of denial, and a lingering delusion that we live in a nation with a noble history of justice and progress. The protesters also suffer from a nearly unbreakable condition of self-imposed isolation that makes us unaware of the key to victory. The EWF fascist support base is comparatively small compared with the alienated, impoverished masses: 35% of eligible US voters don’t vote, and this includes most poor people who inhabit section eight and public housing, or who double up with family or peers in overcrowded apartments with the omnipresent likelihood of harassment from public bureaucracies and landlords that enforce lease violations. Most protesters have little sense that an ocean of allies exists just beyond the horizon of social stratification. A connection between the educated Democratic Party base and the poorest US citizens would create a cosmic political shift, but we have long been blind to that possibility.
Karl Marx saw the class structure as being comprised of three distinct categories: the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production), the proletariat (wage slaves whose labor creates profits for the bourgeoisie), and land owners who amass wealth via rent. Subsequent models of class structure have created additional categories such as upper-middle class and lower-middle class, based largely on arbitrary gradations of income, but my interest here focuses on “cross class alliances” that define our current political predicament. Therefore, I will divide US classes into four categories: 1) the corporate Class, 2) the educated, professional class, 3) the deceived portion of the working class, 4) the abandoned working class (or the “poverty class”). This is obviously reductive, but helps define the way that social class defines the structure of the two US parties. Social classes do more than describe wage status—such categories ought to also explain our distorted and confused class consciousness. A working-class person who identifies as MAGA cannot be meaningfully described without additional narrative detail.
Social classes are mediated by many contingencies, notably race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, education, and media exposure. Our two political parties have been divided along a sort of bastardized class identity in which all social classes have been co-opted into one or the other version of capitalist-friendly ideology. The Republican Party has been crafted from a curious quid pro quo binding the mostly white “deceived working class” to the interests of the wealthiest corporations. The Republican Party masses trade allegiance to corporate aspirations in exchange for theatrical cruelty. There is little in the Republican policy agenda that provides a better life for working-class people—quite the contrary, members of Trump’s base will lose medical care, school funding, housing options, and employee benefits in exchange for the opportunity to witness mass deportations and military assaults against residents in blue cities. Working people are paid off with cheap entertainment.
The educated, professional class also engages in a similar, if inverted quid pro quo—this particular class trades support for corporate aspirations in exchange for performative kindness, the gestures of inclusivity scrubbed of any tinge of real class issues. Democratic voters, for example, enjoy a feel good sense of their party’s devotion to social justice issues so long as we do not question the ideals of capitalism. This class undergoes the most intensive brain washing of any—the legacy media, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. all promote a particular vision of social progress without ever threatening the structures of profit. The manner in which the liberal media curates a popular narrative for the educated class assures that most members of the Democratic Party base lean toward the center.
The Atlantic, for example, will almost never publish pieces that unequivocally condemn US and Israeli militarism, but will happily post piece after piece decrying the gutting of abortion rights. Powerful lobbyists and military contractors have financial interests in shaping military narratives, but the so called pro-life movement is little more than a convenience for opportunistic right-wing politicians. While anti-abortion pregnancy centers may have revenues well over a billion annually, this money pales in comparison with the US trillion dollar plus military spending. If you want to understand the positions promoted for the Democratic Party base, follow the money.
While the ruling class has buried their tentacles deeply into the psychological sediments of Republican and Democratic Party faithful, there is one social class that remains nearly invisible to the ruling class—the “abandoned working class.” The very poor do not generally vote, do not typically organize, nor do they engage in political activism, and their well-being barely registers in the priorities of elected officials. Issues like low-cost childcare, low-income housing, and the nature of the “social safety net” have little resonance in our political dialogue.
