The America we live in is not the America our ancestors promised us. Democracy is backsliding at an unprecedented scale: in a recent V-Dem report, the institute stripped the United States of its status as a “liberal democracy” for the first time in over 50 years. We as students have the most to lose. Our futures are on the line, and we can’t afford to sit out of the fight. Our institutions, our neighbors and the entire electoral system are all at risk under President Donald Trump’s rule. We must stand up, and say together: no thrones, no crowns and no kings.
On Saturday, millions are projected to turn out to No Kings protests — a national day of defiance against tyranny and democratic backsliding — across the country. On campus, GW students will rally in Kogan Plaza at noon before marching across D.C., making it clear: the Trump administration cannot continue to damage our democracy. As the president of GW Democracy Matters, I urge you to join us.
The Trump administration is treating the rule of law and the Constitution as suggestions, using fear and violence as its tools to suppress dissent. American citizens – Alex Pretti and Renee Good – have been murdered in the streets by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for exercising their First Amendment rights. Masked thugs masquerading as law enforcement — otherwise known as ICE — have ripped our neighbors from their homes and harshly beaten them. Vital institutions, like the Education Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are being illegally dismantled at will by the president. Corruption runs so rampant that Richard Nixon pales in comparison – conservatively, the Trump family has made over $4 billion in just one year off the presidency between shilling crypto, cutting real estate deals with the Saudis and taking a private jet gifted from Qatar, all with practically nonexistent legislative oversight.
This isn’t the America we learned about in my grade school civics classes. I remember learning that the United States was a nation of laws, safeguarded by checks and balances and ruled by a constitution, not late-night tweets from a wannabe dictator. The America we currently live in has been distorted by the current administration to meet the vision of one man, and it isn’t partisan to say that we deserve better. We deserve to be able to go to bed without worrying that our friends or families will be snatched off the streets, and vote without worrying that it’ll be our last election. Our institutions and laws are far more important than any one president, political party or policy item, and it’s time for all of us to call it how it is.
In just one year, the United States has fallen in rank from being the 20th most democratic nation to the 51st. But democracy is like a wave: it sometimes recedes, but comes crashing back stronger than before when people fight for it. We, as GW students, have the power to help our country.
The first No Kings Day on June 14 — coinciding with a Kim Jong Un-style birthday slash military parade — set the record as the largest single-day protest in American history. Nearly five million Americans from all walks of life turned out to over 2,000 different locations, all saying in one voice: “No thrones, no crowns and no kings,” and demanding an end to democratic backsliding in America.
The second No Kings Day on Oct. 18 went on to break its own turnout record, with over seven million people showing up at nearly 2,700 protests around the country – including hundreds of students here on campus. On Saturday, the third No Kings protest is predicted to again make history, with over 3,000 protests already registered nationwide and more popping up daily.
V-Dem singles out robust social action as the main engine that drives democratic revival. Institutional safeguards act as brakes on democratic backsliding, but it takes sustained, nonviolent action to reverse the trend. Brazil and Poland, for example, are both re-democratizing after years of backsliding, showing us that it doesn’t have to be a one-way street.
I love this country more than I can put into words. I’m a red-blooded, flag-waving patriot, and I believe that America is the single greatest nation in the history of planet Earth. We’re the world’s oldest and longest-running democracy, and the country that showed the human race what it means to have a government by and for the people. The United States has yet to face a challenge that our people cannot overcome, and we’ve spent the last 250 years striving to be better. It shakes me to my core to see what we’ve turned into over the last 15 months, but I believe in the democratic experiment and know that together we can restore the country that was promised to us.
Now is the time to take a stand. No one is coming to save us from this mess, so it’s up to us to save ourselves. We’re not going to roll over as our freedoms are stolen from us and as the future we deserve is ripped away. Join GW Students — including Democracy Matters, ACLU, Swing Left, Democrats, Disabled Students Collective, Revs Rise Up and Beyond the Ballot — on Saturday at noon in Kogan Plaza for the third No Kings day to make your voice heard.
RJ Doroshewitz, a senior majoring in political science, is the president of GW Democracy Matters.