The 250-year-old fight against monarchy never felt so relevant

April 19 protests will mark the anniversary of the first military campaign of the American Revolution.

Get ready to hear the word semiquincentennial a lot in the coming months.

That’s because July 4, 2026, will mark the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

And although that’s well over a year from now, you don’t have to wait to start commemorating and honoring – and feeling the renewed urgency of – the fight against monarchy.

This weekend – Saturday, April 19 – marks the 250^th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first military campaign of the American War of Independence. In what became known as “the shot heard round the world,” militias made up of Massachusetts colonists defeated British troops. The victory persuaded many Americans to take up arms and support the cause of independence.

And as it happens, another round of mass protest against the Trump/Musk regime is scheduled for Saturday. The grassroots, social-media phenomenon calling itself 50501 – which started on Reddit and which stands for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” – is calling for a “national day of action.”

Here's a list of planned events. Several protests will be using the “No Kings” slogan. Among the protests on Saturday: One in Lexington, Mass., at the Minute Man National Historical Park.

What’s amazing to me is how relevant the fight against monarchy feels today under Trump. Although King George III, unlike Trump, was constrained by the constitution and the Parliament, the two otherwise have much in common.

Parts of the Declaration of Independence – notably, the list of grievances against the king – read almost as if they could be written today with Trump in mind. The document states:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

The grievances include the following:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

Sound familiar?

Here’s a massive lists of events scheduled for the weekend, including protests against deportations, funding cuts, and Tesla and Elon Musk.

And the Hands Off! Coalition, which brought you the April 5 protests, is hosting a mass call tonight at 8 p.m. ET to discuss its next steps.

Bring Kilmar Home

Also expect more protests in the coming days demanding that the U.S. government bring Kilmar Albrego Garcia home from the torture prison he was rendered to in El Salvador.

Immigration officials sent the Maryland father there without due process and despite a judge’s earlier grant of protection from deportation. The Supreme Court ruled last week that the U.S. should “facilitate” his return.

Trump and El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele are nevertheless refusing to let him go, raising enormous concerns among constitutional scholars and ordinary Americans.

Protesters gathered Monday in Baltimore, outside the federal building, to demand his return. There was a big and loud crowd outside the Greenbelt, Md., federal courtroom where Abrego Garcia’s case was being heard on Tuesday.

And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is in El Salvador today “to check on his condition and discuss his release.”

Harvard Fights Back

After several dispiriting weeks of watching major law firms and Columbia University cave to the bullying of the Trump/Musk regime, it is wonderful to see some major institutions fighting back.

I’m talking about Harvard University, of course, but also about the major American philanthropic foundations that last week announced they are ready to repel any attacks on their freedom to speak and to give as they see fit.

Let me start with Harvard, though.

After receiving a shockingly broad list of demands from the Trump administration regarding changes in governance, admissions, hiring and teaching, Harvard has chosen to resist.

Lawyers representing Harvard fired back on Monday against “demands that, in contravention of the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court.”

They wrote:

The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.

Harvard President Alan Garber rejected the Trump/Musk regime’s avowed rationale for the demands, writing that “the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner” but rather to “direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”

He wrote that the administration’s list of demands “threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Trump responded, as he had previously threatened, by illegally freezing $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard.

Princeton was technically the first Ivy League university to resist. Its president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, wrote in the Atlantic last month that “The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University [presents] the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.”

But Harvard, with its unrivaled prestige and $53 billion endowment, is a powerful addition to the resistance and may very well embolden others.

Indeed, also on Monday, a number of universities – including Brown, CalTech, Cornell, MIT and the University of Michigan – sued the Department of Energy for illegally terminating research grants.

Foundational Resistance

And here’s an inspirational clarion call from Tonya Allen, Deepak Bhargava and John Palfrey. Allen is the president of the McKnight Foundation ($3 billion endowment). Bhargava is president of the Freedom Together Foundation ($4 billion). John Palfrey is president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($9 billion).