That is not to say that the poorest people exist as an island apart from other social classes—people from every social niche lose their toeholds and tumble to the bottom. As one who worked for decades as an outreach worker in decaying Western Massachusetts mill towns, I have seen children of doctors, lawyers, and business executives struggling with poverty. A significant and gaining trickle, falling from above, join the floodwaters of poverty. But the very poor have not, as a political entity, formed alliances across class boundaries. The ruling class does not even attempt to co-opt and confuse the very poor. Pure despair and collective depression immobilize this potentially transformative class.
The abandoned working class members often work “under the table” providing childcare, cleaning services, and general labor for small businesses for lower than minimum wage. These workers get no benefits, and often attempt to supplement meager Supplemental Security Income benefits with unreported wages. Life at the lowest levels of the US class system is essentially unsustainable without straying outside of strict legal constraints.
The “abandoned working class” has only latent power—the strength of enormous numbers that threaten the privilege of the wealthiest class if the poorest people mobilize and become politically active. The abandoned working class is a sleeping giant.
This may change in an eyeblink as Trump escalates his war against the poor. The very few remaining tatters of the US social safety net will be obliterated regardless of the government shutdown, but the end of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on the first of November puts 42 million US residents in immediate risk of starvation. This Great Depression reprise creates a catastrophic situation for poor victims, but also reverberates throughout the remnants of the Democratic Party-aligned coalition. Do the relatively safe members of the educated, professional class respond to the sight of starving US residents with a sense of urgency or denial? We have three electoral factions, each approximately comprising a third of the population of eligible voters—Democratic voters, Republican voters, and nonvoters. The nonvoters are disproportionately comprised of the very poor. Republicans do not want poor voters to become a factor, and the bureaucratic roadblocks to voting—voter ID and various local rules on passports and driver's licenses—specifically attack poor people’s voting rights.
However, at this moment the most urgent issue is not voter registration but mass protest and civil disobedience. Do members of the educated professional class remain faithful to the corporate Democratic Party, or do they form a new connection with the starving victims of US fascism? That is how I believe we should understand the looming end to food assistance—this is an audition for those formerly complacent rank-and-file Democrats to understand their newly apparent historical role. Do the 7 million No Kings Day protesters lock arms with the 42 million victims of US fascist cruelty? Hungry people will be in the streets in a few days; how do those of us who currently have been consigned to be bystanders respond?
No Kings Day was a party, but now the stakes are raised. Do those casual protesters have the inner resolve to take the next steps? When SNAP ends do the No Kings Day protesters see their unique chance to cut ties with corporate puppet masters and align their fate with the abandoned victims of corporatism? We need voices on the left to make this narrative clear.
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The No Kings Day Project Must Evolve From Protest to Civil Disobedience
I am not going to discount the value of having 7 million people show up to protest the fascist, genocidal Trump regime, but we need more from the movement.
Oct 23, 2025
I attended the downtown local No Kings Day festivities in Northampton, Massachusetts, and estimate that some 1,500 people came out. I liked the crowds, but the character and will of the people rather collided with the self-serving ambitions of Democratic Party speakers who hogged microphones that might have been given to ordinary people. The potential for a spontaneous, free-flowing expression of public feeling remained unrealized.
What does No Kings Day represent? How does a loosely affiliated collection of organizations achieve a viable identity, a sense of unity, and a vision that goes beyond a mutual feeling that we ought to do something (anything!) as fascist momentum gathers in all its ugly certainty?
If it were up to me I would not have any public speeches at No Kings Day delivered by Democratic Party office holders. This is not because Democrats have become historically unpopular, with Pew polling showing only a 27% approval rating among registered voters, but, rather, to break with the centers of political and corporate power in favor of an association of grassroots individuals and factions. Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone took the most conceivably hostile view of No Kings Day by posting a photo of a sign at a demonstration that read, “If Kamala Had Won We’d All Be At Brunch.” While I certainly don’t dismiss the value of No Kings Day in Johnstone’s summarily contemptuous manner, I am skeptical of performative nostalgia. The idea that “we’d all be at brunch” obviously labels the sign holder as a bourgeois dilettante who views activism as an inconvenience, but more critically, the longing for the public civility of Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden or Bill Clinton trivializes the No Kings Day movement.
