No Kings!

Today’s pop quiz:

Question: What do the following people have in common?

• Nicolas Sarkozi, former President of France

• Jair Bolsonaro, former President of Brazil

• Nikola Gruevski, former Prime Minister of North Macedonia

• Mikheil Saakashvili, former President of Georgia

• Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel

• Moshe Katsav, former President of Israel

• Chen Shui-bian, former President of Taiwan

• Lee Myung-bak, former President of South Korea

• Park Geun-hye, former President of South Korea

• Alberto Fujimori, former President of Peru

• Joseph Estrada, former President of the Philippines

Obvious Answer: They were all leaders of their countries. Pretty obvious.

Not So Obvious Answer: They were all convicted of crimes, mainly corruption, and either removed from office and/or sentenced to serve time in prison.

Holding leaders accountable is what the newly founded United States of America in 1776 was all about.

Yet, our Supreme Court saw fit in Trump v. United States (2024) to rule that a former president is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for actions that fall within his exclusive constitutional authority (i.e. “core” executive functions). Of course, while IANAL, this isn’t stated anywhere in the Constitution, nor is it implied. Their main reasoning - so sitting Admins could not willy-nilly “go after” former Presidents. Forget that this has NEVER HAPPENED. The majority of SCOTUS felt like it could happen, so now it is the law of the land.

So now, the President can just kill people on a boat, state that it is part of his “official duties” of protecting the United States, and face no consequences. In all likelihood, he could also harm US citizens peacefully protesting per the 1st Amendment without any personal consequences. Perhaps could even affect elections without personal consequence as well.

Essentially, whether SCOTUS believes this or not, they’ve created a King.

This is why we all need to show up on No Kings Day on October 18 in a show of force. As Erica Chenoweth showed us in her book Why Civil Resistance Works (2011), nonviolent campaigns were about twice as likely to succeed as violent ones, and that every campaign that mobilized at least 3.5% of the population succeeded in achieving its aims — often regime change or independence.

It’s up to us.