On Saturday, March 28th, thousands of ordinary Quad Citians will converge on LeClaire Park in a brave display of civic resolve. “No Kings!” we will say.
We will fan out around the streets of downtown Davenport and say no to the would-be emperor. No to the overreach, the corruption, the favoritism for the super-wealthy, and the disregard for our collective welfare as Americans. No to the militarization of our cities and airports. To the dehumanization of our immigrant and LGBTQ+ neighbors. To the climate denialism and active neglect of our beloved lands and waterways. To the hatred of our fellow Americans and the chilling of free speech. And no to the attack on our very system of electoral representation.
We are a constitutional democratic republic. We demand adherence to the laws and norms of this great nation.
E Pluribus Unum. Indivisible. “With liberty and justice for all.”
Indivisible Quad Cities has partnered with other local organizations to host a rally and visibility action this Saturday. For an hour starting at 1 p.m., we will recite the Pledge of Allegiance and then listen to five speakers rally us to the varied causes of democracy. Voter registration and organizational information tables will be available.
Around 2 p.m., we will occupy downtown sidewalks in a highly visible show of popular enthusiasm for democracy and patriotic protest. There will be singing. There will be chanting. There will be joyful dissent.
“We love our country,” says Adam, a local machinist. “We need to take back the flag for democracy and not for imperialist aggression or white Christian nationalism.”
On a day likely to represent the largest mass popular mobilization in U.S. history, it’s important to know how ordinary folks in the Quad Cities have borne the brunt of the negative effects of Trump’s second term in office—and how we are responding with a different vision of how America can be.
The list of alarming attacks on our democracy grows each day:
Usurping congressional authority to determine funding (DOGE firings, shaking down universities, threatening to stop funding for bridge and tunnel projects, eliminating SNAP benefits, etc.),
Turning the Department of Justice into a tool for retribution and personal vendettas,
Making executive declarations of War (Venezuela, Iran…then Cuba? Greenland?),
Rampant conflicts of interest, corruption, and graft,
Favoring of the billionaire class at the expense of affordability for average Americans (tax laws and tax enforcement, safe capital havens, cutting of regulations, etc.),
Rolling back the representation of diversity and the struggle for justice in our history (scrubbing websites and changing signage at federal parks and monuments; banning books from libraries)
But on this day of “No Kings,” our speakers will focus on yet another set of issues: the threats against our immigrant and LGBTQ+ neighbors, the attack on our environment, efforts at voter suppression and the denial of voting rights, and the growing healthcare crisis.
Many Quad Citians have been organizing to defend their immigrant neighbors against an eventual surge of detention and deportation. While Trump the candidate promised to focus on only the most violent undocumented offenders, only 26% of the immigrants swept up in Stephen Miller’s brutal immigration dragnet have criminal convictions.
One of the No Kings speakers, Reverend Katie Styrt, Pastor of Milan Presbyterian, traveled to Minneapolis with a group of clergy. She learned that what was happening in Minneapolis could happen anywhere in America. “ICE’s changing rules around entering churches have decreased church attendance in Minneapolis, and have intimidated some worshipers here in the Quad Cities,” she says. “Our sanctuaries should be places of safety and support, not hunting grounds.” Now, she says, “My congregation worries that even immigrants going for their legal check-ins will be detained, separating them from their families… In Minneapolis, I saw neighborhoods work out school carpool plans for families who were hiding in their homes. I don’t want that to be necessary here in the Quad Cities, but I know many people who are ready to stand up and help.”
Meanwhile, what we have seen nationally is widespread violation of due process, with masked, unidentified law enforcement submitting local populations to random terror in the absence of proper judicial warrants. We see racial profiling, apprehension of permanent residents (green card holders) and even U.S. citizens; arbitrary suspension of legitimate asylum cases; and sending detainees to third countries and/or to indefinite detention facilities with very poor conditions (“concentration camps”). We have also witnessed troops being sent into major cities under spurious pretexts.
The prospect of more troops or ICE agents on the streets on election day in November worries some of our neighbors as well. “Can you imagine our sacred day of voting marred by state violence? They’ve already been purging the voter rolls and making it difficult to get registered. God help us if they pass the SAVE America Act in Congress,” says a local businessman.
Under the guise of “election integrity,” the SAVE America Act would effectively banish mail-in voting and make it exceedingly difficult to register to vote. Coupled with unprecedented efforts at mid-census gerrymandering, the GOP has been challenging the Constitution’s clear assignment of election administration to the states, and doing everything in its power to cast doubt on an election system that is the envy of democracies around the globe.
Hospitality professional and community organizer Tara Bebber will focus her No Kings comments on protecting women and the LGBTQ+ community. But she also addresses this broader issue of election disenfranchisement. “When laws like the SAVE Act make it harder for vulnerable communities to participate in democracy, that’s not protection,” says Bebber. “That’s oppression dressed up as policy.”
More specifically, we should be alarmed at the abrogation of trans rights in Iowa, the denial of state protections to the LGBTQ+ community, and the more general attack on women’s rights. “In Iowa, we don’t need permission to exist,” insists Bebber. “We demand protection, dignity, and the freedom to live openly without fear. No kings, no gatekeepers, no exceptions.”
Emily, a young professional from Iowa, likewise cites concerns about her reproductive rights. “My husband and I moved to the Quad Cities because we didn’t feel comfortable starting a family in the middle of Iowa after anti-abortion laws passed that were made possible by Trump’s Supreme Court picks. I don’t want to put myself in a situation where terminating a pregnancy could save my life, but my doctors can’t intervene until I’m ‘sick enough’.”
Meanwhile, it appears to be open season on the environment as well. Climate change deniers occupy the Environmental Protection Agency and other departments in the current administration, even as new records are being set for heat and natural disasters. Renewable energy projects and tax incentives for electric vehicles are being rolled back in favor of expanding profits for fossil fuel companies. And recently, the Trump administration greenlit expanded production of the herbicide glyphosate, despite its widely documented status as a carcinogen.
Here in the Quad Cities, the quality of our water could be affected by this latest development. “The Mississippi already shows such elevated levels of herbicide runoff,” says a local environmental activist. Recent studies show that “cancer hotspots” in counties along the river may well be caused by this substance. Encouraging expanded use of glyphosate will only exacerbate this problem when we should be doing more to protect public health.
*We prefer to use the word “regime” rather than “administration” to indicate that the current Trump term has been characterized by a willful disregard of Constitutional principles and prior norms, such as respect for political opposition and freedom of speech, and that it shares most historical features of fascism.
Source: Substack
Author: Sebas Lee
About the author: Sebas Lee is a Latin Americanist and spokesperson for Indivisible QC. He conducted research in Mexico for more than 30 years and led Indiana University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies for 4 years. He writes about democracy and civil liberties, antisemitism and the far right, and U.S. power in the Americas.