We are living within the most ominous moment in American history—it would hardly be hyperbolic to imagine that biological history squirms on the pitchfork of American fascism. Scientists give us bleak updates while our fascist leaders literally pour gasoline on a five-alarm apocalypse. We need as broad a coalition as possible, but, paradoxically the scope of the resistance movement creates its own set of roadblocks. How do we create an alliance that unites organizations deeply tied to the US political establishment with grassroots movements and ordinary people that have a deep suspicion of the Democratic Party and its satellite organizations?
We need to swiftly transform No Kings from a Democratic Party spectacle to a grassroots resistance movement.
I believe that the No Kings Movement has three fundamental tasks: 1) to assure that the Democratic Party does not gain control of the coalition, 2) to expand the coalition to include those without an institutional voice (the poor, the unhoused, the unregistered and nonvoters, and most importantly, the millions of undocumented US residents at risk for MAGA’s genocidal zeal). The third task is the most difficult and subsumes the goal of limiting the influence of the Democratic Party. 3) The No Kings Day project must take the critical jump from protest to civil disobedience.
The Democratic Party members have habitually seen their role as one tied to the election cycle. They see their goal as flipping the House and Senate in the midterms and electing a Democrat for president in 2028. With the Project 2025 technicians disassembling electoral structures, we should expect that dreams of our continued back-and-forth power transitions no longer exist as a realistic aspiration. Nor should that have ever been a goal—the Democratic Party created the very conditions that made Trump in the first place. Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson called for a nationwide general strike, suggesting that some small contingent of Democrats now understand that conventional political tactics no longer address the dire nature of our predicament.
We are almost certain to see an escalating and annihilating orgy of state violence directed toward immigrants, dissidents, and even garden variety Democrats who stray into Trump’s retributive field of awareness. The role of the No Kings Movement has yet to take effective shape. The expansion from 5 million to 7 million from the first No Kings Day event ought to give us hope, but an increase in numbers must be tied to a more expansive collective vision. I believe that people who might be reticent to commit to a movement perceived as an astrotuf project of the Democratic Party will eagerly embrace real grassroots activism. The US population has grown weary of corrupt politics—the No Kings project absolutely must offer more than a facelift to the moribund Democratic Party.
The Northampton No Kings Day event manifest a microcosm of our shortcomings—we had a performance dominated by Democratic office holders and media figures in the local party sphere. Jim McGovern, our national congressional representative, spoke, so did State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, Northampton City Council Member Garrick Perry, and local talk show host Bill Newman. I would have rather passed out microphones to random demonstrators. No Kings has to do more than encourage requisite platitudes from those in power.
McGovern is the face of Massachusetts progressives, but he is a politician and not a grassroots figure. Sabadosa has taken a moderate stance on most issues, and the Northampton mayor has been accused by responsible observers as having shamelessly harmed the city in a highly suspicious deal to buy a gutted church from a notoriously unethical landlord. City Councilor Perry is well known as one of the mayor’s many sycophants. Northampton has cut school staff, violated IEPs, and gone head over heels for the “strong towns” approach to gentrification. Are these the people who ought to define the quality of No Kings Day resistance?
The Communist Party USA had a table with brochures at the event, but no CPUSA representative addressed the crowds. Why? No one from “Demilitarize Western Mass” spoke, and no one from “Veterans for Peace” addressed the gathering. Northampton has a large community of anti-war activists who wage an ongoing struggle to evict a major arms dealer (L3Harris) from our midst, but no one spoke about the issues vital to our civic identity. Instead, the microphone defaulted to the most reactionary forces of our city. Centrist Democratic figures simply lack the credibility and charisma to inspire resistance. Is No Kings Day really about campaign speeches for dreary local politicians and their corrupt plans to gentrify Northampton?
