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Ezra Levin, the co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the many groups behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests, describes himself as “a cynical political organizer.” But still, Monday night got to him.
That evening, just days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Indivisible and other groups, which included the ACLU, put together a “Know Your Rights” training on how to document violent incidents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection in response to the violent occupation of Minneapolis and around the country. According to the coalition, over 200,000 viewers attended the Monday “Eyes on ICE” training, the first in a series of trainings dedicated to protesters’ First Amendment rights. These people, Levin told me, “saw secret police force assault and murder fellow Americans, and one natural response you could imagine would be people could do what the regime wants them to do, which is to be quiet and go home and not show up.”
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“But instead,” he continued, “we have, by several orders of magnitude, the largest number of people ever to attend a training to learn how to do exactly what Renée Good and Alex Pretti were doing.”
It’s against this backdrop anger that another round of “No Kings” protests is being planned for March 28, with a flagship event in the Twin Cities. Levin expects the next “No Kings” protest to see the largest turnout.
I caught up with Levin on why this moment demands such pre-planned big tentpole events like “No Kings,” the agility it takes to respond to violence from the federal government with rapid mobilizations, and more below.
When we spoke on Friday, we talked about the “No Kings” coalition being able to mobilize if federal agents shot and killed another person. The next day, Alex Pretti was killed. What happened next internally?
We had talked about this on Friday, Katie, because it was entirely predictable. We all saw what the regime was doing. They’re using violence to intimidate and bully the population into submission. The murder is heinous. The slander that followed is really chilling because it is a very clear message to foot soldiers of the regime that it does not matter how many people are taping you. It doesn’t matter how clearly what you’re engaging in is illegal. It does not matter how heinous your crime is. The response of the top levels of this regime will be the circle of bandwagons, call your victim a terrorist, and protect you from all consequences.
In response to these murders, we had 147,000 people register for the “Eyes on ICE” training planned for Monday, and these are mostly not Minnesotans. These 147,000 people saw secret police force assault and murder fellow Americans, and one natural response you could imagine would be that people could do what the regime wants them to do, which is to be quiet and go home and not show up. But instead, we have, by several orders of magnitude, the largest number of people ever to attend a training to learn how to do exactly what Renee Good and Alex Pretti were doing. [A press release from the coalition behind the training said that the number of viewers ended up totalling over 200,000.]
How did that get put together so quickly?
We’re not starting from zero. I think it’s the same way that we were able to, in 48 hours, put together 1,200 protests for “ICE Out for Good” in the wake of Renée Good’s murder, where it took us six weeks leading up to Hands Off protests in April of last year to put together 1,300 events. The point of these mass mobilizations and this broad national coalition building through “No Kings” is, yes, in part, to pull off big one-day protests. And those are important. But they’re not the whole shebang. It’s not all about just a one-day protest. We are developing organizational capacity that allows us to pull off historic levels of engagement in between these tentpole events. The “No Kings” coalition is not just Indivisible, not just 5051, or MoveOn, or Working Families Party, or ACLU. We’ve all been working together now for over a year to figure out how we can organize collectively, bringing all of our skill sets and all of our tools to tackle the same problem. Indivisible would be the wrong group to hold a Know Your Rights training. We don’t have a lot of First Amendment lawyers on staff. But the ACLU does.
What does the number of RSVPs for the training this week communicate to you?
The attendance tells me that there’s real demand for this. Look, a lot of us have been paying attention to the fascist threat for a long time. This has been what we eat, sleep, and breathe for a while. Also, we recognize that most people are not like us. Most people are not paying attention to the demise of American democracy on a daily basis. A successful movement depends on welcoming new people and meeting people where they are and accepting them when, whatever that moment is, whatever that event is, brings them into the movement—accepting them at that point and not saying ‘Where have you been up until now.’
What it tells me is that there are a lot of people who, for the last year, may have been upset about what was happening, may have opposed what was happening, but may have not been actively engaged in pushing back at the level that we’re seeing in the Twin Cities, who are now going through the process of imagining a situation in which their own personal constitutional rights are under threat. They are working through what they personally will do in that moment to defend themselves and their community. That is crazy powerful. That is an inflection point.
“When it comes to actually defending your community, you should not be looking to some talking head on TV. You should be gathering community with your neighbors and figuring it out yourself, because nobody’s going to save you but you. “
It’s different to go up to a group of ICE agents on the streets in New York, where there are 50 people within spitting distance, versus places like Tucson, Arizona. How do these trainings address how to encounter federal immigration agents in different towns and cities?
