Writing blog posts about No Kings rallies is becoming a tradition. Here is why I went to the first one, from April, 2025. Here is why I attended the second one from June, 2025. And the third, from October 2025. This was my fourth No Kings rally.
This time, because ICE and DHS agents tried to terrorize Minnesota this winter, the national No Kings sponsors called St. Paul the flagship event. National celebrities like Bruce Springsteen, Bernie Sanders, and Jane Fonda flew here to talk to us. Everyone expected a bigger crowd than earlier events.
DHS outrages
I had planned to document the cases of people DHS had abused recently, especially in Minnesota, but there are too many. Here are only a few at the top of my mind, with links to posts or other stories with more details.
Mirimar Martinez - a DHS officer shot her five times in Chicago in October, 2025. While she fought for her life in a hospital, the United States Federal Government called her a domestic terrorist.
Renee Good - A DHS agent in Minneapolis murdered her on January 7, 2026. In a social media post, the President of the United States called her a paid agitator. She lived two blocks away from the murder site and was on her way home from dropping her son off at school.
ChongLy "Scott" Thao - Also in January, 2026, DHS agents broke into his St. Paul home without a warrant, forced him out into the street in his underwear in subfreezing temperatures, drove him away, photographed him in the middle of nowhere, and returned him to his home after they realized they had the wrong person. Officials later accused him of living with sex offenders. Nobody apologized or offered to repair his front door after bashing it in.
Alex Pretti - DHS agents murdered him in Minneapolis on January 24, 2026. Top federal government officials, especially then-DHS Secretary Noem, claimed that DHS agents killed Pretti to stop an attempted massacre. The video evidence shows this was a lie.
In both the Alex Pretti and Renee Good cases, DHS is withholding evidence from Minnesota crime investigators. Minnesota is suing the federal government for access to this evidence. Several federal prosecutors resigned because their bosses told them to drop any investigations.
Trump outrages
I had also planned to lay out another list of new Trump outrages since the last time I listed Trump outrages. There are plenty, and maybe I'll organize and lay them out in a future blog post, but for now, I need to record why **I** keep coming back to these rallies. Trump outrages are not it. Not directly. Although Trump outrages make my blood boil.
My No Kings reasons
Every DHS outrage story above, and every story I can find about our federal government abusing or murdering somebody, includes a lie from the people at the top of our government accusing the abuse victim of being a terrorist or paid agitator. I don't like institutional sadism, I don't like my elected officials feeding me lies, I don't want to live in a society that looks more like a mob operation than a democracy, I want to do something about it, but one bald guy from Minnesota is pretty much powerless. My grandson, Zeke, and I only offered two voices among thousands at the latest St. Paul No Kings rally, but as Zeke reminded me, all the water drops in an ocean together make an ocean of power.
But I spoke to a victim family, and learned some immigrants don't like these rallies. They say that No Kings rallies might feel good for White people safe from abuse, but they do nothing to help families under attack and afraid of becoming ICE targets. I want to honor their wishes to contribute something tangible beyond noise, which is partly why I attended training from my church to help teach ESL (English as a Second Language). I hope my ESL training leads to something useful.
We need to do both. We need to combine our voices into an ocean of voices to improve the system for the future, and we need to offer tangible help to deal with today's corrupt system.
I also want to expose Zeke to real-life history and civics unfolding right now in front of us. I want him to learn, first hand, why freedom is not free. He is an eager student. Zeke told me about a story he studied in school, Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust. Every time humans come to destroy an animal species, the influential rabbits tell the rabbit population to ignore it because nobody will come for rabbits because rabbits are pristine. So when the rabbits are the only species left and humans come to destroy them, nobody defends them because no other species are left. Zeke fully understands the parallel, both to Nazi Germany and today. He wants to use his voice and I am proud of him for this.
We've all read stories about earlier generations who sacrificed so much for our freedom. Now, it's our turn.
No Kings Impressions
Like all earlier No Kings rallies, this one was well organized and friendly. Kudos to Indivisible volunteers for projecting enthusiasm, courtesy, and empathy. I also appreciated the security, with plenty of police officers all around. My grandson, Zeke, pointed out people standing on top of nearby buildings. If an armed terrorist or deranged individual were to gain access to the top of surrounding buildings, they could turn the grass mall in front of the Minnesota State Capitol into a kill zone.
The A/V system was massive, with giant speakers relaying sound, four huge video displays on the stage at the top of the Capitol steps, and other displays a quarter mile away facing the street in front of the Capitol grass mall.
Zeke brought his guitar. He attracted an audience. I livestreamed some of it. The cell phone signal behaved badly for "This Land is Your Land," probably because thousands of other phones competed for the available cellular bandwidth. Now, I wish I would have recorded it instead of trying to livestream it.
The place filled up. A local TV news station estimated the crowd size for this No Kings rally at around 100,000. I heard organizers estimated the crowd at 200,000. As I compose this, I don't know how many people attended, but by the time the event started, the Capitol mall and surrounding streets were a front to back, side to side, ocean of humanity.
The speakers all congratulated Minnesota people for our resilience after unprecedented attacks from our own federal government. Which was nice, but the celebrity flattery felt empty. A few speakers who live here, including Governor Walz and others on the front lines of counting deportation flights and distributing food aid to people afraid to leave their homes, offered a more sober assessment. Even though ICE diminished its presence here, we are still under attack, and our own government is still inflicting economic turmoil and trauma here. But if we hadn't stood up, it would have been worse. And if we continue standing up, especially with the upcoming election, it will get better.
The program of No Kings speakers and entertainers went long, and by shortly after 4 p.m., Zeke and I were ready to leave. Zeke had been awake most of the night anticipating today and was worn out. My back and legs hurt. So we headed toward our car a couple minutes after Ilhan Omar introduced Jane Fonda.
Earlier this week, I emailed the organizers and offered my portable livestreaming technology. Yeah, right. I knew it was long shot, but wow. A professional video crew livestreamed it, combining multiple video sources into a professionally produced video event. As of midnight, 131,377 views and climbing fast. I think I'll leave a comment with a link to this blog post.
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