In Purple Hudson Valley District, No Kings Turnout Doubles

Brewster, NY—I saw no Antifa. I did see AMPHIFA: a woman dressed as a frog waving a flag and a sign proclaiming “Amphibians Against Fascism.” I saw unicorns and more frogs, an older woman riding a blow-up horse, a bunch of kids fascinated by her horse, and a handsome immigrant Superman (a family-practice doctor in Ossining) carrying a sign asking, “Would you deport Superman?” (That’s a hard no, from me.)

Brewster’s No Kings rally Saturday drew more than 4,000 people^[3], bringing almost twice as many protesters to GOP Representative Mike Lawler’s district than its June event in Mount Kisco did. It was the largest rally in Brewster’s history. Nationally, rally co-organizer Indivisible announced that these events drew 7 million people, also twice the June number. I’d say Lawler should be a bit nervous. His is one of three districts in the country that went for Kamala Harris but also sent a Republican to Congress last November. Next November might be tougher.

The June Mount Kisco event featured a carnival; this was a harvest festival. But despite the good turnout, Brewster’s Putnam County is the red patch in the district; it went 56-42 Trump-Harris. That’s why it was important to make a stand here, the rally’s Indivisible co-organizer Alan Levy told me.

“Also, we want to get more people out than our over-60 white protesters,” Levy said the day before, talking about his and my demographic. Truth be told, the majority of rally-goers on Saturday probably looked like me and Alan (let’s remember that many people who aren’t white are afraid of public spaces), but there was an enlivening mix of young families, Latinos of all ages, people of all races, plus adorable babies and dogs.

I got no pictures of the dozens of dogs I pet, because I was petting them. But they altered the demographic significantly.

I’m emphasizing the joy in Brewster because I know that was intentionally built in, and I admire that. I think we have to do more of this in our defiance of Donald Trump. I’ve been to all the major New York rallies, and I got stuck in sidewalk traffic, getting no larger message except that we are all enraged (and slightly claustrophobic). On Saturday, I wanted to go to a protest, and a festival too. And I’m glad I did. I saw face-painting and pumpkin painting and I missed a three-legged race for democracy somewhere on the margins of quaint Wells Park.

But this No Kings rally was not only about joy. Jhefres Reyes of Make the Road Westchester talked with real pain about the local residents who’ve been snatched by ICE. Several towns in Mike Lawler’s district, including Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, are almost half Latino, “and immigrants are scared to leave their houses,” Reyes said. Local businesses are thus struggling, and cutting back their hours. Reyes spoke of two local residents who went to New York’s Federal Plaza to comply with requirements they thought would help them get legal status; both were snatched from their families. Mount Kisco resident Dulio Juarez, a husband and father, has already been sent back to Guatemala, from which he’d fled with his family because of threats and violence.

“Lawler hasn’t ever gone to the detention facility for inspections, or to Federal Plaza,” Reyes complained. “In fact, Lawler’s partnership with ICE is making it easy for them to take over the Hudson Valley.” The cochair of Hispanic Democrats of Westchester, Ximena Marcella, told me on Friday: “It’s terrifying for our community to speak at these rallies.”

Meanwhile, Trump showed that he stewed in our joy and the warmth of our defiance, with a ludicrous Truth Social post that confirmed for all time that he’s full of shit. An AI video cast him as a fighter pilot, too fat for either his jet or his facemask, disgorging diarrhea from the plane’s bowels over the New York City No Kings protest. I kid you not.

The police estimated 100,000 New York protesters; organizers said there were more, but all agreed there were no arrests. And no shit in the streets. Just great energy.

In the run-up to this No Kings celebration, Republicans got on message: They called it a “Hate America” rally, pulling together “the Marxists, the socialists, the antifa advocates, the anarchists, and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” House Speaker Mike Johnson proclaimed, adding, “That is the modern Democratic Party.” Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation to allow the Justice Department to investigate the funders of “these rallies, which may well turn into riots” on racketeering charges. Many of us were afraid they were looking for excuses to incite violence at No Kings and respond with brutal crackdowns.

