Stopping the War, Stopping ICE, Saving America
“After the war started, I said thank God we started organizing in 2017 because we’re organized now,” Melanie Jones, Indivisible San Pedro.
The first No Kings demonstrations on June 14 were timed to counter Trump’s $45 million military parade on his birthday, coinciding with the Army’s 250th anniversary.
“On the day the Army was founded to defeat tyranny, he’s getting a parade and using your tax money to do so,” Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin wrote.
But the ICE invasion of LA, and the spontaneous resistance to it, made ICE resistance and solidarity with LA nearly equal themes. While crowds for Trump’s parade were patchy, the No Kings demonstrations that day were the second largest in U.S. history, trailing only the original Earth Day.
No Kings 3, on March 28, was scheduled in January with Minneapolis as an anchor city to highlight opposition to ICE. But Trump’s unilateral, unconstitutional war with Iran has reignited No Kings’ original focus.
It began with Trump play-acting with a parade. Now it’s a war—without even pretending to consult Congress or seek a declaration, as the Constitution requires. It reflects the will of one man, seemingly determined to topple governments he dislikes. Venezuela proved relatively easy, so why not Iran? Why not Cuba, Greenland, or Canada?
This is precisely what the Constitution was designed to prevent.
Which is why No Kings 3 demonstrations may be among the most important in our history if democracy is to survive. Unlike his first term, Trump has faced only feeble elite opposition, making mass opposition more necessary than ever.
The Iran war is the most extreme example of Trump’s lawlessness, but disregarding the law has defined his administration from the start.
In July 2025, the Washington Post found the administration accused of defying more than one in three judges—57 out of 165 cases at the time. The most common violation was ignoring orders, alongside misleading information, withholding evidence, and circumventing rulings.
More recently, in late February, U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Schiltz detailed 210 orders in 143 Minnesota cases where ICE failed to comply.
Such systematic lawlessness is anathema to America. As Tom Paine wrote in Common Sense, “In America, the law is king.”
“With the president starting illegal wars, secret police kidnapping our neighbors, and the regime working overtime to suppress the vote, silence isn’t an option. We need to make No Kings Day as big and loud as possible,” Indivisible said in a March 13 newsletter.
Random Lengths spoke with local organizers about Trump’s growing threat to peace, democracy, and the public, and the role of No Kings in sustaining opposition.
The Mad King’s War
“This is more than an illegal war. It’s an endless war—another forever war in the Middle East,” said Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for 50501. “Trump’s regime started it for their own ego. Their messaging isn’t about saving people—because they aren’t. It’s making it harder for people to exercise self-determination. You can’t do that under rubble.”
Dunn said 50501 joined rapid-response protests and backed the Iran War Powers Resolution, which Republicans defeated. “You’ll hear ‘No draft! No war! No 1984!’ a lot,” he added.
Kenny Johnson of Indivisible South Bay agreed. “There will be a lot of antiwar signs. This fits the No Kings theme—it’s a unilateral war started without congressional approval.”
The war also reflects deeper corruption. In January, two foreign-policy experts described Trump’s approach as “16th-century neoroyalist international politics,” where foreign policy serves personal gain over national interest.
This helps explain why there’s no coherent reason for war—at least not for the country. But there are reasons for Trump and his allies, who won’t bear the consequences.
For Melanie Jones of Indivisible San Pedro, the war cuts through public disengagement. “People say, ‘I don’t do politics,’ but politics does them,” she said.
Now, she argues, the impact is unavoidable. “Nobody can ignore gas prices or rising costs tied to the war. People will feel it directly.”
What the war makes visible has long been underway. Alongside lawlessness, the administration has been dismantling public programs. Cuts to SNAP and ACA subsidies are high-profile examples among hundreds, all reflecting a governing style that treats public welfare with contempt.
No Kings vs. ICE
While the first No Kings protests targeted Trump’s parade, they followed the ICE invasion of LA.
“I was there when David Huerta was arrested on June 6,” Dunn said. “ICE raided homes, detained families, and protests erupted.”
“They weren’t going to stop—they grew louder. Then Trump sent in the National Guard. I was part of the rapid response, working with labor and community groups.”
While thousands joined spontaneous protests, over 250,000 attended No Kings in downtown LA, with more than 2,100 demonstrations nationwide.
