The Brooklyn Rail

Over five million people demonstrated against the Trump regime on June 14, dubbed “No Kings Day,” in more than 2100 cities and towns across America. These demonstrations were effective, I think, in their demeanor. The ones I saw were both light-hearted and serious, funny and angry, welcoming and warning. Demonstrations are intended to do just that: to demonstrate a way to see and do things differently. They are largely ceremonial. A ceremony is an outward rite or observance. The word comes from the Sanskrit for “action, work, rite.” People came together on Saturday to express their staunch opposition to the Trump administration with signs and performances, costumes and music. They gathered peacefully, in solidarity and friendship, against a regime growing increasingly violent.

This particular nationwide demonstration had a lot of pressure on it, because of the assassinations that morning of the top Democratic state legislator in Minnesota and her husband, and the shooting and grievous wounding of another Democratic state legislator and his wife, by a lone gunman impersonating a police officer; the ongoing occupation of Los Angeles by a federalized National Guard and 200 active-duty, combat-trained Marines brought in by Trump to quell protests; and a North Korea-style military parade in the nation’s capital to celebrate the 79th birthday of Donald Trump.

In May 1968, John Berger published an essay on “The Nature of Mass Demonstrations” in the journal New Society. It read, in part:

Mass demonstrations should be distinguished from riots or revolutionary uprisings although, under certain (now rare) circumstances, they may develop into either of the latter. The aims of a riot are usually immediate (the immediacy matching the desperation they express): the seizing of food, the release of prisoners, the destruction of property. The aims of a revolutionary uprising are long-term and comprehensive: they culminate in the taking over of State power. The aims of a demonstration, however, are symbolic: it demonstrates a force that is scarcely used.

A large number of people assemble together in an obvious and already announced public place. They are more or less unarmed. . . . They present themselves as a target to the forces of repression serving the State authority against whose policies they are protesting.

Theoretically demonstrations are meant to reveal the strength of popular opinion or feeling: theoretically they are an appeal to the democratic conscience of the State. But this presupposes a conscience which is very unlikely to exist.¹

The great Hannah Arendt scholar and disciple Jerome Kohn died in November 2024, two days after the presidential election, having not heard the final results. Thomas Wild² recounts that Kohn left a handwritten note on his desk the day he went into the hospital, reading, “If Trump wins the US presidency, it will be a victory of public opinion over public spirit.” And it continued, “The former being favored over the latter by ‘both sides.’ What might restore public spirit?” And in his introduction to Thinking Without a Banister, a collection of Arendt’s essays from 1953–1975, Kohn quoted Arendt telling a group of students in Chicago in 1963, “You may remember the great mistrust the founders had in public opinion, which stands opposite to public spirit. Where public spirit is lacking, public opinion comes in its stead.” And Kohn continues, “To Arendt, this is a ‘perversion,’ and a danger to all republics, especially those that consider themselves democracies.”³

For Arendt, public opinion comes out when individuals engage with each other and express themselves, but public spirit is expressed when citizens deliberate and debate and contend with one another and then participate in promoting the common good out of that process. It is a place of contestation, negotiation, and struggle that can only come from freedom and agency, and a certain measure of trust. It is precisely what is threatened by authoritarianism.

Trump has called the protestors in LA “troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists” and accused them of mounting “a full-blown assault on public order.” Trump’s use of the epithet “insurrectionists” for people who question his rule is particularly galling, given his support and pardoning of the insurrectionists of January 6. This is directly antithetical to the public spirit. Trump is always feeding and manipulating public opinion, while acting to eliminate the possibility of public spirit.

The online world favors public opinion over public spirit, and in fact makes the latter much more difficult. People state their opinions and argue online, but they hardly ever come to the point where they collectively pursue the common good. The economic structure of social media does not allow it. Only the loudest, most entrenched opinions are rewarded with attention. Public opinion is digital, and public spirit is analog. The question is, can public spirit be revived within the current communications environment?

Will the demonstrations on June 14 stop the Trump regime? No. But they are important none the less. More needs to be done to re-energize the public spirit side, and to remind people of the benefits of democracy and the rule of law. Trump has ridden a wave of dissatisfaction and despair among half the US population into power, and the opposing party has not mounted a vigorous and compelling defense of democracy and the rule of law.

The contrast between the anti-Trump demonstrations across the country and the military parade in Washington was striking in many ways. While the No Kings Day demonstrations were overwhelming in both size and enthusiasm, Trump’s military parade was poorly organized and sparsely attended, and lacked any real motivating energy. Dictators normally use these parades to intimidate their international enemies, but this one seemed to be intended to intimidate Trump’s domestic opponents, and to get people used to seeing military troops and hardware deployed in American cities. The split-screen disparity between the two demonstrations, in terms of affect, was evident to almost everyone, including Trump, who was clearly embarrassed by it. His immediate response was to double down on his cruel vendetta against immigrants and lash out at Democrats in a post on Truth Social on the night of June 15.

“ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” he wrote, and continued,

In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role. You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland!