Burke: Are you ready to say “No Kings” in your country?

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Protests in America are as old as, well, America.

Older, actually, as in 1636 Roger Smith “founded” Rhode Island protesting the strict mandatory mix of religion and government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Smith advocated for separation of church and state, freedom for other religious viewpoints, and fair treatment of Native Americans (My goodness, he sounds like a modern Democrat!).

Then there was Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, staged by Virginia settlers protesting then-Governor William Berkeley’s refusal to drive Native Americans out of their state. (Where was ICE when they needed ’em?); the Boston Bread Riots between 1710 and 1713 were in response to food shortages and high bread prices (I wonder how they would have reacted to gas at $5.49 a gallon); and the Philadelphia Election Riot in 1742 sprang from disagreements over how votes were counted and the thugs hired by one party to disrupt the process.

Now, the grand old guys who wrote the Constitution ensured the great American tradition of protests continued in the new United States by writing, “Congress shall make no law … 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.”

So, this coming Saturday, 3/28/26, we again celebrate that 1st Amendment via “No Kings Day” as perhaps another 7+ million souls turn out to make their voices heard; physically show the strength of their numbers and convictions (and in today’s ICE-fraught environment perhaps putting their actual bodies on the line); and make a very public statement telling the Dear Leader/Wanna-Be-Dictator/Wish-I-Were-King Donald J. Trump just what we think of him and his war, tariffs, place-name-changing, voter rights curtailment, grifting, covering for pedophiles, ballroom, etc.

But unlike those historic protests, there won’t be any (I pray) shooting, tar and feathering, or arson unless the marches are disrupted by violent counter-protestors. (Remembers those gun-toting “patriots” lining the streets of Snohomish in 2020 on the rumor that some antifas were participating in a peaceful George Floyd protest?)

There are many scheduled No Kings protests in our area, including Bothell, Edmonds, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, and Woodinville (times and locations at https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/) and where you can expect to see sentiments such as “No Kings in America since 1776” and (my favorite), “Elect a Clown; Expect a Circus.”

Now there are plenty of resources from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) at https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights and No Kings organizers (see above) for you to read about what is and isn’t legal when you march.

But in brief form, and although not formal legal advice, here is what they say:

You can:

Peacefully protest on public property, and on private property with owner’s consent

Take photos of plainly visible things in public spaces

Refuse to speak to law enforcement during an arrest

Refuse to surrender your phone or camera, allow law enforcement to see videos, or allow them to delete videos UNLESS they have a warrant

Refuse to show ID or give your name, address, etc. UNLESS it is a traffic stop or law enforcement has a “reasonable articulatable suspicion” you are committing a crime

Ask law enforcement for badge number, name, and the agency they work for

Refuse a search, as they do not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause

Ask if you are “Free to leave” at any time during a law enforcement contact

Ask for a lawyer and refuse to say anything until a lawyer is present

Distribute literature

Record encounters with law enforcement

You cannot:

Commit a violent act, destroy property, or direct people to commit a violent act

Bring a firearm to a permitted demonstration

Lie or provide false documents to law enforcement

Block traffic

The No Kings protest date was set long before Trump launched his illegal war in Iran, and while it was not one of the five issues originally targeted…ICE out our communities

No troops on our streets

Defend immigrant communities

Protect free speech

Safeguard our democracy

…it is now.

And the horror of Trump’s illegal war – the death of 13 soldiers, the murder of 165 little girls in an Iranian school, a world-wide economic/oil/energy catastrophe, his inability to justify the war to the American public, and his total lack of planning for the aftermath is only compounded by his delivery of billions in oil money to Russia (which is targeting American assets for Iran) to continue Putin’s war in Ukraine and lifting sanctions against Iran (a country he calls a “terror nation”), so it can sell more oil and make more money to continue the war against us— beggars the imagination.

So here we are again, confronting whom: a narcissistic megalomaniac? an inept clown surrounded by incompetence? a scheming grifter? a liar? or as MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell has named him: a sociopath, madman, the most racist POTUS ever, a vulgar lump of a man, the most ridiculous president in our history, the stupidest president in our history, a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), and short-fingered vulgarian?

Whatever he’s called, and he earned all those nicknames, marching, a protected right, is just one way we can protest. So is contributing time and money to candidates who share our viewpoints and, critically, voting the Republicans out of Congress in November. As a sign in Boston last year reminded us:

“This all ends

When enough of us say

NO!”

See ya Saturday.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.