ST. PAUL, Minn. — The organizers of the huge No Kings rallies on Saturday , which have been the largest in U.S. history, are laying plans for an encore. Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, called for a nationwide general strike to send a protest message to President Trump:
“On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual. No work. No school. No shopping.’ We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”
Levin was in St. Paul for the weekend’s No Kings Day 3.0 rally, which drew 100,000 protesters. Nationwide 3,100 local No Kings event had 8 million people. General strikes have been effective political tools abroad, but Levin cited a January general strike Minnesota as a model for May Day. The Minnesota strike helped force Trump to retreat from his brutal military-style occupation of Minneapolis and St. Paul:
“The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest. It is a tactical escalation… It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action. We are going to build on that courage, that sacrifice that Minnesota residents showed during their day of action in January to demonstrate that regular people are the greatest threat to fascism in this country.”
History’s lessons: By scholar Peter Rachleff of Macalester College.