To choose decency over indifference or malice is not only a transcendent human right and the foundation of all moral and religious codes; it is the essential right that makes all other rights defensible.
The American people are coming together, in unprecedented numbers, to demand the federal government stop infringing on fundamental human rights and stop claiming powers the Constitution does not grant.
Between October 2025 and March 2026, when the 2nd and 3rd nationwide No Kings protests took place, the elected chief administrator of the executive branch of the American people’s democratic government:
- tried to jail opposition lawmakers;
- murdered dozens of civilians in international waters, summarily executing them on the unsubstantiated charge, never heard by any court, that they were smuggling drugs—a crime for which there is no law allowing capital punishment;
- sent paramilitary forces into residential communities to abduct, traffic, summarily sentence, and detain without judicial review, thousands of people, with the intention to “round up” millions;
- began a secret effort to use taxpayer funds to build concentration camps, without consultation or permission from Congress, or from local or state authorities, or courts;
- raided a local election office in Georgia and seized ballots;
- summarily executed U.S. citizens who attempted to act as witnesses and protectors of their neighbors;
- built a database of people volunteering to deliver food and medicine to vulnerable families;
- murdered people illegally detained by intentionally denying them urgently needed life-saving medical care;
- kidnapped the authoritarian leader of Venezuela and claimed to now own and control the entire oil and gas industry of that country;
- imposed unconstitutional tariffs, claiming to raise billions of dollars and to not have to consult with Congress on their use, disrupting long-standing trade relationships, supply chains, and security alliances;
- saw those tariffs struck down as flagrantly illegal by the Supreme Court;
- threatened to launch a military strike on a NATO-allied country to seize the autonomous territory of Greenland, where the U.S. already operates bases;
- tried to justify that threat by saying the U.S. needs to “take” the mineral wealth from the world’s largest island, without having to negotiate in any way with the affected allied countries;
- sought to make it a federal crime for reporters to even ask questions or publish reports containing information that was not 100% vetted and approved by the Pentagon;
- saw that assault on the press overturned by the courts as unconstitutional;
- put his name on the Kennedy Center, a monument to a well-loved deeply mourned past president, then ordered it closed and gutted;
- took in billions of dollars in payments from foreign interests through his family’s businesses;
- took in hundreds of millions in payments from companies with business before the federal government to build an enigmatic gold-plated Tsarist “ballroom” no one wants and for which there are no legal building permits;
- launched an unconstitutional war against Iran, an ancient nation of 90 million people, and promptly bombed a girls primary school, killing at least 175 civilians, mostly children;
- began letting AI chatbots decide what targets should be hit with ballistic missiles—a war crime, because all civilian and military officials are required to confirm, with evidence, that they are targeting only military facilities;
During these fraught and terrible few months, we saw something new and hopeful emerge: ordinary people with no political motivation stepping into the civic space to recognize and safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable. Some call this way of resisting tyranny ‘Neighborism’, centering the simple act of being good neighbors, even to those one does not know, to make sure our communities are defined by humanity, decency, liberty, and human rights.
The murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good had a particularly shocking quality to them. Not only were they summarily executed by unapologetically violent attackers, and for no reason whatsoever, as they posed no threat. They were killed for expressing human decency, and for acting as if the Constitution of the United States were the law of the land.
Having seen Renee Good and Alex Pretti murdered for their decency, and for bearing witness, and seeing innocent people abducted, tortured, and then trafficked and disappeared or released half-clothed into subzero temperatures in the dark of night… moms and dads, teachers and nurses, doctors, and clergy, risked their lives to deliver food and medicine, to blow the whistle on paramilitary attacks, to protect their neighbors and their communities from wanton, inhuman, and unconstitutional violence.
In the haunted “winter of ’26”, as Bruce Springsteen has sung his homage to those who stand against wanton violence, Americans have watched their government claim a right to kill people for being decent to each other. To choose decency over indifference or malice is not only a transcendent human right and the foundation of all moral and religious codes; it is the essential right that makes all other rights defensible.
During this time, as if to prove the point, the President also sought to seize billions of dollars in food assistance, allocated by Congress, and which had been legally shielded from budgetary disruptions due to government shutdowns. Had this cruel abuse not been reversed, more than 40 million Americans would have slid into prolonged food scarcity and hunger.
He explicitly said, to the horror of millions, that some people don’t deserve to eat. We know, because we have extensive evidence of his shameful bigoted cruelty, that he was not referring to actual deviants and criminals (who by law are still entitled to be fed and to receive medical care), but people who are poor, unable to work, or who are non-white, women, or children.
He also sought to redirect funding away from healthcare subsidies, which are required by federal law, to contracts with his own allies and financial backers. During government shutdowns in November and March, he has repeatedly waged campaigns of threats against members of his own party, to prevent them from negotiating with Democratic lawmakers to achieve needed reforms, protect basic rights, and fund the government that the people are owed, by law.
This is why there was a third No Kings Day protest, on Saturday, March 28, 2026. It is why 8 million people joined the protests, making it the largest single day of protest in American history. It is why there is a call for a nationwide general strike on May 1—to remind everyone in government, in business, in society, and around the world, that it is the American people, and not those who temporarily hold office, that are sovereign.
14 months into the second presidential term of Donald Trump, we must reckon with this dangerous reality: There are people who believe that they can only be well served if other people are subjected to brazen abuse, with impunity. There is a mindset—which too often classifies itself as “conservative” but is better classified as moral capitulation and nothing to do with conservative values—which holds that “some people do not deserve” human rights, dignity, or justice.
This debased mindset puts all rights and freedoms at risk.
The republic is an ongoing cooperative endeavor. For the system to continue to belong to all of us, all of us need to treat it with care, value the defense of human rights, and value the humanity of all other people. That is the essence of American democracy—that all human beings are fully protected, in all of their human rights, every minute of every day, and no excuse made by those in power can change that.
Freedom is not possible without solidarity; security is meaningless without unwavering allegiance to human rights, dignity, and justice for all.
Rescue Rights & Freedoms 