Eight million Americans rallied at over 3,300 events across the country on Saturday to declare “No Kings” for a third time. The numbers have grown since the massive No Kings rallies last June.
A reference to Trump ruling lawlessly by executive order since his inauguration. People really need to take 15 minutes and read the Constitution. Under the Constitution the president only has two minor powers. Please read it. Just 15 minutes to read the whole Constitution. I promise.
Here is my video of the entire march down Anacapa Street from ground level.
The video runs for 21 minutes. There were about 12 people across the street on average. I timed 20 rows of people passing in 33 seconds. 21 x 60 x 12 x 20/33 = 9,164 marchers.
People packed Alameda Park starting at 11:00AM. There were tables to browse. By the time I arrived at 11:30 the crowd was so huge it was almost impossible to get to the tables.
The group Democratic Women alternately held up signs illustrating the contrast between democracy and fascism.
Santa Barbara Singing Resistance sang on stage to warm up the crowd.
Including the music director for our Santa Barbara Early Music Ensemble, Katie Saxon.
The speeches started promptly at 12:30 on schedule. The keynote speaker was supposed to be Congress member Salud Carbajal. But the Republicans had blocked funding for the TSA workers, so he was stuck on the East Coast, unable to catch a flight home. Organizer Ian Paige read a statement from Rep Carbajal.
He spoke of corruption in Congress. Suspicious stock trades on the eve of Trump’s war on Iran. He called it a “war of choice”. Carbajal is Marines veteran and he talked of the scars that soldiers still carry from the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Iran war is costing $1 billion a day, adding to the Federal deficit.
The Democrats have repeatedly tried to fund TSA while asking for enforceable guarantees that ICE will stop its massive violations of the law.
Carbajal’s statement ended saying that Trump is out of control and needs to be held accountable.
Next up: Immigrant Legal Defense Center CEO and attorney Maria Salguero. She emphasized that ICE is out of control and needs to be stopped. They cannot even provide basic answers regarding her clients who have been lawlessly abducted. As Americans it is our duty to ensure that everyone has legal protection.
Cesar Vasquez of 805UndocuFund spoke next. He is now 18, but he has been carrying a heavy load since he was 14. Watching out for ICE to make sure people are not being abducted. Including his own mother. He was recently featured in this article in the British journal The Guardian.
He was very powerful in his voice and in his passion and message. He said that the resistance must exist in our hearts. Freedom can’t be asked for. It must be fought for. Power to the people.
He said we must be willing to live in discomfort. We may have to boycott and give up things that we want. He asked the crowed to repeat, “I am a revolutionary!”
Santa Barbara City Council Member Wendy Santamaria was up next. She explained that strength comes from the bottom up. She thanked her fellow City Council members for passing a rent increase moratorium. She asked the crowd to email them and to attend the next City Council meeting April 7 to keep that momentum going.
She explained that these struggles are interconnected. She noted that ICE is only 23 years old. Somehow we got along just fine for hundreds of years before that without them. We can exist without them again.
She talked about Flock automated cameras that are now keeping us all under surveillance. “Only the people will save the people. Si Se Puede. Yes We Can.”
Next up was Katie Davis representing the Sierra Club. She talked about being at the beach during the 2015 oil spill here. She saw a dolphin with oil in its blowhole. She could feel its distress and not being able to breathe.
And now Trump has ordered that very same failed pipeline to reopen. Now owned by Sable. In direct violation of a wide range of local, state and Federal laws and judicial rulings.
We would not be in this situation if the US had invested in sustainable energy instead of investing in military power to keep the oil flowing. Trump is actually paying a French company $1 billion of your tax money to stop building a wind power plant. And to put that money into fossil fuels instead.
We are in a Climate Crisis. After the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill national organizations sprung up to change course. They succeeded in ending new oil drilling in California state waters.
Santa Barbara set a goal of 100% renewable energy. California followed. Locally we are fighting Sable in every way. Right now it is illegal in Santa Barbara County to build a solar farm, but it is legal to drill for oil. That must change.
The legal process is beginning to prosecute Sable for its lawless actions. No one should be above the law.
UCSB student Kailani Borneman and her friend from SBCC spoke briefly to let the crowd know that students are part of this movement and they are working with event organizer Indivisible Santa Barbara.
Fund For Santa Barbara CEO Eder Gaona-Macedo was last to speak before the march. The Fund For Santa Barbara gave seed money to start Indivisible. He was also a co-founder of 805UndocuFund. He talked of the hardship people are facing now just to meet basic needs of rent, food and transportation.
He noted that Project 2025 was a long term strategy, years in the making. I will note that it dates back to Reagan and Project 1981. The only thing that was different with Project 2025 is that it became widely known and distributed. And Trump committed to fulfilling it while denying he was doing so. Reagan fulfilled Project 1981 while avoiding public accountability for it.
Eder Gaona-Macedo said that he was once an undocumented immigrant. His daughter gives him hope. He said that we must dream bigger and we must learn from our elders.
And then the march was off and running exactly on schedule. We journalists were not allowed to fly our own drones. As of today I have not been given access to the official drone videos or photos. Anacapa Street has no elevated platforms, so it is difficult to capture the enormity of this march from the ground. My video above shows the entire march. I will offer a small sample of my over 100 photos. Please check out the rest from the link above.
As in the previous No Kings marches, there was a variety of clever costumes and signs. Including the inflatable outfits made famous at the Portland protests last year.
This sign was a chilling reminder that before Trump’s lawless ICE attacks on US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good were still alive.
