Still valid revolutionary advice from Thomas Paine

To the thousands of you who comment on Steady each week, first, let me say thank you. In reading your thoughts, it is safe to say you are: a) not happy with the direction of our country, and b) really not happy with the current president.

We’ve heard reports that millions of you will express your discontent on Saturday at “No Kings” rallies across the country and the world. That is your right, guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And we hope that if you choose to make your voice heard, you remain steady, hold your head high and proudly participate in one of our most cherished democratic institutions. That is what freedom is about. Anyone and everyone can speak truth to power.

But Donald Trump has a long history of hating criticism and punishing those who challenge him and his actions. So, in yet another act of fealty to their “king,” the Republican Party has coordinated an intentional perversion of reality to explain why so many people may protest against the president.

Dipping back into their playbook of characterizing something before it has even happened, Republicans have dubbed them the “hate America” rallies, claiming that anyone who attends must be “pro-Hamas” or “antifa” types. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson took it a convoluted step further.

“It’s being told to us that they [Democrats] won’t be able to re-open the government until after that rally, because they can’t face their rabid base,” he said on Fox “News.” Someone might want to tell Johnson that the shutdown ball is in his court. If he actually wants to negotiate an end to it, he would have to bring the House back in session.

Johnson’s nonsensical sentiment was mirrored by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “You know, ‘No Kings’ means no paychecks,” he said.

“The unhinged comments are the message,” Michael Steele, an MSNBC host and former head of the Republican National Committee explained.

“This is what it looks like when you’ve fully lost control of the message and you’re panicking,” Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the groups organizing “No Kings,” posted on social media.

These comments on shaming Americans who are only exercising their constitutional rights should make everyone’s blood boil. It is absolute nonsense.

The goal of the disinformation campaign, which was no doubt coordinated in the highest ranks of the Republican Party, is simple: suppress turnout by criminalizing dissent–and change the narrative from “ peaceful protests” to “terrorism.”

“What they’re trying to do is to suppress support for the opposition, to try to make you think that you are somehow connected with violence if you show up for a peaceful protest rally,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told NBC News. “I think the turnout is going to be big, and I think that that’ll be a sign that their tactics aren’t working.”

The “No Kings” rallies in June mobilized roughly five million peaceful protesters who love America but despise Trump and what they believe he is doing to the country. If estimates are correct, Saturday’s protests will be even bigger.

America was built on the backs of people protesting injustice. Resistance to wrongdoing is foundational to this country’s ethos. The American Revolution was sparked by the Boston Tea Party, a protest of British taxation. The fights for women’s suffrage, civil rights, gay rights all started with protests and ended with political change.

Curtailing rights has become a hallmark of the second Trump administration. Just ask the reporters who cover the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, any journalist who works for a news organization that did not agree to sign Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s 21-page long press rules — replacing a one-pager — was shown the door. Every organization, except the far-right One America News Network, declined. Even Fox, Hegseth’s former employer, chose not to sign. Hundreds of years of institutional knowledge and reporting experience left the building.

The new rules put increased limitations on access and raise the possibility of punishment for something as simple as asking for information. Hegseth claims these “common sense” changes are necessary to protect national security.

However, the only breach of national security since he became defense secretary was perpetrated by Hegseth himself. In March, he posted possibly classified U.S. military attack plans to an unsecure group chat, to which the editor of The Atlantic had accidentally been added.

Hegseth’s paranoia about leaks and security breaches should be a red flag. If things were going well under his leadership, he would be trumpeting his accomplishments. Instead, he engages in the classic Trump ploy of misdirection. What is he trying to hide?

One story he is attempting to spin into a positive narrative is the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on boats off the Venezuelan coast. A fifth boat was hit on Tuesday, killing all six alleged drug traffickers on board. The Pentagon was asked what ordnance was used, the legal basis for the attack, and the identities of those killed. No answers were given for that strike or for any of the four previous ones.

Hegseth, the least qualified person to lead the Defense Department in U.S. history, is trying to shut down scrutiny and restrict what the American people know about what the DOD is doing with a trillion dollars in tax payer money. But it is about more than billion-dollar weapons systems. It is about the men and women who serve.

“U.S. military’s policy of opening the Pentagon to the press was never a favor to the journalists who cover the military, but rather an obligation to a country that asks its sons and daughters to volunteer for service. If the government was going to ask Americans to risk their lives for our freedoms, then those empowered to send them into harm’s way would be willing to answer questions, especially tough ones,” wrote Nancy Youssef, who has covered the Pentagon for The Atlantic for 18 years.

Since the Pentagon opened its doors in 1943, the U.S. military has been able to balance its promise to protect secrets with its responsibility to inform the public through the media. Even though more than eight decades of balancing these dueling interests has been dismantled, reporters promised to keep reporting.

“I turned in my Pentagon pass today after 30 years because like all major news organizations ABC will not sign the new restrictive Pentagon requirements… [T]o be clear. We will all continue to cover national security from outside the building,” ABC News’s Martha Raddatz posted on social media. Mary Walsh of CBS News, one of the best and most patriotic reporters I have ever known, promised the same thing.

Godspeed to Raddatz, Walsh, and their colleagues, and to the protesters on Saturday. In different ways, both groups will be heeding the words on the “No Kings” website: “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.”

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Stay Steady,
Dan