I think with the news being as inescapable as it is, it’s easy to imagine this coming to your own community. I think one of the really important lessons that we should be learning from the Twin Cities is that the opposition is not nationalized; it is very much localized. And the single best thing that you can do in this moment—we’ve been preaching this for 14 months—is not be alone. Refuse to be alone and to join in a community where you are geographically, because the challenges and opportunities available to you are based on your geography or based on what your community actually looks like.
This is a movement that is being led and directed at the local level, and I think that’s why it’s been so successful. There’s no email list at the national level that is sending in a direction. When it comes to actually defending your community, you should not be looking to some talking head on TV. You should be gathering community with your neighbors and figuring it out yourself, because nobody’s going to save you but you.
The coalition that Indivisible is a part of is launching another national mobilization: “No Kings” 3 for March 28. How do the “Eyes on ICE” trainings that y’all announced and No Kings 3 complement one another, and how are they unique?
Each “No Kings” has had a different focus, responding to the moment. “No Kings” one was an effort to provide a stark narrative contrast to Trump’s version of reality. He was throwing himself a ridiculous military birthday parade for himself, as authoritarians do. We wanted to make clear that he was small and weak and that the people were against him. The second “No Kings” was largely in response to sending the National Guard to invade and occupy American cities.
I think the third “No Kings” is a response to the secret police force that’s terrorizing American communities. I reserve the right to say that this is in response to whatever more recent atrocity the regime commits. It’s lashing out quite a bit, so we’ll see. They’re still constructing more detention camps. They’re still acquiring weapons. They’re still picking out target cities to occupy and terrorize. So, I would expect to see more, unfortunately, of the darkness that we saw in the Twin Cities over the last several weeks. But I’d also expect to see more of the kind of righteous, non-violent, organized opposition that we saw in the Twin Cities, too.
I’m incredibly proud of “No Kings” and also, protests are a tactic. Tactics should fit into a strategy. Strategy should be designed to achieve your goal. Our goal is to safeguard democracy and protect our communities from an authoritarian threat that’s seeking to submit it to power for good. Our strategy is mass, non-violent, organized people power. “No Kings” three is in the tactic within that strategy. “Eyes on ICE” training is a tactic within that strategy. Rapid response, mass mobilizations like “ICE Out For Good” are a tactic within that strategy. Pushing Democrats to unify and fight back against DHS funding is a tactic within that strategy. We need a multiplicity of tactics.
“What I found over the last 14 months is that the framework that many of these Democratic leaders have is not a framework built for this moment.”
So on Friday, we also talked about Democratic leadership—Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer—not meeting this moment. Since the killing of Alex Pretti, leading Senate Democrats have threatened to block the DHS funding bill; some Democrats are mentioning different reforms, etc. It’s a different situation than it was on Friday. What do you make of that?
My goal here is a unified, strong opposition party to the regime. That is what I would like to build. I think there is a real disconnect between some Democrats who dominate leadership in both the House and the Senate, and rank-and-file Democrats around the country who want to see a real fight back against the regime. What I found over the last 14 months is that the framework that many of these Democratic leaders have is not a framework built for this moment. The framework goes something like: second term presidents decline in popularity over time; that naturally leads to the opposition party winning seats in the midterms; our role is to not rock the boat too much; communicate as much as we can about people’s top concern, which is always the economy; and then allow political gravity to run its course so that we win in the midterms. I understand that framework. I understand how it could make sense for a certain kind of political era. I do not believe that the political era we’re in, and that’s not where the people on the ground believe we are.
We believe instead in what the anti-authoritarian experts call an “authoritarian breakthrough moment,” a moment where an authoritarian regime tries to consolidate power as quickly as possible through attacks on pillars of democracy, not just through the legislature, not through just executive functions, but media, law firms, and universities, etc. And it builds up a force across the country in order to ultimately subvert elections and prevent any kind of threat to their continued political power. And if that’s your framework, you’re not waiting for the Midterms and you’re not trying to avoid attention. You are looking for every piece of leverage you have to excite the public to the dangers that are coming, so that you can successfully push back against the authoritarian escalation.
I’m happy that they are fighting back now, and I’m not convinced that without sustained, overwhelming pressure and a threat to their continued grip on power within the Democratic ranks, they will continue to fight.
Right, it was nice to see from Dems. But you’re not sleeping with both eyes closed, ready to rest.
I’m old enough to remember last November when we were winning popular support for the shutdown fight. People wanted Republicans to give on the health care subsidies, and suddenly the Senate Democrats surrendered. Those are the same Senate Democrats. We got the same party. They’re responding to the news of the day, and when the news of the day moves on, they’ll respond to that. The question is: Is it the grassroots opposition that is driving the news of the day, or is it something else?
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