But from coast to coast, Saturday’s rallies looked like the one in Brewster, whether larger or smaller. They looked like an America that can be peaceful and organized and have a good time. Carrie Coon, star of The Gilded Age (a sharp story of class) plus the last season of White Lotus (same), lives in the district, and spoke, as she did in Mount Kisco in June. She took on the standard dismissal of No Kings, that it’s just a rally.

“In the face of such unrelenting violence and terror…what good is a rally? Well, I’ll tell gonna tell you,” she told the assembled crowd. “A rally first and foremost puts you in community with neighbors who share your disgust, your anger, your sadness, and your frustration.”

“I’m just so proud to be invited to participate,” she told me when I sandbagged her behind the stage. Coon’s father was a Catholic seminarian when he was young and she grew up being taught Catholic social justice principles by both her mother and father (as I did). In her speech, she made a fiery call to canvass against Lawler. “Amen. Lawler tries to stake out some purportedly centrist positions, but we know that all these Republicans are ready to capitulate at any moment, whenever it’s expedient,” Coons said.

Ximena Marcella told me Lawler makes a point of showing up at Latino events in his district, and he has his supporters in the community. But he put his foot in his mouth in February by seeming to challenge the citizenship of a fellow Westchester political leader. “I don’t know, I assume you’re a citizen. Maybe you are not, maybe you are,” he told^[5] Jose Alvarado, cochair of the Westchester County Board of Leadership. (Elected officials must be citizens.) “But Democrats aren’t doing all they could to court Latinos,” Marcella added.

Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado fired up the crowd with a speech that was angry and loving. “We love who we are,” he shouted. “Love demands better! Love demands more!” He talked of elderly veterans in the district “who fought to beat back Nazism and fascism” but are suffering in their waning days, and Latino neighbors who might have been too intimidated to join a harvest festival and a show of community solidarity. “I’m not here today as a politician,” said Delgado, who will face Governor Kathy Hochul in next year’s primary, “but as a moral agent. As your brother in arms.” He won a lot of new admirers with his pointed speech. There were several political candidates in the crowd, but they were not allowed to make pitches for themselves; they served as judges for the pumpkin-painting contest.

Eighty-two-year-old retired academic Michael Meeropol closed out the afternoon. The son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for spying for the Soviet Union, he’s studied fascism and seen it up close. As a boy, he attended a rally 20 miles away in Peekskill, headlined by the great Paul Robeson, a promoter of peace with the Soviet Union. The crowd was attacked by right-wing thugs; nobody died, but many were injured. The melee took place in a beautiful green field just like the one in Brewster, and I felt grateful to be surrounded by frogs and unicorns and Superman and painted pumpkins, not violent mobs. “They are trying to spark violence all over,” Meeropol said. But on Saturday at least, they failed. 

Co-organizer Alan Levy doesn’t know exactly what comes next. But local progressives collected 329 new names from the crowd, he told me, people who signed up for a range of activities. “We MUST continue to build momentum heading into next year’s election cycle,” Levy texted me late Sunday night. “The CD17 activist community, though not wholly focused on ending Mike Lawler’s congressional career, is pretty committed to making his votes the anchor that will bring him down. Will there be a No Kings 3? I don’t know. But if not, we will grow our numbers either by activating young people or getting our brown and black communities to get out and vote.”

Later Saturday afternoon, having shared his shitty Truth Social post, Trump claimed that the No Kings protests were “very small, very ineffective, and the people were wacked out.” Nevertheless, he reminded us, “I’m allowed as you know as president [to use] the Insurrection Act. Everybody agrees you’re allowed to use that and there are no more court cases, there is no more anything. We’re trying to do it in a nicer manner, but we can always use the Insurrection Act.”

As a matter of fact, while it would be awful to see our military patrol the streets like police officers, there would still be courts and judges and good old-fashioned laws, even under the Insurrection Act. It’s not a scenario anyone who believes in democracy wants to come to pass, but even that won’t give Trump the absolute power he craves.

Speaking of police, Brewster’s finest lined up along the exit route to say goodbye to us. I never saw any of them inside the rally. They were taking photos with children and dogs. I realized, this country doesn’t have to be the way Trump wants it. This country is not that way, and will never be—as long as we keep protesting, fighting, and showing up. And mixing in fun is what will keep us going.

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