No Kings

Find a protest near you today

Happy No Kings Day! This is just a brief note to remind you of today’s options for protest.

Like many, I have been extremely exercised this week about the use of the military to provoke confrontation with protesters in downtown Los Angeles. American law forbids the military to be used as a police force against civilian populations. And the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees "the right of the people peaceably to assemble." I felt an urge to fly to Los Angeles, my home town. But that is far away.

For the same reason, I also felt an urge to go to the military parade that Trump is holding for himself today in Washington, D.C. Such a parade is a terrible symbol of the authoritarian he is trying to become. But growing signs of weakness - losing lawsuits, mass protests, and signs of inability to handle himself or his staff - give me faint hope. Finally, I note that the principal No Kings event is not in Washington, but in Philadelphia's Love Park at noon today. Very tempting, so maybe go there right now!

Or, you can take a more community-minded approach: finding a nearby protest. Looking at No Kings website to find protests all over the U.S., For example, I see that in Princeton, we have one today at Monument Plaza at 3:30pm. That is just one of thousands of locations.

Remember that mass protest is an essential starting point for change. As I have written before, mass movements have a huge nonlinear effect. Basically, the 100th person to join a protest has 100 times the effect of the first protester. That comes out of an N-squared effect, which is apparent in the empirical data. It’s a classic network effect.

Data from Chenoweth and Stephan, replotted by Sam Wang in linear units. The red fit curve is added to emphasize the upward curvature of the data.

And as Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan have shown, a large enough protest will have practical consequences.

Wherever you go, remember to keep your head. Scroll down for advice on how to do that from the ACLU.

Now, I am off to make signs. Also to celebrate a big birthday in our household - someone is turning 18!

Warmly,

Sam