Weekly Member Update - October 13, 2025
Artist credit - Nikkolas Smith; www.nikkolas.art
It is time for all of us to exercise our collective right to peaceably assemble.
As No Kings 2.0 fast approaches this coming weekend, we’ve been giving a lot of thought to the First Amendment’s guarantee of “the right of the People peaceably to assemble” and the foundational importance that this particular Constitutional right plays in helping to safeguard democracy and personal freedom. In establishing the Constitutional right of assembly, the drafters of the Bill of Rights explicitly considered the unjust 1670 prosecution of William Penn for unlawful assembly and incitement of a riot in connection with his London street preaching. To that end, Massachusetts Representative Elbridge Gerry forcefully defended the inclusion of the right to assemble in the First Amendment, stating that “The People ought to be secure in peaceable enjoyment of this privilege, and that can only be done by making a declaration to that effect in the Constitution.” The founders were prescient; peaceable assembly has proved to be a hallmark of successful movements against prevailing oppression and disenfranchisement throughout our Nation’s history, from the suffragists and abolitionists to organized labor and civil rights activists. No less an authority than Supreme Court Justice — and Albany Law School alumnus — Robert Jackson considered the right to assemble as integral to the broader “right to differ” with one’s government; “freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
Outside of this Country, history provides countless examples of mass nonviolent protest effecting meaningful reforms and even regime change, with the 1989 Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia and the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines only two noteworthy examples. In fact, the history of effective mass nonviolent demonstration is so well established that it has given rise to a political science truism; when just 3.5% of a country’s populace engages in mass peaceful protest, their collective demand for transformational change becomes almost impossible to ignore. With only a few exceptions, every repressive government that has faced a popular nonviolent mobilization of 3.5% of that nation’s populace has been overcome, as it is commonly understood that satisfaction of the 3.5% threshold signifies broad popular support across society and projects a sense of inevitability that can prompt defections amongst the economic, political and cultural sectors which oppressive regimes depend upon for their legitimacy. As the Center for American Progress describes the phenomenon, “People-powered movements can increase the chances of pressuring the government to meet their demands, including by building broad, sustained public participation across diverse groups. This is especially true because authoritarian-minded governments try to divide the population and keep them afraid of defiance. When 3.5 percent of a population goes beyond protest to engage in peaceful civil disobedience and noncooperation, these actions disrupt the system and force governmental change.”
The 3.5% rule is even understood by authoritarians themselves, and dictatorial regimes in recent memory have sought to use disinformation, a hardened police force and the criminalization of protest itself as the means of countering mass civil resistance movements. We’ve seen an example of this countervailing approach over the past several weeks in this Country. First, the Orange King and his ministers leveraged the murder of Charlie Kirk to announce a far-reaching campaign against the “radical left” (he means us, by the way), including the promulgation of a chilling “National Security Presidential Memorandum” which directs the federal government to prioritize the investigation of a broad swath of vaguely described groups under the umbrella of “anti-fascism,” including anyone the King believes is engaging in “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
And then this week, Trump’s allies in Congress turned the focus to the No Kings movement explicitly. Within the span of a few hours on Friday, multiple Republican officials issued coordinated public statements denouncing the coming No Kings events. House Speaker and Trump sycophant Lil’ Mikey Johnson announced his “theory” that No Kings is a “hate America rally” for “the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people.” Soon thereafter, Republican Kansas Senator Roger Marshall lamented the coming “Soros paid-for protest for his professional protestors” and expressed his doubt that such protests would be peaceful. Host Majority Whip Tom Emmer chimed in next, claiming that “the terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party would be holding a “hate America rally” on October 18. In the days since, Trump Administration officials and their Republican allies have even tried to Jedi-mind-trick everyone into believing that their ongoing government shutdown is somehow attributable to next Saturday’s protests.
Republican attempts to characterize mass mobilization against Trump’s tyranny as terrorism or apocalyptic riots are of course patently absurd and flatly at odds with what we are witnessing with our own eyes, including the viral images of street-theater protestors in inflatable frog costumes (and a managerie of other characters) facing off against armed federal forces in Portland and Chicago. We can see with our own eyes that the protestors in Portland, Chicago and elsewhere are engaged in Constitutionally protected peaceable assembly, and that it is federal agents that are employing violence and perpetrating chaos. So we need to see the Republican gaslighting for what it really is; a calculated disinformation campaign that is all at once incompetent and ridiculous and incredibly dangerous. But it should also serve as our inspiration.
Trump and his cronies are fundamentally afraid of you. The Orange King’s policies are profoundly unpopular with the American people; we all can see his self-dealing and corruption out in the open, and we all can acknowledge his narcissistic compulsion to rule over every aspect of American life in perpetuity. So Trump, like all tyrants, must conjure a world of make believe to intimidate the People into submission with fear and convince them of his inevitability. Mass peaceable assembly shatters that illusion. When we join together this coming Saturday, we will be expressing defiance in the face of Trump’s lies and tyranny, but we will also be joyfully celebrating our collective right to peaceably assemble and expressing our right to gather in solidarity in defense of our founding principles. When we stand together in nonviolent mass protest, we are saying that we are not afraid and we are reaffirming that the American people do not kneel before a wannabe King.
We have detailed information on the Indivisible Albany webpage about this Saturday’s local event on Western Avenue, including maps, parking information and a FAQ page. On the subject of parking, please be advised that the corporate owners of Stuyvesant Plaza have made the shameful decision to close the adjoining parking lot at Executive Park to our use and have expressed an intention to tow cars which park at Executive Park. While there are plenty of other parking options to choose from, we appreciate the reminder that corporations are rarely our friends, and that apparently includes Stuyvesant Plaza, Inc., who you are free to contact here should you be so inclined.
Be reminded that Saturday’s event on Western Avenue is both a demonstration and a march; it is up to you whether you choose to participate in the march component at the western end of the event site near Fuller Road, or instead choose to remain stationary at some other point along Western Avenue. If you need even more information, we will be discussing all things No Kings tonight at our Monthly Membership meeting.
In the lead up to No Kings 2.0 this week, we also have an array of other events to help build momentum. We have multiple Bridge Visibility Brigade demonstrations on the calendar this week, including a protest on the Washington Avenue overpass to I90 in Rensselaer on Thursday. Last week’s protest in Rensselaer encountered some harassment from the Rensselaer police, so we hope to have a strong turnout on Thursday to remind folks that the right to peaceably assemble exists in Rensselaer County too. On the morning of No Kings, we’ll also be holding a Revolutionary War Scavenger Hunt to drive more attendance to the demonstration at noon.
See you on Saturday, Indivisibles, this one is going to be big!