More critically, No Kings Day, in its future events, will need to prioritize acts of civil disobedience, define the role of local government’s ability to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, mobilize public confrontations against invading federal forces, and explore the role of unions as the country mobilizes for an inevitable general strike.
I am not going to discount the value of having 7 million people show up to protest the fascist, genocidal Trump regime, but we need more from No Kings Day. We need to swiftly transform No Kings from a Democratic Party spectacle to a grassroots resistance movement.
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UK Protest Group Condemns 'Orwellian' Arrest Over Projected Trump-Epstein Images
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests," said one organizer. "Well, here’s a peaceful protest."
Sep 17, 2025
The leaders of the UK-based protest group Led By Donkeys said Wednesday that four of its members remained under arrest for displaying images of US President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the side of Windsor Castle ahead of Trump's second state visit to the United Kingdom.
The widely available images were accompanied by a narration discussing Trump and Epstein's friendship, as well as pictures of Epstein's victims, police reports, and news reports about the case.
Trump began his visit, on which he'll meet with King Charles and other members of the royal family as well as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, amid growing scrutiny of the US Department of Justice's decision not to release files related to the Epstein case as well as of the release of a letter the president reportedly sent to Epstein containing dialogue between the two men about a "wonderful secret" they shared.
The White House has denied the letter is authentic and Trump has claimed he was unaware of Epstein's criminal activities during his friendship with him.
Police said they arrested the four Led by Donkeys members on suspicion of "malicious communications" after they displayed the "unauthorized projection."
A spokesperson for Led By Donkeys told The Guardian the group has previously displayed "25 or 30 projections" without organizers being arrested.
"Often the police come along and we have a chat to them, and they even have a laugh with us and occasionally tell us to not do it," the spokesperson said. “But no one’s ever been arrested before, so it is ridiculous that four of our guys have been arrested for malicious communications.”
“Forgive the cliche, but it is rather Orwellian for a piece of journalism, which raises questions about our guest’s relationship with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker, to lead to arrests," they added.
King Charles' brother, Prince Andrew, has also been accused of sexually abusing teenage girls during his friendship with Epstein. He settled out of court with Virginia Giuffre, who sued him for allegedly abusing her, in 2022, after being stripped of his royal patronages.
While the projection was taken down and the protesters detained, Trump is unlikely to escape condemnation from members of the British public during his visit.
The group Everyone Hates Elon, which has previously displayed messages denouncing billionaire Trump ally and megadonor Elon Musk at bus stops around London, also unfurled a banner at Windsor Castle showing a picture of Trump and Epstein.
Protesters gathered in London Wednesday for a "Trump Not Welcome" march from Portland Place to Parliament Square, with some displaying the "Trump baby balloon" that became familiar after the president's first official visit to the UK in 2018, as well as balloons showing a caricature of Vice President JD Vance.
Demonstrators carried signs reading, "No to racism" and "Stop arming Israel," among other slogans.
“We do not want our government to trade away our democracy and decency,” Zoe Gardner, a spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition, told The Washington Post Wednesday.
A rallygoer named Alena Ivanova told the outlet that "there's a reason" Trump is spending much of his visit outside of the nation's capital, meeting with Starmer at his country estate and staying at Windsor Castle.
"People on the streets will say what our government seems unable to: Donald Trump is not welcome here," said Ivanova.
Observers in the UK view the invitation for a state visit as an attempt to appeal to the president as he threatens the country with tariffs and an end to aid for Ukraine.
"We want our government to show some backbone," Gardner told the BBC, "and have a little bit of pride and represent that huge feeling of disgust at Donald Trump's politics in the UK."
The Led By Donkeys spokesperson told The Guardian that the arrest of the four organizers "says a lot more about the policing of Trump's visit than it does about what we did."
More than 1,600 police officers have been deployed to respond to protests while Trump is in the UK.
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests. Well, here’s a peaceful protest," said the spokesperson. "We projected a piece of journalism on to a wall and now people have been arrested for malicious communications."
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