Three months after July’s “Good Trouble Lives On” rally outside East Hampton Town Hall, the next local protest organized by People for Democracy East Hampton, a chapter of the Indivisible movement, happens on Saturday, in a vastly different political landscape.
In East Hampton, Sag Harbor Village, and across the United States, protests against the Trump administration have taken place in April, June, and the aforementioned “Good Trouble” rally in July. The theme, “no kings,” emphasizes what opponents of the administration say is the country’s worrisome metamorphosis, after 249 years of representative democracy, into an authoritarian government.
“Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and stronger,” says a message from People for Democracy East Hampton announcing Saturday’s rally, which will again be held outside Town Hall. “ ‘NO KINGS’ is more than just a slogan — it’s the foundation our nation was built on and unites people across our country. The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings. We stand against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”
In one of more than 2,000 such events across the country, participants will gather at the picnic tables near the Town Hall parking lot at 11 a.m. before proceeding to Pantigo Road, where they will hold signs aloft until 1 p.m. Those planning to attend have been encouraged to make a sign to hold during the rally. Organizers have asked that those planning to attend register at mobilize.us. As of Tuesday evening, nearly 300 people had registered, but organizers say previous rallies this year drew three times the number of registrants.
The president and administration officials have sought to broadly blame the political left for the Sept. 10 murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, threatening to classify groups as domestic terrorists. According to published reports, Indivisible has been specifically mentioned as a group to scrutinize. “We have radical left lunatics out there,” the president said on the day after Kirk was murdered, “and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
Subsequent to Kirk’s murder, the president had authorized federal troop deployments in Memphis and Chicago, following earlier deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He has also ordered troops to Portland, Ore., though a federal judge has temporarily blocked that order.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch ally of the president, told Fox News this month that “they have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for Oct. 18 on the National Mall. It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they’re all coming out.” In blaming Democrats for the government shutdown, he said that “it’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally, because they can’t face their rabid base.”
Against this backdrop, “the situation is just frightening,” said Katherine Stahl of Springs, an organizer of Saturday’s rally, “and I think what has made many of us out here feel better is to be able to assemble with neighbors and just get together. I wish there were more ways of doing it, but this is at least one way, these mobilizations and just standing with signs that affirm what we believe.”
The reaction to Kirk’s murder, she said, “was that now everything’s fair game, like everybody is a terrorist, effectively. This is an extraordinarily dangerous time in our country’s history.”
Barbara Burnside, along with Ms. Stahl and Beth Meredith, also of Springs, registered People for Democracy East Hampton with Indivisible. “There have been a variety of people that have helped, but we haven’t really got a formalized group,” Ms. Stahl said.
“We are nonpartisan and nonviolent,” she said. “You can’t do these events without being clear that you understand this is all about de-escalating arguments. We’re here to affirm what we believe and what we think is important: to save our democracy, and not to fight and argue with people.”
Deputy Supervisor Cate Rogers, who has attended the past rallies, spoke last week of the importance of this moment. “I feel that we are no doubt at an inflection point in our 249-year history of governing by the people and for the people,” she said. “We must use our right to speak up in a peaceful, nonviolent gathering publicly or we risk further erosion of our rights as the American people to speak up, to exercise our unalienable rights and freedoms,” she said.
“In the Civil War the fight was for a union, now we face losing our entire country to antidemocratic leaders. I have pledged my allegiance to my country, since I learned the words as a small child. A pledge to a republic ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ I fear we are not currently living up to that pledge on the federal level.”