This banner was so huge that it could not be read at street level. It said:
NO ICE
NO WAR
NO KINGS
You Can’t Cherry-Pick the Constitution Like Ya’ll do the Bible. A pithy and accurate reminder that so-called Christian Nationalists have no understanding of either the Constitution or of their Bible.
As at previous events, families turned out together.
A few more march photos.
People are clearly energized to keep protesting and organizing until law, democracy, justice and humanity are restored. Indivisible Santa Barbara has a Facebook page here where you can find out what is happening next. And a link to sign up for their email list.
https://www.facebook.com/indivisiblesantabarbara
Today’s (Easter Sunday) profanity-laced, bully raging social media post -‘just open the f**kin strait, you crazy bastards”-, in which he once again threatens actual war crimes against civilian populations’ infrastructure, ON TOP of wtf-bizarre religious mockery -“Praise be to Allah”- shows us all why he is a demented psychopath and dangerously unfit to remain in office.
Congress, your job has never been clearer: Invoke the 25th Amendment AND get those Articles of Impeachment on the table.
Congress doesn’t invoke the 25th Amendment, the VP and cabinet do … and then the President can challenge it, in which case 2/3 of both houses must vote in favor–a higher bar than impeachment and conviction. The 25th is really only effective for Presidents in a coma.
Articles of impeachment will come next year when the Democrats control the House. Unfortunately, even if they become the majority in the Senate, they will be far short of the 67 votes needed to convict.
Right on all counts, Marcel. The math isn’t encouraging, given the craven personalities upon which these events would depend. But removing this man from office is clearly the right thing to do, and damn the odds, we should be demanding it.
The party that Coronated Kamala Harris with “Yas Queen!” in 2024…
Now calls their protests to losing a democratic election: No Kings!
Classic projection… Embarrassing, but tracks.
Another contribution from the no IQ zone. Truly. it would be quite a challenge to say something *less* intelligent or honest.
Lays around, does nothing, fat, barks a lot of nonsense–yep, a harbor seal. Oh, maybe not a harbor seal because they don’t hate African-American culture.
Look ! A Trump mindsheep wallowing in its native habitat.
Protests and rallies are an integral part of the Santa Barbara fabric, and provide a sense of community. More importantly though, it’s a way to let off some steam and allows those who are super frustrated a way to vent. For many, holding a sign, marching on streets, and gathering with other like-minded folks does the trick. If you missed this event, no worries because there will most likely be at least seven or eight more protests over the next three years of so. After the midterms, we can look forward to impeachment proceedings….MUST. GET. POPCORN.
Sad that you consider the plight of this country to be entertaining, but not surprising, since you’re sop shallow.
BK’s post reeks of low shelf wine with a screw on top.
Your naïveté is showing.
What makes you believe that he will let the people vote?
The Trump presidency is a putrid festering cancer. His supporters are awful and unwell people. They would have supported Hitler.
Yes, these protests expose the deep wound in our republic and let millions feel the relief of finally standing up. But standing still while shouting is still reactive.
We don’t need more catharsis—we need direction. Let every sign and every chant become a battle plan: not just “No Kings,” but exactly how we reclaim our Constitution, our borders, our future.
Vent your anger if you must. Then turn it into fuel.
Real solutions and relentless, organized action are the only things that have ever saved this noble nation.
The moment demands more than feelings.
It demands warriors with a plan.
What are YOU doing?
These massive protests are doing their job: they’ve ripped the mask off our national rage and let millions taste the rush of “We’re not powerless.”
But rage without direction is just noise. It’s reactive fire that lights up the sky and dies by morning.
The signs in our hands must stop listing grievances and start mapping the escape route—specific, courageous, actionable solutions that ordinary Americans can rally behind today.
Feeling something is easy. Doing something that actually works is harder. And right now, only that harder path will haul our noble nation back from the edge.
Stop venting. Start building. The republic is waiting for us to lead.
“Stop venting. Start building.”
Project much? Building a movement is exactly what this is about, and many of these people are involved in a variety of other coordinated actions. And many people connect and form further bonds at these rallies.
Love all the very creative handmade signs ! … There was a young woman w/t-shirt that is a take off on the bracelets WWJD ( what would Jesus do ? ) In big letters on the front of her shirt, ” WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB ? “
@LDighera What is your vision?
Saw an anti-war sign when I was there that said, ” EVIL AXIS ” w/ faces of Putin Trump Netanyahu !!!
The Founders did not think this through. They opposed the existence of parties (they also called them “factions”). But the Constitution pretty much guarantees that there will be two dominant parties at all times.
They naively thought that no one as deranged as Trump or as idiotic as W Bush could be elected by “We the People”. And they thought that the Electors of the Electoral College would reject such bad judgement if it happened.
They further assumed that anyone so clearly unfit would quickly be removed through impeachment.
The Constitution gives all power to Congress. Except for two minor powers delegated to the President. It is not clear that the country could ever have functioned as laid out in the Constitution. The result has been ever increasing lawlessness by presidents.
We have the worst of both democracy and tyranny now. Nothing useful ever gets done about the truly important issues. Like solving the Climate Crisis. But we have a tyrant who unilaterally starts wars.
After 250 years, I think we are long overdue for a new system of governance. Something fit for a modern high-tech world. And that can leverage the tools of a modern high-tech world.
Thank you for all of the comments.
Absolutely!
The modern liberal democracies of the world have mostly adopted parliamentary systems, and ranked-choice voting algorithms, that are much better at representing all of their constituents and providing for their well-being.
We seem to mostly specialize in producing ultra-rich egomaniacs and fostering their exploitation of the rest of the populace and our natural resources.