By Jim Jones
JJ Commontater
Several years later, with those grievances in mind and in hopes of preventing a recurrence of lawless actions by America’s new government, our ancestors wrote up a Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our First Amendment, guaranteed “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The First Amendment stands out as a principal protection against arbitrary king-like rule.
Ever since he took office in January, we have witnessed a growing contempt for the constitutional order, including free-speech rights, by Donald Trump and his MAGA crowd. If wide swaths of Americans object to his arbitrary, unconstitutional orders and actions, he and his minions don’t write it off as Americans exercising their constitutional rights. He sees it as a threat to his royal eminence. Those who protest are labeled as “domestic terrorists, agitators, anarchists” and even worse.
Many who fear the path Trump is taking toward despotic rule have gathered in communities across the country to hold “No Kings” rallies. The purpose is to speak out against despotic words and unconstitutional action by the Trump regime. I spoke at a rally held on April 5 in Twin Falls by the local chapter of Indivisible. It was a well-attended patriotic rally of good, decent folks spanning the political spectrum.
The No Kings rallies across America on June 14 protested Trump’s lavish military parade in Washington that was timed to celebrate his kingly birth. The protest also called him out for his repeated and deliberate transgressions of the U.S. Constitution. The Indivisible patriots had to step forward because the cowardly GOP members of Congress don’t have the courage to stand up for the Constitution. Idaho’s U.S. House and U.S. Senate members – Sens. Risch and Crapo and Reps. Simpson and Fulcher – know Trump is trampling over the Constitution, but they don’t have the courage to protest, being much more interested in maintaining their political offices. Thank Heaven for the First Amendment.
Another Indivisible rally is scheduled for 2,200 communities throughout America on Oct. 18, including Boise, Idaho Falls, Hailey, Moscow, Pocatello, and Twin Falls. I’ll be speaking at the one in Twin Falls. Many concerned, civic-minded folks will attend.
Trump’s obedient sycophants, like U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, have condemned those who are concerned by Trump’s march to despotism. Johnson called the upcoming rally a “hate America rally” of the “antifa, pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxists.”
That’s quite a mix and match of ideologies and dead wrong on all counts.
It is interesting how antifa, an ideology that opposes fascism, always manages to get woven into the MAGA worldview as the root of all evil. It is not an organization and does not hold meetings or carry out sinister actions. Even if it were an actual group, the idea of opposing fascism is not really obnoxious, unless you happen to be a fascist. Mussolini would have tried to stamp them out.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump has had it in for antifa for many years. During his first term, Trump said he would be “designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization” for allegedly inciting violence during Black Lives Matter protests. A June 2020 protest in Spokane sparked a panic in Coeur d’Alene when false rumors spread about an antifa invasion of North Idaho.
Armed citizens lined the streets to fight off the ideology. Not a single antifan materialized. As far as anyone knows, Trump has not yet been able to produce a picture of an antifan or antifa gathering, making them as elusive as the Northern Sasquatch.
But, even if antifa were not more than just a way of thinking, why shouldn’t those who hate fascism have the right to think and speak their beliefs under the First Amendment? Trump seems to think they should be rounded up and punished. What could be a more clearcut violation of free speech rights?
The idea that America should not return to rule by a king, be it Trump or some other wannabe monarch, will be revisited on the 250th commemoration of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2025. I pray that he will not have managed, with his 10,000 more ICE agents funded by the Big Beautiful Billionaires Bill, to impose his vision of a kingship on our beloved democratic republic.
With the good work of Indivisible and other American patriotic organizations, we might well survive as a free nation.