Americans in Paris Agree, “We don’t do Dictators or Kings”

PARIS (10-18) – “The day of the dictator is over” is how President George Herbert Walker Bush in his inauguration speech on Jan 20, 1989, summed up the end of the Cold War while projecting forward to a new era of democracy that would be embraced by the world. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Fast forward 36 years with Donald Trump as president whose abuse of power includes his ignoring the courts, thumbing his nose at the Constitution, deploying armed troops into our streets, abducting immigrants, defying the rule of law, retaliating against his political enemies and endangering the health of Americans while attacking our Free Press as part of his concerted efforts to transform American democracy into a personal dictatorship. And while all this is happening, Trump continues enriching himself, along with his family, and his billionaire friends at the expense of the American people who he was elected to serve.

Peaceful activists in over 2,700 US cities and towns both big and small as well as in Canada, Mexico and twelve European cities on October 18 wore yellow in a show of solidarity in resisting Trump’s relentless attacks on the Constitution and our Republic by reminding the world that, “We don’t do dictators or kings in America. We never will.”

Organizers of the global event framed the protests around Trump and his minions’ plans of establishing an authoritarian government by saying that “The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings, and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”

In Paris, several hundred American ex-pats, members of Indivisible Paris, Paris Against Trump, and Vote From Abroad along with their French compatriots gathered at the Fontaine des Innocents all united in calling for resistance to Trump’s abusive use of power and to defend democracy while putting an end to his corrupt, fascist, racist and authoritarian power grab to establish himself as a king.

Trump’s unabated attacks that threaten the survival of our Republic are all hallmarks of his administration and on this, the second “No Kings Day” protest the clarion call was loud and clear to “Resist Autocracy, Save Our Democracy.”

Utilizing peaceful non-violent resistance since Trump’s inauguration in January, organizers have promised to return the power that belongs to the people pledging that “We will continue to rise up peacefully and relentlessly, and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.” That message resonated on the first No Kings Day protest when five million people across the country protested on June 14 in direct response to his attacks.

Among the crowd in Paris an activist handed out paperclips attached to a small piece of paper in memory of the German occupation of Norway during WWII when all symbols of Norwegian nationalism were forbidden. In response, students at Oslo University began wearing paperclips as a symbol of resistance to the Nazis for the clip’s ability to bind papers together, sending the message that “When people bind together, they become unbreakable.” On the attached paper recipients were asked if they would wear a paperclip in resistance to Trump.

In launching the protest, the crowd sang the American national anthem drawing attention to their action in an area packed with people enjoying their Saturday afternoon outings. Kaitlan, an organizer from Indivisibles of Paris, opened her comments by saying that those gathered were protesting as “citizens of conscious, because something sacred is at stake, because freedom is never guaranteed. It must be defended again, and again by people like us who stand together.”

In reflecting on her being from a privileged class, she noted that with that privilege “comes responsibility...a duty to use my voice my compassion, my power because what makes the United States extraordinary has never been its wealth or its weapons. It has been its diversity.”

She went on to cite that America from its very beginning was an “experiment built by immigrants, rebels and outcasts who refused to bow to the king. And here today in Paris we honor that promise. From abroad we defend that nation to stand up to a wanna be king. Our diversity is not to be feared; it is our strength. Together we are seven million Americans standing up to No Kings. We will take our country back from those who threaten our rights from free speech to healthcare, from education to due process, to our national parks, to every single tax dollar that should be serving the interests of the American people and not just the interests of the powerful few. Because power belongs to the people, because freedom belongs to us all and because in democracy, there are no kings”

The lesson of “No Kings” is engrained in the history of the American and French Revolutions of the late 1700s that abolished the monarchies that reigned in both countries. In their place democratic republics were established where governing power belongs to the people through their elected representatives.

Therefore, it is imperative that people continue to protest and that our elected representatives take the responsibility and trust placed in them to resist Trump’s attacks and takeover of our democracy by putting what is best for America first over their own personal interests and those of lobbyists.

The oft-repeated response by Benjamin Franklin in 1787 to Elizabeth Willing Powel who asked him at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention if our government was to be a republic or a monarchy, never rang truer today, when Franklin responded with “A republic if you can keep it!”

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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