“For one day, we were all Los Angeles,” Dunn said. “It showed the emperor had no clothes—there’s nothing they can do about a crowd that size.”
Afterward, momentum continued. “Every raid, every escalation strengthened resistance,” Dunn said. “It became unmanageable for the administration.”
As ICE shifted to Chicago, activists built on lessons from LA. When it moved to Minneapolis—home to Somali, Hmong, and Latino communities—organizers adapted again.
ICE may have expected an easier target in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Instead, as in LA, each escalation strengthened resistance, especially after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. With a heavy ICE presence in a smaller metro area, community defense and mutual aid became tightly linked, growing stronger and inspiring others.
Ongoing Organizing and Mutual Aid
“Watching what’s happened with Minneapolis has been inspiring to us to change some of our mutually programs, and some of our information dissemination methods,” said Heather Rodriguez, with Indivisible Lakewood. “What we call mutual aid is a fancy way of saying helping each other, and everybody can contribute in some way. And what we’ve done is build teams with shared interests to create opportunities to help,” she explained. “We’ve seen a lot of need for people with mental assistance, grocery gas, food assistance being needed, and so we’ve created a gardening for mutual aid that recently did seed swaps with the goal of growing fruits and vegetables to benefit our own families and to share with others. And then those same volunteers also work at other people’s homes like residence make might need help gardening or harvesting.”
In particular, “A lot of older people or people with disabilities have, maybe fruit trees or want to take part in these kinds of like opportunities but they don’t have maybe the physical ability to do it. So our volunteers are harvesting fruit and vegetables, we’re cleaning it, we’re delivering it to people that need it. And meanwhile we also have a crafting group that we’ve created. And that’s along the lines of building community with people who have shared hobbies and shared interests. And so were trying to create products that can be donated and sold for fundraisers for some of our sister projects, mutual aid, and a lot of that money is going to help alleviate people’s rent.”
What’s more, Rodriguez noted, “We’re seeing a lot of issues with legal fees right now, that are just, exponentially increasing. The bonds and bail to release people from immigration detention has just skyrocketed,” she said, “So that the fund that they would ordinarily help a hundred people now can only help 10. It’s crazy. And so we’ve been joining forces with people who crafting, people holding bake sales with our group, to try to raise that money to help people with that.”
Finally, she added, “We’re establishing fix-it clinics, and childcare and tool sharing.” Activities like these expand the scope of organized resistance, blending into people’s everyday lives, a key part of how successful democracy movements grow.
“From my perspective the term resistance is not … it’s not a race right leg. it’s not a sprint but is also not a marathon it’s more of a relay race,” Dunn said. “No Kings is really important because it helped pass the baton to get more people involved in their local organizing and that makes them stronger, which amongst other things probably makes No Kings stronger as well, because you have a larger volunteer base and you have a base that’s more effective in organizing these larger events,” he said. “But more importantly, you’re getting them involved in immigration, you’re getting them involved in ICE watch, and community defense, and legal organizing, and getting out the vote, and then registering people to vote and mutual aid and the list goes on and on with direct action. There’s so many different ways that people can get involved, and No Kings helps plug them in.”
Another facet, on the horizon, is that of economic boycott. “We need to prep the work for that ahead of time. You can’t just ask people to not go to work or not spend money and have no infrastructure behind not to support it,” Rodriguez said. “I’m learning a lot about it right now, and I think that’s probably going to be a future step. So getting people to prepare for that and start networking right now to help make that reality eventually, it might be a way that we can make some actual progress.”
“Indivisible national is already talking about—we had a leadership meeting this morning—about Mayday. Mayday being a one day of economic boycott,” Jones said. “Don’t go to school, don’t buy anything. At least show them that we can do it. We did it with Spotify, we showed it with ABC, with Disney. That’s what can work, if enough people do it.”
Election Sabotage
Election sabotage is a major concern. Ever since the GOP’s wildly unpopular murder budget was passed, Trump began ramping up efforts to subvert the midterms to avoid accountability, most blatantly by calling on Texas to redistrict its congressional map, which in turn led to California’s Prop 50 in response. No Kings 2 came just two weeks before voters passed that last November, in an election where Democrats scored dramatic, extensive wins across the country, which has only further intensified GOP election sabotage efforts. This week the Senate is taking up the most sweeping version of that: the SAVE [GOP] Act, which the Brenan Center estimates could disenfranchise more than 20 million voters. So the question is growing stark: who will win? The sabotuers of democracy? Or the defenders?
