On October 19th, Caitlin Johnstone, an Australian writer who says she has "daily writings on the end of illusions," penned a post on No Kings Day 2 protests, which was also posted on her website, entitled "US Politics Is Just Nonstop Fake Revolutions Now," which received, as of the writing of this response, 508 likes, 244 comments, and 144 restacks (i.e. like reblogs). She began her post with the claim that "American politics is just nonstop fake revolutions now," sharing examples like tweets from Doug Emhoff (a quote tweet of him) and George Conway.

Claim #1: She said that people who protested for No Kings 2 protests oppose a "monarchy which does not exist without making a single tangible demand."

Response: The point of No Kings is that the orange one is a wanna-be King. Having anti-monarchist views is not bad. These protests were one way to oppose everything the regime is doing right now. Some people made demands, like certain conditions for ending the shutdown. There were tangible demands that some made, others did not.

Claim #2: She claimed that "power was not challenged in any meaningful way. The status quo wasn't disrupted in the slightest."

Response: I strongly disagree with this. The status quo was certainly challenged as such massive protests are rare and it is one form of mobilization toward something bigger. If power was not challenged, when why were Republicans and others spreading propaganda about it? Why are they trying to deem those opposed to fascism as terrorists, grouped together in "antifa" which does not exist.

Claim #3: She claimed that at the protest some people "held up some signs saying the president is orange and that if Kamala were president they would be at brunch, and then went home."

Response: Perhaps some people did that, and some people were nasty toward pro-Palestine viewpoints (including Palestinian flags). On the whole, however, describing No Kings this way is a very dismissive way to describe people who are mobilizing together in mass protests. There were people of many different political affiliations there, so to act like they were all of one political affiliation is wrong.

Claim #4: She said that the protests were "just one big pep rally for the Democratic Party, designed to accomplish nothing beyond getting American liberals excited about the prospect of someday voting for Gavin Newsom."

Response: Again, this is very dismissive and a bit nasty to describe such mass protest, reaching into the millions. It wasn't designed to accomplish "nothing." Surely, some liberals did go to these protests, as did Democratic politicians, but more than anything, it was meant to show opposition to the regime. It is meant to provide a place for people to feel seen at the anger they are feeling right now, at the cruelty of the regime.

Claim #5: She described the protest as a bunch of boomers dancing around, then holding signs, "feel[ing] as signs though they are fighting the power in their feely bits, while drumming up support for the same status quo which gave rise to Trump in the first place."

Response: This is again, very cynical, and what's the problem with people dancing around and having fun? What's to say that they are "drumming up support" for the existing status quo? Not even those from Indivisible want that and have even entertained the possibility of a general strike, but want to build up to it.

Claim #6: She says you see the same "fake revolutionary astroturf zeitgeist on the Republican side...while their party controls every branch of the US government...act[ing] like Trump is ending the wars and fighting the Deep State even as he stomps out free speech on behalf of Israel, rolls out a Palantir surveillance system, pours weapons into facilitating Israel’s genocidal atrocities, bombs Iran and Yemen, ramps up for war with Venezuela, and perpetuates the horrific proxy war in Ukraine."

Response: This may be the only part on which I agree with her, in terms of their fake efforts which act like they are populist. I also don't fully disagree with her about "two plutocrat-owned warmongering imperialist parties whipping their respective bases into the mass delusion...[to vote] Democrat or Republican. They get everyone fighting a fake revolution so that nobody thinks about fighting a real one."

Claim #7: She states that the U.S. has "been a murderous and tyrannical oligarchic bloodbath for its entire existence as a nation, but up until fairly recently its politics looked more or less like the politics of other western nations," going onto say that politicians had "campaigns where they’d try to argue that they have the best policies, there’d be an election, and then they’d spend their time in office philandering and pretending to make themselves useful," but says there's constant push that "voting for one of the two mainstream parties is participating some kind of a courageous insurgency against monarchy or communism or the Deep State or whatever."

Response: I hear what she is saying, but this perspective comes with the idea that everything was fine before, which is funny because she earlier talked about how the protests were supposedly aiming to reinforce the status quo. I'd say her conception of U.S. politics before "fairly recently" is naive and not realizing that while there have been changes, of course, there was never any "ideal" time in U.S. politics, or U.S. history. Also, how did U.S. politics reflect politics of other Western nations? What does that mean?

