Trump opponents have a plan for exposing his 'power' as 'fragile' — not 'unstoppable'

Reporting live from a No Kings Day protest in New York City early Saturday afternoon, October 18, MSNBC's Antonia Hylton told host Ali Velshi that the protest was turning out be much larger than previously thought.

"Originally, they thought about 200,000 people," Hylton reported as protesters marched along 7th Avenue in Manhattan. "But right now, best guesses are that they far exceeded that."

According to organizers for the No Kings Day protests, roughly 2500 are being held in cities all over the United States to express opposition to President Donald Trump's policies.

In an op-ed published by MSNBC's website that day, Ezra Klein and Leah Greenberg (two co-founders of the progressive group Indivisible) emphasize that the size of the protests is important — as it sends out a message that Trump's "power" is "fragile" rather than "unstoppable."

"Right now, this regime is invading and occupying cities across the country," Klein and Greenberg argue. "Their masked officers are terrorizing American communities and immigrant families. They're attacking the final provisions of the Voting Rights Act. And the White House is using the powers of the executive branch to go after political opponents of all stripes, from New York Attorney General Letitia James to comedians to peaceful protesters. Each of these moments might seem isolated, but together, they form a single authoritarian project: silence dissent, project strength and convince the rest of us there’s nothing we can do to stop it."

The Indivisible co-founder continue, "Throughout this year, we've seen the Trump regime seek to consolidate power and crush institutions. To succeed, he needs us to believe he's unstoppable, that his grip is permanent, that resistance is futile. And if we believe him, it just might work. Here's the truth: It's all a lie."

Klein and Greenberg argue that Trump's "strength is only as real as our belief in it."

"We have the power to stop him — if we speak up and fight back while we still can," they write. "Just last month, within days of Disney caving to the Trump Administration's pressure and suspending Jimmy Kimmel, Americans spoke up and used the power of the purse to reinstate Kimmel's show…. In June, millions of Americans rose up to say clearly: 'No Kings.' In every state and territory, in red counties and blue cities, across generations and backgrounds, people came together for the largest single-day mobilization in modern history. And today, we're doing it again, but bigger. No Kings Day on October 18 is on track to be the largest peaceful protest in modern American history."

Ezra Klein and Leah Greenberg's full MSNBC op-ed is available at this link.