‘No Kings’ Rally Organizer: ‘Quite Clear’ Why Mike Johnson Is Attacking Our Protests

WASHINGTON – For days, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been weirdly fear-mongering about the nationwide “No Kings” protests set for Saturday.

The rallies, which are being organized by a coalition of pro-democracy groups ranging from the ACLU to the League of Conservation Voters to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are expected to draw millions of people across all 50 states to peacefully protest President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism and his militarization of cities.

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That doesn’t sound anything like what Johnson has been describing in his daily press conferences on Capitol Hill. In his telling, there can be no groundswell of public opposition to Trump. And the only people upset enough to join a protest are people who don’t just hate the president, they hate America and its founding ideals.

“I encourage you to watch, we call it the ‘hate America’ rally, that’ll happen Saturday,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday. “I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) has similarly said “No Kings” protesters want to “express their hatred toward this country,” whileRep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, took things a step further, insanely claiming the groups behind the protests want “to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party.”

It’s as nonsensical as it is inflammatory to accuse peaceful protesters of hating their country. So why are Johnson and other GOP leaders so hellbent on drumming up fear about the “No Kings” protests? Are they afraid of Bernie Sanders?

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“I don’t think it’s that complicated,” Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, the progressive grassroots group that’s helping organize the rallies, told HuffPost on Wednesday. “The one thing an unpopular authoritarian regime is scared of is mass, organized, peaceful people-power. That is it.”

Anyone who participated in the last round of “No Kings” protests in June, whichmillions of people attended, knows they were “displays of joyous people-power,” Levin said, describing rally-goers dancing and laughing and waving fun signs. Back then, right-wingers mockingly noted how many of the protesters were earnest boomers, or Americans in their 60s and 70s.

Now they’re terrorists?

“I have to laugh at how ridiculous this is,” he added, referring to Johnson’s attacks. “And, you know, appreciate the speaker for giving the ‘No Kings’ rallies free publicity.”

Still, even Levin recognizes there’s something darker at play with Johnson’s messaging. His repeated, intentional mischaracterizations of what the protests are about and who will be attending them (hint: Boomers will probably be there in droves!) is creating this idea that people, real Americans, should be angry about the rallies happening at all, and that there’s something ominous in the works, when neither of those things is true.

And the speaker’s efforts to demonize peaceful protests come as the Trump administration is vowing crackdowns on left-wing organizations it dubiously claims are somehow responsible for funding terrorism, in the wake of a lone gunman assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in separate interviews aired this week, vowed his team would investigate supposed “networks of terrorist organizations” and described “No Kings” rally-goers as “the farthest left, the hardest core, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party.”

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Stanislav Vysotsky, an expert on anti-fascism activism and a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, said the way Johnson and other Republicans are casting the “No Kings” rallies as something threatening is a hallmark of what authoritarians do.

“Yes, this is classic authoritarianism,” Vysotsky told HuffPost. “It’s an intentional framing of the opposition as violent and dangerous in order to dehumanize them, which then justifies a violent crackdown. Authoritarians routinely paint their opposition as a menacing existential threat to peace and safety for just that reason.”

He said the specific language Johnson is using to attack the “No Kings” rallies is particularly interesting, as he “manages to hit all of the recent boogeymen of the right: antifa, Hamas (code for opposition to the genocide of Palestinians) and the tried-and-true Marxists.”

Ultimately, Vysotsky said, “he’s playing to the base that is rabid for violent retribution against their enemies.”

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Sanders has publiclyshunned Johnson on social media for mischaracterizing the “No Kings” protests, and on Wednesday, he did so directly to HuffPost.

“Hate America? Really?” the Vermont senator said. “Yeah, because people defending the Constitution, that’s a ‘hate America’ rally. … I think it’s a ‘love America’ rally. I think it’s defending what these people are doing, coming out and defending our Constitution, our way of life and American freedom.”

“It really is a disgrace,” Sanders added, “that you have a speaker who is trying to disparage the right to protest and right of Americans to speak out against an authoritarian administration.”

Johnson’s “hate America” talking point emerged last week, as Republicans struggled for a winning message amid the government shutdown.

For weeks, Democrats have refused to agree to reopen the government without also extending health care subsidies set to expire for millions of Americans later this year. For weeks, GOP leaders have said no to a deal. Amid the standstill, Republicans have accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of holding the line to appease progressive groups mad at him for supporting a government funding bill in March and suggesting he wants the shutdown to continue at least until after the “No Kings” protests.

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The GOP’s talking points haven’t been working, though, as polling continues to show voters blame Trump and his party for the shutdown mess. So last week, on day 10 of the shutdown, Johnson and his top deputies rolled out their “hate America” label for the “No Kings” rallies.

Some Republicans don’t seem comfortable with the “hate” epithet. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) on Wednesday declined to weigh in on his party leaders’ new label and instead accused Democrats of ceding power to Trump by sending the government into a shutdown.

“If they’re for the legislative branch asserting more of its power and the executive branch having less of it, the best thing they could do is not hold a stupid rally but instead engage in a deliberative appropriations process,” LaLota told HuffPost.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, said the GOP’s efforts to smear “No Kings” rallies show how the party is “falling apart.”

“The effort to mischaracterize the rallies that are going to take place all across the country is part of the continued right-wing disinformation machine that is failing to persuade the American people as to what this shutdown is all about,” Jeffries told HuffPost.

He wouldn’t say whether he plans to attend a “No Kings” protest, but Reps. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Jeffries’ top deputies in the House, said they would.

“I’ll be at a rally,” Aguilar told HuffPost. “I’ll be holding an American flag as well.”

Levin, the Indivisible leader, recalled that he and other organizers closed out their flagship “No Kings” event in Philadelphia in June by leading 100,000 people in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while waving American flags.

“It’s funny how much Johnson is scared of this imagery,” he said.

Senior reporter Igor Bobic contributed to this report.

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