They warn that “Foundations could be the next American institutions under attack.” And the philanthropic community, they write, “must not wait like sitting ducks. We must prepare and unite to defend our freedom to support the millions of people who rely on charitable foundations to build stronger, healthier communities and opportunities for all.”

They propose three major steps:

1. Prepare for what’s coming, but don’t obey in advance…. We cannot walk away from our commitments to constitutionally supported core values of fair inclusion and justice or terminate our lawful support for communities who need us most.

2. Stand in solidarity with each other…. When attacks come, foundations must speak up—not just for ourselves, but for every grantee and every family impacted by nonprofits whose survival may depend on our courage.

3. Step up to provide more support to communities who need us… For those who can afford to increase their giving to address increased needs, let’s give more.

The group announced a public solidarity sign-on campaign to support philanthropy’s freedom to give. More than 275 organizations have already signed up, including the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.

Responding to the Cruelty

With the cruelty of the Trump/Musk regime seemingly ever increasing, Ben Raderstorf, a policy advocate at Protect Democracy, asked a critical question in a recent piece for the group’s If You Can Keep It newsletter.

So how can we confront dehumanizing tactics in our own country in a way that overcomes, not feeds, the division?

He provides four tips, which I summarize here:

First, lead with humanity. Emphasize the relatable-ness of the lives, dreams, and struggles of the victims

Second, explain why it’s a tactic. Communicate clearly what the autocratic faction is hoping to accomplish with cruelty and scapegoating.

Third, don’t accept or repeat divisive frames. Don’t accept the government’s cover story for the cruelty:

Finally, don’t give up hope and highlight successful efforts to resist cruelty.

How to Be a Dissident

In the New Yorker, Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer spoke to foreign dissidents, opposition leaders and others, seeking advice for how to challenge repressive regimes. They produced what they call “a provisional guide for finding courage in Trump’s age of authoritarian fear.”

They write admiringly about “communal trainings for nonviolent action.” Many dissidents they spoke to “said that, amid prolonged and cascading political crises, establishing a political home for yourself is a necessary ingredient for nurturing non-cooperation.”

More darkly, they warn would-be dissidents to “write up a plan for the worst-case scenario—what you’ll do if you get fired or audited, or find yourself in legal trouble.” They advise “deleting old social-media posts and using only trusted encrypted-messaging apps.” They even encourage the use of “code words… allowing you to talk about sensitive topics where you might be overheard.”

A Battle Between Light and Dark

We are not simply up against authoritarianism, activist authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue in a provocative Guardian opinion piece. Rather, they write, “The governing ideology of the far right in our age of escalating disasters has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism.” They explain:

If we are to meet our critical moment in history, we need to reckon with the reality that we are not up against adversaries we have seen before. We are up against end times fascism.

But here’s the good news:

We are convinced that the more people understand the extent to which the right has succumbed to the Armageddon complex, the more they will be willing to fight back, realizing that absolutely everything is now on the line.

And how do we fight back? With “an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful”:

Our task is to build a wide and deep movement, as spiritual as it is political, strong enough to stop these unhinged traitors. A movement rooted in a steadfast commitment to one another, across our many differences and divides, and to this miraculous, singular planet….

[W]e counter their apocalyptic narratives with a far better story about how to survive the hard times ahead without leaving anyone behind…. A story not of end times, but of better times; not of separation and supremacy, but of interdependence and belonging; not of escaping, but staying put and staying faithful to the troubled earthly reality in which we are enmeshed and bound.

Bernie Sanders and AOC Continue to Draw Huge Crowds

A massive crowd – estimated at 36,000 people – converged on downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to hear Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as musicians including Neil Young, Joan Baez and singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers, as part of Sanders’s “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

Check out Neil Young singing “Rockin’ in the Free World,” joined by Baez and Rogers chanting “Power to the People” and “Take America Back” between the verses.

Sanders also made an appearance at the Coachella music festival that night. “This country faces some very difficult challenges, and the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” he said. “Now you can turn away and you can ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you do it at your own peril. We need you to stand up to fight for justice, to fight for economic justice, social justice and racial justice.”