Claim #8: She says that "public discontent with the status quo is soaring to all-time highs as Americans get poorer and everything gets shittier...people are starting to push for real change, so their outrage needs to be harnessed and corralled into politically safe directions."

Response: I don't disagree that public discontent is rising and pushing for real change, but implying that No Kings is a way to "harness" and "corral" people seems wrong. It is a way to get people into resisting fascism, a way to begin. Even Ken Klippenstein recognized this, saying No Kings is about rejecting the national security state. How can she not realize this? How can she not come to the same conclusion?

Claim #9: She says that "Donald Trump’s...political career [now has]...a new WWE-style kayfabe theatrics into American politics where both Democrats and Republicans feel as though they are fighting the power in a very important and relevant way " and that Republicans believe he "is a populist rebel and Democrats because they believe Trump is an unprecedented threat to freedom and democracy," adding the orange one's whole thing is "about protecting the status quo of the US empire, but both mainstream factions are duped into seeing the exact opposite."

Response: Again, I don't disagree at how she is describing the orange one, but I also think that he is a threat to democracy and freedom. Surely, he wants to protect the "status quo of the US empire," while claiming he is a populist rebel, but also engage in domestic repression at the same time. Is she trying to deny that exists?

Claim #10: She says that there are the "two main strands of American political thought falling all over themselves to be the first in line to support the establishment...They remain mollified because they think they are doing something, and the powerful get to keep everything they’ve stolen."

Response: I hear what she is saying and there is surely support to "the establishment" but both strands. Even so, there is still a place to push one strand to be more oppositional than it is currently being, while recognizing the power structure.

Claim #11: She says, in reference to the tenth claim, "it's truly a brilliant scam. Evil, destructive and tyrannical, to be sure, but you’ve got to admire the skill with which this psyop has been pulled off."

Response: It seems she is implying here that No Kings is a psyop, a term referring to psychological operation, meaning, as IWS defines it, "'planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals...[with the intent of] induc[ing]...or reinforc[ing] foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator's objectives." None of that is present here and it puts all the efforts by organizers, sometimes in hostile areas, to shame, including those that put their time into these events. Sometimes left-leaning people make these claims about protests, but in this case it is faulty.

Other comments: The response by people to her post was mixed. Some agreed more than others, but it was not universally positive, which is good to say. Personally, while I did agree with part of her post, after seeing this post, I'm not inclined to keep reading her newsletter, when her analysis is so wrong, to act like everyone who was out on the streets was part of some astroturf thing. It's insulting, messed up, and shows how weak her analysis of what's going on is. In fact, it feeds right into the regime's propaganda about the event and I wouldn't be surprised if they use it as "evidence" about the event as some "antifa" event. It was a gathering of people who oppose kings, a gathering of people who oppose fascism. Why is that a bad thing?

It is unfortunate to see this posting from her, considering that she has been consistently critical of the regime, Zionism, genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu, anti-Arabism, U.S. empire, A.I., Western media, the issues with liberals, and other global issues. Her posting reminds me of what Ken Klippenstein wrote some time ago about some Democrats opposing DOGE back (a similar view he expressed in April). I do find it curious that she never posted, according to a search of her website and her blog, anything about No Kings 1. It seems odd in many ways.

I say this because Johnstone recently shared an oil painting of someone she called one of her favorite "anti-war heroes," Medea Benjamin, a key member of Code Pink. That same organization wrote about, on their Substack, in regards to No Kings 1, "over 2,000 communities have organized demonstrations for "No Kings Day" in opposition to Trump's birthday parade...[and opposing] GOP efforts to target health insurance coverage for millions, food assistance, and other anti-poverty programs for millions." Isn't that what No Kings 2 is also doing as well?

Additionally, Johnstone's claims about No Kings are further invalidated by a post on Code Pink's Instagram about Mehdi Hasan speaking about Palestine "at the No Kings rally in D.C. to many people who are not in the movement for Palestine," and then adding it is "so important for us to keep educating about US-Israeli genocide as the mainstream media continues to hide the truth." So, how is the rally a "big pep rally" for the Democrats then? How is it psyop if CodePink is there? That one post causes her entire argument in her post to fall apart. After all, CodePink members even wore shirts asking people for hands off Venezuela and to let Gaza live.