The success or failure of the No More Kings Day Demonstration will be determined by the extent to which the resistance harnesses those who wish to resist the authoritarian nature of this President to act in a manner that will succeed in persuading enough people in enough places to support and vote for those willing and able to resist effectively. That is an open question, which will begin to be answered in part by the state races in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the many local elections throughout the country.
You may wish to look at the following legal documents:
- October 13, 2025 Supreme Court of Florida summary decision denying mandamus relief to order the Florida Bar to investigate U.S. Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi because there is no right to such relief.
- October 17, 2025 modified TRO of federal judge Sara L. Ellis (item 51) of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois including the addition of a body camera requirement and IDs on clothing of DHS personnel not engaged in undercover work. and order of court testimony local ICE director on Monday, October 20. There is a list of Proposed Questions for the ICE officials and a response to the proposed questions and discovery requests by the DOJ both from November 17, 2025.
You may wish to look at the following documents:
- October 16, 2025 TechPolicyPress report by Dean Jackson entitled, Under Trump, Big Tech Decides Who Deserves Protection and Who Gets Iced Out. One of the most troubling paragraphs is the following:
- Each week the US descends further into authoritarianism with disorienting speed and no bottom in sight. Only a few years ago, human rights watchdogs were alarmed that Silicon Valley tech companies removed applications developed by protesters in Hong Kong and the Russian opposition movement at the respective requests of the Chinese and Russian governments. Now they have done so at home. In the Russian case, the request came after the government had designated the opposition an extremist movement; in September, President Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. The parallel is unnerving, even though Antifa is not a real organization and there is no legal means to designate a domestic terrorist group. As Elizabeth Lopatto and Sarah Jeong write in The Verge, if anti-fascism is terrorism, any act of dissent could be considered terrorism.
- October 17, 2025 UVA Today report entitled, Community message from interim President Paul Mahoney sets forth the letter to the university community and the letter to administration regarding the rejection of the administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” by the interim University President Paul Mahoney, former dean of the law school and YLS alumnus. Notice the use of the term merit as in other rejections.
- October 17, 2025 Newsweek column by Alexis Coe entitled, The GOP’s Problem With ‘No Kings’? It Still Wants Subjects. The author begins with the following paragraph:
- Speaker Mike Johnson recently called protesting—one of the most American acts imaginable—un-American. He said this weekend’s “No Kings” demonstration will be a “hate America rally” led by “the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people.” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer went further, calling it a rally for the “terrorist wing of their [Democratic] Party.” Senator Roger Marshall warned the National Guard might be needed to keep the George Soros “agitators” in line. It’s a chorus of accusation without evidence by the GOP, a maneuver that has worked well in America—long enough to ruin lives.
- October 17, 2025 Atlantic column by George Packer entitled, The Depth of MAGA’s Moral Collapse. The following paragraph deserves reflection:
- The abandonment of a universal morality isn’t just philosophically wrong—it’s politically stupid. Any successful opposition to Trump has to begin with a lucid understanding of what’s at stake: not just past and present harms done to the marginalized, but everything that Americans once believed they cared about, including the values that were co-opted by the right before MAGA abandoned them—respect for law and custom, patriotism, family ties, common decency. To some liberals and progressives these values came to sound old-fashioned, corny, even dangerous. But anyone frightened by the country’s downward spiral has to believe that our society still shares them, and can still respond to them if someone makes the appeal.
- October 18, 2025 Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock Dartmouth’s Feedback on the Compact with the President’s letter to the administration rejecting the compact. There is no reference to “merit” but there is a statement of “the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas,” whereas the administration seems to regard research fund as grants that should go to those must supportive of the President’s agenda.