Friends, I’m asking you to give up a couple hours to save our democracy.
On Saturday, October 17, the No Kings movement will hold its fourth nationwide mobilization, but this one is different. The last protest drew an estimated eight million people to more than 3,300 events, one of the largest days of protest in American history. But this day will be focused on action.
No Kings 4 is built around voting early AND getting other people out to vote and/or register. All the rallies are basically a launchpad for mobilizing the community to the polls. If it works, it could be the largest voter outreach effort this country has ever seen in 250 years. If it doesn’t, it will be because too many of us decided that a Saturday morning was too much to ask to save our country from destruction.
I’d say this is as important as your vote on November 3, and possibly more so. Your vote is one vote. Great. But what you do on October 17 can multiply it. Acting early is crucial. Donald Trump has spent two years broadcasting to all of us that he’ll try to hijack the vote. He’s attempted to take over mail-in voting, threatened election officials, and laid the false predicate for contesting the results.
We don’t know precisely what October surprise he has planned. We DO know what beats it, specifically. A victory margin so large that no lawsuit or executive order can do anything to overturn it. “Too big to rig.” I keep saying it over and over because I believe it. That margin will be determined by what happens on October 17.
I’ll make this stupid-easy for you. Here’s what you can text people or post on social media. (I’m texting it on my family group chain as soon as I send this out after I leave the airport that I’m in right now.)
Your last chance to save America is October 17.
No Kings Day 4. Not just a protest. Mass voter outreach. Your presence is needed. Actually.
Find an event near you and join the effort in your neighborhood. No event nearby? Host one. Then forward this to five people. Let’s go.
BUT WAIT.
I can already hear the voice in your head, because it’s in mine too. You need your weekend, or perhaps you’re already busy that day. You’ve been asked to care about so many emergencies that you’re pretty much just scrolling past them now. Trust me, I’ve experienced the exhaustion.
That weekend I have family visiting from out of town…. I have a toddler who’s not the easiest to keep track of in a protest… and I’m helping care for a sick family member on top of it all. But guess what? I’m going anyway. Even if I had a wedding or a funeral that day I’d still make time for this, too, rather than having to watch my democracy get buried after the midterms and wishing I’d done something more.
One of my earliest literary heroes — the great Thomas Paine — captured the sentiment a touch more powerfully than me all the way back in 1777, in the middle of a war that looked unwinnable. He wrote that those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom “must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” He didn’t say it was gonna be a pleasure cruise. He said fatigue. The people who built this country paid that price in brutal winters and bankruptcy and in some cases blood. We’re being asked to give up part of a Saturday, okay? Spare me your excuse.
So here’s my plan. I’m going into DC on the 17th, doing the media rounds to be as loud as I can about this, joining one of the big rallies, and bringing my visiting family, whether they like it or not. Then I’m heading back to my own neighborhood to plug into a local organizing group. You can find yours on the map. And I’m taking my niece door to door with me, so she can see what it looks like to be a citizen rather than a spectator.
If it’s pouring down rain I’m going. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment to show you’re not some “sunshine patriot” (as Paine put it) only willing to do your part when it’s easy.
I also know what this email sounds like to you. You get a dozen a week and archive them without reading past the subject line. Please don’t do that with this one. This is it, folks. This is the big one. My friends call me Mr. Brightside because I always think we’ll figure it out. But I’m being realistic. If each of us doesn’t personally sacrifice a little in October to make this election a blowout, I’m not confident the American experiment survives.
I mean what I just wrote. Congress is the last real check on a rogue White House. The courts are trying but they are slow and under siege, the agencies have been purged, the press is being censored, and so on. If the pro-democracy side doesn’t take back at least one chamber, Trump will run wild. He’s already raiding the Treasury… breaking laws wholesale… enriching himself… defying judges… and using the federal government to surveil and harass his critics. If we lose the midterms, the past two years will look like a damn warm-up lap for what comes next.
For seven years, I’ve predicted this man’s moves with literally 90 percent accuracy. Believe me when I say: if you leave him a compliant Congress, you’re handing over the ship.
In 1838, a 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln told a group gathered in Illinois that no combined army of Europe, Asia, or Africa could invade our country and take a drink from the Ohio River by force. If danger like that came, it would come from within: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” America will never be conquered. If it falls, it’s because it was abandoned by people who decided they had better things to do.
So let me close by saying the thing I usually say more diplomatically. We need to get our shit together. I’m not talking about politicians or the two major parties. Us. You and me. We have more education, resources, and forewarning than any generation that ever faced a moment like this. Will we use it? Or explain to our grandchildren that we were “busy that day”?
That’s all I’ve got. If you can’t feel my earnestness as I type this out on my phone, I’ve got no stronger way to appeal to you. So please join me out there on October 17. Then forward this to friends. Post it. Or put it in the family group chat and add your own, more persuasive demands that they get out there and do something. This is the week to wake people up and have them HOLD October 17 on their calendar.
Let’s roll.
Your friend, in defiance,
DEFIANCE DAILY
In case you missed it, Friday night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!
TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE
On Saturday, the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile visited Warren, Michigan, where Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard met up with U.S. congressional candidate Christina Hines. Hines discussed her work as a special victims prosecutor and her plans to secure the release of remaining Epstein files, if elected in November. Onto Parma, Ohio, today.
Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule HERE.
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