Millions of Americans are gathering across the country on Saturday — including in Washington, D.C. — to protest the monarchical pretensions of the Trump administration.
In the four months since the last No Kings protests, President Trump has gone even further down the road of claiming plenary authority over the executive branch. He has continued to claim the right to fire anyone he pleases, to cancel or spend federal funds outside congressional appropriations and to launch lethal strikes against foreign civilians without explicit authorization from Congress or evidence of imminent threat to Americans.
The president has tried to leverage the power of the federal government against his political opponents and legal adversaries, sending the Justice Department after James Comey, a former director of the F.B.I.; Attorney General Letitia James of New York; and one of Trump’s former national security advisers, John Bolton. Trump also wants to use the I.R.S. and other agencies to harass liberal donors and left-leaning foundations. He has even tried to revive lèse-majesté, threatening critics of his administration and its allies with legal and political sanctions. With Trump, it’s as if you crossed the bitter paranoia of Richard Nixon with the absolutist ideology of Charles I.
Today’s protesters, in other words, are standing for nothing less than the anti-royal and republican foundations of American democracy. For the leaders of the Republican Party, however, these aren’t citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent but subversives out to undermine the fabric of the nation.
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming said of a planned No Kings protest that it would be a “big ‘I hate America’ rally” of “far-left activist groups.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana also called No Kings a “hate America rally.” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that he expected to see “Hamas supporters,” “antifa types” and “Marxists” on “full display.” People, he said without a touch of irony, “who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.” And all of this is of a piece with the recent declaration by the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, that “the Democrat Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.”
This, I should think, is news to the Democratic Party.
In any case, what explains the Republican Party’s posture toward these protests, beyond a desire to delegitimize their political opponents? I have two main thoughts.
First, there is the party’s precarious political position in the midst of a government shutdown. Although no one has escaped responsibility for the shutdown, a higher percentage Americans blame Trump and Republicans in Congress than they do Democrats, according to a recent poll conducted for The Associated Press. More Americans than not also want Congress to extend enhanced federal tax credits for people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, which has put Republican politicians on the defensive. In demonizing the No Kings protests, Republicans might simply be trying to turn the public’s attention somewhere else.
Second, much of Trump’s effort to extend his authority across the whole of American society depends on more or less voluntary compliance from civil society and various institutions outside of government. And that, in turn, rests on the idea that Trump is the authentic tribune of the people. Reject Trump, and you reject the people, who may then turn on your business or your university or, well, you.
Nationwide protests comprised of millions of people are a direct rebuke to the president’s narrative. They send a signal to the most disconnected parts of the American public that the president is far from as popular as he says he is, and they send a clear warning to those institutions under pressure from the administration: Bend the knee and lose our business and support.
To the degree that major protests could undermine the administration’s ability to exert political authority, it makes a whole lot of sense for Republicans and the White House to spend their energy attacking the No Kings movement.
And this, I think, should serve as an important reminder to opponents of the administration that for all its boasts and bluster, it knows as well as anyone that the president is unpopular and that his administration is vulnerable.
Now Reading
Cora Currier on how presidents have tried to evade their moral responsibility for the war on terror in The New York Review of Books.
Aida Alami on Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has been detained in Texas for much of the last year for her participation in student protests against the war in Gaza, for The New Yorker.
Jedediah Britton-Purdy and David Pozen on understanding the Trump moment for Boston Review.
Lincoln Caplan on John Roberts’s legacy for Harvard magazine.
Aziz Huq on gerrymandering and democracy for The London Review of Books.
Photo of the Week
A snapshot from a No Kings protest in June, taken on a 1940s-era press camera.
Pistachio Bread
This recipe, which comes from the website Zestful Kitchen, is basically a cake, if you made a cake with whole-wheat flour. It is also delicious and, most important, very easy to make. You can also use other kinds of nuts. I’ve made walnut breads, hazelnut breads and almond breads with this basic formula. You can also substitute oil for the butter, and I’m sure you could use an egg substitute as well if you’d like to make this vegan. Experiment!
Also, I’m including the measurements by weight for those of you who, like me, use a scale when you bake.
Ingredients
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1 ¼ cup (160 grams) raw shelled pistachios, toasted, plus chopped toasted pistachios for garnish
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1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons for top
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½ teaspoon kosher salt
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8 tablespoons (113 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed
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3 large eggs (150 grams)
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⅓ cup (85 grams) buttermilk
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1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
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½ teaspoon pure almond extract
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1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (145 grams) whole-wheat flour
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1 ¼ teaspoons (6 grams) baking powder
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1 teaspoon (2 grams) ground ginger
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¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
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1 ¼ cups (140 grams) confectioners’ sugar
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1 lemon, zested and juiced
Directions
Heat oven to 325 degrees, with rack set in middle position. Line an 8½-by-4½-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides.
Process pistachios, sugar and ½ teaspoon salt in a food processor until finely ground into a powder but not a paste, about 1 ½ minutes; scrape sides and bottom halfway through.
Pulse 8 tablespoons butter into pistachio mixture (10 pulses), then process until the mixture is clumpy yet smooth and shiny, about 2 minutes; scrape down sides of bowl halfway through.
Stream in eggs and buttermilk and blend to combine, 1 minute. Add vanilla extract and almond extract; process to combine.
Add whole-wheat flour, baking powder, ginger and cardamom; process just until combined.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar over top. Transfer to oven and bake until cake is tall and browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes, depending on your oven. (I would check around the one-hour mark and then check again every 5 minutes.)
Let cake cool in pan on rack for 15 minutes, then run a knife around cake and use parchment overhang to lift cake out of pan; transfer to cooling rack and cool completely.
In a medium-small bowl, whisk together confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, grated lemon zest and a pinch of salt until smooth.
Pour glaze over cooled cake, allowing it to drip down sides of cake. Sprinkle with chopped toasted pistachios. Let glaze set, then slice and serve.
Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va.
The post Republicans Know How Vulnerable Trump Is. The Attacks on No Kings Prove It. appeared first on New York Times.
