Incredible ‘No Kings’ map is an ominous prediction for US
An incredible map has emerged showing the wave of anger sweeping across the US, with millions of Americans expected to turn out for “No Kings Day” protests on Saturday.
These demonstrations, planned for more than 1800 US towns and cities, are a response to President Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington DC on Saturday.
Officially, the event marks the US Army’s 250th anniversary, but it also falls on Trump’s 79th birthday.
Protests are scheduled for every one of the US’s 50 states, and in Puerto Rico. More are planned overseas, in countries such as Colombia, Germany, Italy, Malawi, Portugal and Britain, according to organiser No Kings.
It is a wide coalition of progressive organisations, including the American Federation of Teachers, Public Citizen and progressive organising group Indivisible.
“They’ve defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights and slashed our services,” the group says on its website, which also displays the map of planned marches.
“The corruption has gone too far. No thrones. No crowns. No kings.”
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It expects Saturday’s demonstrations to be the largest against the Trump administration since he assumed office in January.
In May, Indivisible said the military parade was meant to be a “made-for-TV display of dominance for [Trump’s] birthday” and that he was using the army’s birthday to celebrate his own.
The Washington DC events include a festival on the National Mall for the army and will culminate with the $US45 million ($A69 million) parade and an enlistment and re-enlistment ceremony presided over by Trump.
The planned protests come after Trump lashed out at potential marchers at an Oval Office appearance earlier this week.
“For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” he said, after making a speech at Fort Bragg to mark the army’s anniversary.
“I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”
US Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool has said thousands of agents, officers and specialists will be deployed from across the US for Saturday’s event.
Law enforcement agencies are preparing for hundreds of thousands of people at the parade. Earlier in the week, they said nine permits had been issued for protests on the day.
The weekend events will also build on a growing wave of violence across the US triggered by Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown.
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His extraordinary measures of sending National Guard and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles fuelled days of demonstrations and sparked protests in other cities.
“Donald Trump and his regime are cracking down on media, on business, on higher education, and on civil society more broadly — anyone who opposes them,” Indivisible co-executive director Leah Greenberg said last week.
“That is the context in which Donald Trump rolled out his plans for his birthday parade … He wants people to think that his power is inevitable, that its consolidation is a given. What we want is to show that it’s just as likely – more likely, even – that this is going to be a short-lived era.”
Protests in Los Angeles have sparked other demonstrations across the US. Photo: AAP
Undeterred, Trump used his Fort Bragg speech to defend his decision.
“Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third-world lawlessness,” he said.
“What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags,”.
He said his administration would “liberate Los Angeles”.
But Democratic leaders have raised concerns over a national crisis in what has become the most intense flashpoint yet in the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants, and then crack down on opponents who take to the streets in protest.
“I am counting on all of Chicago to resist in this moment. Because whatever particular vulnerable group is being targeted today, another group will be next,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said on Wednesday (US time), after revealing more US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been given 48 hours to stand by and deploy there for potential raids in the city.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said Trump’s “brazen abuse of power” had “inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk”.
“That’s when the downward spiral began,” he said in a video address this week.
“He again chose escalation. He chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety … Democracy is under assault.”
Newsom and the state of California sued Trump and the Defence Department, seeking to block the deployment of federal troops. Trump, in turn, has suggested Newsom should be arrested.
-with agencies
