OpEd - No, I'm Not Going to #NoKings This Time
And neither should you
A Declining Democracy
Mar 18, 2026
Excerpt: "What does toppling the #oligarchy mean? It means boycotting the media, goods, and services they use to extract wealth from the rest of us. (See the #TeslaTakedown as a great example.) It means #activism to get state legislatures to enact #WealthTaxes. It means lobbying state legislatures to increase income taxes on the top 10% of earners. It means electing Governors and Mayors who adopt a #Mamdani / #AOC-like platform to alleviate the financial burdens of average workers/citizens. It means rejecting corporate centrism and any of their candidates, local or federal, who accepts money from PACs, particularly those that have effectively paralyzed representatives from voting against Israel or the NRA. It also means creating the networks that protect the most vulnerable: the undocumented, women who are being persecuted for exercising bodily autonomy or receiving life-saving medical care, and anyone, frankly, who isn’t white or Christian.
"So, where does one start? First, send an email to the No Kings organizers at [email protected] and explain why you won’t be joining this time or at any time in the future until they adopt a strategy with teeth:
- Protests must occur on weekdays and for multiple days at a time and to call it a #GeneralStrike.
- To use their clout to call for union leaders to have their union membership strike in solidarity.
- To call for their sponsors to contribute to a strike fund for non-union, hourly wage participants, offsetting the financial burden of participating in these actions.
- To have specific demands for our government:
* Remove and Prosecute Trump for his criminality, particularly as it relates to the sex-trafficking and rape of minors
* Abolish ICE
* Audit the 2024 election, restore voting systems where breaches have occurred, and implement federal voting rights statutes to ensure every voter is heard and every vote counted
* Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment across all 50 states, codifying women’s rights to vote, have equal pay, and access to reproductive health care.
* Adopt Medicare for All.
"Now, there is a #MayDay general strike being organized by the #UAW, but it’s being planned for 2028 which seems awfully far away and too late. I’m sure the idea was to do some union saber-rattling in the lead up to the 2028 Presidential election. However, the time to show some critical mass is right now, not two years from now, after heaven knows how much more crap this Administration will inflict or how much more suffering Americans will endure. No Kings has the numbers; why not just consolidate and do it sooner? "
Read more:
https://democracydecline.substack.com/p/no-im-not-going-to-no-kings-this