The next day, Sanders and AOC spoke to an estimated 20,000 people in Salt Lake City.

More than 12,000 Idahoans attended the Sanders/AOC rally outside Boise on Monday. “We’re losing our rights every moment of the day, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” Karing Nial, a Boise resident, told the Idaho Capital Sun. “I am so disappointed in our elected officials. I’m so disappointed in Congress. I want them to stand up and do the right thing, and no one is doing it, so the people have to.”

And on Tuesday, Sanders and AOC drew tens of thousands more in deep red parts of California. "If you are willing to fight for someone you don't know, you are welcome here,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Folsom, in the afternoon. (Check out the helicopter footage of the enormous crowd and the miles-long line to get in.) They also rallied in Bakersfield in the evening.

Town Hall Escalation

Two hecklers at a Georgia public town hall held by right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene were shot with stun guns and arrested on Tuesday night by police.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported:

The first arrest came just after the town hall began when one man loudly booed Greene and was dragged into the hallway by police and shocked with a stun gun at least twice. Shortly after he was taken away, police could be seen scuffling with another man in the crowd, eventually using the stun gun on him as well.

As CNN reported, rather than take questions face-to-face, Greene mocked the critical questions she received, which she had required be submitted in writing.

In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Essence Johnson, chair of the Cobb County Democratic Committee, condemned the arrests. “At this time, we believe they were unjustly arrested,” she said. “People are passionate now. They’re upset. They’re frustrated. They believe democracy is being taken away from them. They’re at their wits end.”

Lawsuits Watch

I mentioned the legal action surrounding Kilmar Abrego Garcia above.

Trump’s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act have also set off “one of the most contentious legal battles of his second term,” as the New York Times recounts. The ACLU has now filed suit in Texas, New York, and Colorado seeking to stop the use of the statute. Its first case, in Washington, D.C., was dismissed by the Supreme Court for being in the wrong venue.

Meanwhile, a federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with its plan to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who entered the U.S. legally under a Biden-era program. The suit was filed by the Justice Action Center and Human Rights First.

And in a case brought by Democracy Forward, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that government agencies must release billions of dollars in funding for climate and infrastructure-related projects that had been paused by the Trump administration.

Some Law Firms Cave; Some Don’t

More – but not all – law firms are caving to Trump.

Some are standing up, and they’re winning in court.

The firm Susman Godfrey filed a lawsuit on Friday over Trump’s executive order last week restricting its lawyers’ access to government buildings and directing agencies to terminate federal contracts with Susman clients. Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems in its wildly successful defamation case against Fox News.

The suit argues that “the specific provisions and overall design of our Constitution were adopted in large measure to ensure that presidents cannot exercise arbitrary, absolute power in the way that the President seeks to do in these Executive Orders.”

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the sanctions against Susman. Judges have similarly ruled in favor of Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale.

Meanwhile, Georgetown University Law Center students are keeping track of which law firms have caved and which have stood up to the Trump regime, in a spreadsheet.

Resistance Hero of the Week

The New York Times had a great story last week about Maine Gov. Janet Mills, and how she is clashing with Trump by refusing to comply with his executive order barring transgender women from women’s sports.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department further escalated the fight by announcing it will sue Maine to demand compliance.

Mills responded: “Let today serve as warning to all states: Maine might be among the first to draw the ire of the Federal government in this way, but we will not be the last."

She added: “As I have said previously, this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”

New Help for Embattled Feds

Labor groups and their allies today launched a Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. The network will connect federal workers who have been fired or are concerned about their employment with free legal support through a network of trained pro bono attorneys. Do you need help? Do you want to help?

The Penguin Revolt

Trump slapped 10 per cent tariffs on an Australian territory with no human inhabitants: the Heard and McDonald Islands, home to penguins and seals. In response, nonprofit Penguins International will livestream the Antarctic penguins’ annual migration from the ocean to their breeding grounds, calling the event the ‘Protest March of the Penguins.”