When it comes to election sabotage, “The SAVE Act is a big one,” Jones said. “People see what he’s doing. I mean this isn’t his only attempt to disrupt the elections. We’ve seem multiple attempts. So when he brings out a new dog and pony show, everybody goes, ‘oh, we know where that dog and pony show’s going.’ It’s not a surprise.
“We expect that they’re going to attack the elections,” Rodriguez said. “There obviously will be elections, but the question is going to be how they gerrymander, how they count the votes. The SAVE act obviously is a huge concern for those of us, especially people like me who have been married and changed our name’s.” People like her represent the lion’s share of those who may be disenfranchised.
“They attacked the IDs from trans people that you might’ve seen in Kansas,” she noted. “All of those are methods, separate, that come together to make voting more difficult and just disenfranchise more people all at once” In addition, “There’s also been a lot of talk about them interfering with people at polls, trying to cancel mail–in ballots, there’s major issues all across the board. So were going to be focusing a lot on getting out the vote, making sure that people feel safe to vote. And as far as No Kings goes, the point is to have a demonstration to show people that they’re not alone,” Rodriguez said. “We want to make sure the people that might have been afraid to step up, but haven’t known how see us out there and realize you’re not by yourself. It’s this powerful message of there’s people that can support you. There’s ways for you to take action. You’re not helpless, you’re not hopeless, and we can rescue ourselves by helping each other.”
“I think the elections seem far away to some people, but they’re not,” Jones noted. “Primaries are happening now.”
“The energy definitely seems to be in on the Democrat or anti-MAGA side,” Johnson said, pointing to record turnout in the Texas primary as the most recent example. “So there’s definitely a lot of energy amongsth the Democratic base. And that’s, I think, it to be honest, despite the fact that I think a lot of the Democratic leadership has been kind of not meeting the moment.”
He noted, “There’s a lot of fear around what the Republicans are going to try to do,” citing the raid on Fulton County, Georgia’s election office, and the subpoenae of two Arizona counties for 2020 ballots as harbingers, adding, “This just seems to be something that they’re going to try to do.”
Nonetheless, “The hopeful side of me thinks that they can’t do this on a large scale in November,” Johnson said. “It’d be very difficult for them to actually change the outcome of the election. Maybe I’m being naïve or optimistic, I don’t know.” he added. ‘There’s also fear they’re gonna send out ICE agents to areas where there are large immigrant populations to try to discourage voting. I think all of this stuff is definitely on the table for them and I wouldn’t put anything past them,” he concluded. Yet, “I still think that they’re not going to overcome people’s wants, their desire to take to put a put some kind of restraint on Trump by getting the Democrats back the House and maybe even the Senate”
“A lot of things seem to hinge on the election and the election also is related to the Epstein files because when we have a majority in Congress, that is going to get hotter, because he is going to be in the hot seat himself,” Jones said. “I think that the Epstein scandal is much broader than we realize, and also has its fingers in a lot more corruption than just sexual exploitation and human trafficking. I think that the revelations are going to be absolutely mind blowing. But you gotta keep pulling the strings. And I think if we keep pulling the strings, it’s going to unravel.”
The fact that a member of the British royal family has already been charged brings the No Kings theme home from yet another angle. And some would even say that the Iran War itself is but the largest distraction from the Epstein files Trump has come up with yet. There is truly no way to separate all the different facets of Trump’s lawless cruelty from one another. They’re all interconnected.
“I think all of the stuff he’s doing is to protect his own power,” Jones said. “He said, ‘I can destroy the country.’ He said that. And that’s what he’s doing. So wake up America. We have the power to stop this.”
NO KINGS Los Angeles
2-5:30 p.m. PDT
Los Angeles City Hall/Gloria Molina
Grand Park
NO KINGS South Bay LA
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PDT
Torrance City Hall
NO KINGS Long Beach
12 -2 p.m. PDT
Bluff Park: Ocean Blvd at Temple
NO KINGS Lakewood
10 a.m.-12 p.m. PDT
Lakewood City Hall
