Editor's Note: The following prepared remarks were delivered at the Courthouse at the Square in Bloomington, Indiana on Saturday, June 14, 2025, as part of the “No Kings” demonstration organized by Bloomington Indivisible, Bloomington 50501, and the Monroe County Democrats.
Good afternoon.
My name is Jeff Isaac.
I’ve lived here in Bloomington, and taught political science here at IUB, for almost forty years.
I believe I’ve spoken before a crowd at the Courthouse only one other time: in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 when, as a founding member of Bloomington United, I spoke to a frightened and anxious group of fellow Bloomingtonians about the need to refuse easy answers, and to avoid demonizing or persecuting those among us who might be different but who are not therefore dangerous. I spoke then in the name of a simple democratic truth: as Bloomingtonians, we share a common place and a common fate, as citizens and residents, and are responsible, together, to address the challenges, and dangers, that confront us, and to do so with decency and a respect for the rule of law and the rights of others.
In those days, people were afraid because our country had been attacked by an obscure group of foreigners based somewhere else.
Today we are again afraid, but the attacker is not obscure, and the threat is not in any sense “external.”
Today we are threatened—our freedom and our democracy are threatened—by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, who is based not in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan, but in our nation’s capital, in the White House.
The events taking place all across the country today are taking place under the banner of “No Kings” for a simple reason: because Trump, with the aid of an exceptionally partisan administration, is today acting like a king, by organizing a massive celebration of his birthday and himself, a celebration that features an unprecedented display of military force on the streets of the Capitol, at the very same moment that he has unleashed the National Guard, and the U.S. Marines, on the streets of Los Angeles, and threatened to do the same in cities across the country.
Trump is a megalomaniac who exults in dominating others.
Trump regards the government, and the entire country, as his private property to be controlled and used to bring wealth to him and his family and friends.
In many ways Trump seems truly to believe the classic motto of that iconic absolute monarch, French King Louis XIV: “l,etat c’est moi.” The state is me. I am the state.
“Only I can save us,” he has said.
“I was saved by God to Make America Great,” he has said.
Trump acts like a King.
And we are here to say, loudly and clearly: “No Kings!”
But in my brief remarks here I want to remind us all that Trump is not a king.
And while he inherited much wealth, he did not inherit the political power he now wields, with such cruelty and contempt, to threaten the people and the things we hold dear.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Trump is the elected President of the United States.
Well over 77 million citizens voted for him, after experiencing his Covid response, and his two impeachments, and his civil and criminal convictions, and his failed administration.
After all that, those millions of our fellow citizens elected him to the highest and most powerful office in the country for a second time.
[It’s okay to boo! It is awful that he was elected, and more awful that we are subject to him!]
It is important, I believe, for us to draw two important conclusions from the fact of his election.
The first is that while monarchs can be dangerous, Trump is much more dangerous than any monarch, precisely becausehe was elected after a multi-year campaign that consisted of angry rhetoric and violent incitement and very clear promises to do exactly what he is now doing.
Trump successfully treated the presidential election like an American Idol television show. And the viewing audience voted him the winner.
Trump is an authoritarian populist, a master manipulator of mass media, digital media, and public opinion, someone who claims the legacy of the American Revolution—remember, the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021 insisted that this was their “1776 moment” and their “July 4.” Trump claims to act, above and beyond the law itself, as the tribune and the leader and the avenger of those supposedly “real Americans” who believe in his MAGA lies. He is their “retribution.” Against the rest of us and against our constitutional democracy.
Trump is a populist in the same way that Mussolini was a populist and Hitler was a populist.
And, like these mid-20th century fascist leaders, Trump is a fascist because he preys on fear; promotes xenophobia and racism; and incites violence.
He has used his popularity to take over the Republican party, to purge all dissenters from that party and from the federal government—which is not his private property!–and to create a cult of personality.
He has begun to bring media institutions to heel, and universities to heel. He has begun using the Justice Department to threaten and investigate political critics. He has unleashed ICE, and in the past week subjected the country to something frighteningly close to martial law.
And he has done all of this with very substantial popular support.
We are here together. We ought to be proud to be here, together, determined to walk the talk of democracy. But we must recognize that most Americans are not out on the street today chanting “No Kings!”
Contending with Trump means contending with him and his coterie, but also with the MAGA Republican Party everywhere across the country, and also with his base voters everywhere—we know this here in Bloomington, Indiana, a relatively liberal island in a blood red sea of reaction. It also means contending with a mass public that is tired, cynical, and angry, and with many millions of voters who are in denial or who simply do not care.
The danger is thus enormous, and our challenge especially great, because winning real popular support for an alternative to Trumpism is today an uphill battle.
But this brings me to my second point: Trump is a despotic demagogue who has not—yet!—vanquished constitutional democracy.
Our “democracy” is no doubt plagued by numerous injustices; it is corrupt, in tatters, and besieged.
But it is not dead. Yet.
Trump has attacked the courts. But they persist in their independence, at least in some places.
Trump and his allies have attacked the universities and the media. And they have cowed a great many prominent media and university institutions—including our own Indiana University—a once great institution that the Whitten administration is transforming into a MAGA demonstration project. But independent media and educational institutions persist. Academic freedom and press freedom are not dead—yet.
Trump and his allies would love to utterly destroy the Democratic party–in many ways a sad shell of what was once a serious mainstream party, but still the only substantial source of political opposition. But they have not succeeded.
Trump and his allies still face opposition, in Congress, in civil society, and in the streets. And their party, much to their chagrin, is required by law to face elections in 2026, and again in 2028.
(To be clear, I am not saying that because the law requires free and fair elections, the law will be respected by the MAGA movement. But I am saying that the law has force, and it will be hard even for Trump to simply suspend it. In short, Trumpism can and must be electorally contested in 2026 and 2028—and we must make sure that it is so contested.)
The recent demonstrations against ICE, today’s “No Kings” demonstrations—such things are taking place, all across the country, because we still have certain freedoms and rights, and there are still spaces of dissent and opposition, and forms of solidarity and resistance, that are available to us.
There are democratic means–fragile, limited, and vulnerable to further Trump attacks—that are still available to us.
It is up to us to seize hold of these democratic means, and to use them to say NO to kings and despotic demagogues, and YES to democracy.
Think. Write. Speak. Listen.
Organize. Assemble. Reassemble.
Petition. Demand. Vote.
Act.
Only we can save us.
This is a good start. Let it not be the end.
Thank you.
