Cinema News: How the right is smearing ‘No Kings’

October 16, 2025 | View in browser

By Anita Chabria

Columnist

Hello and happy Thursday. It's me, California columnist Anita Chabria, filling in for your usual host, Washington bureau chief Michael Wilner.

Andrea Grossman was a kid when her mother pulled her out of school to join the 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide day of peaceful protest. They held hands while her mom walked in a knit suit and ladylike shoes, joining more than 2 million people nationwide.

Grossman, now one of the organizers of the Beverly Hills segment of the "No Kings" marches being held in more than 2,000 cities this weekend, remembers that opponents of that long-ago protest threw stinky rat poison on the lawns near the Rose Bowl so participants couldn't sit on the grass. But protesters were not deterred.

"It made it all the more rebellious of us to be there," Grossman told me. "It made us more insistent that we had to be there."

Today, that rat poison is being metaphorically hurled by MAGA leaders such as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), in the form of noxious allegations that the No Kings marches are "Hate America" rallies staged for a "rabid base" of criminal agitators.

"It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they're all coming out," Johnson said on Fox News.

Of course, that is dumb and false. It would be all too easy to write off comments such as Johnson's as partisan jibber-jabber, but his insidious words are the kind of poison that seeps into the soil and shouldn't be ignored.

The 'enemy within'

Johnson isn't the only Republican working overtime to smear everyday folks such as Grossman. Talk about organized campaigns — Trumpites are all going after No Kings with the same script.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said: "These guys are playing to the most radical, small, and violent base in the country. You'll see them on Saturday on the Mall. They just do not love this country."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has parroted similar messaging, and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), diving into old, antisemitic conspiracies, described the events as "a Soros paid-for protest," adding that the National Guard would probably need to be activated.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi added her two cents, apparently confusing printed signs, the kind that say, a union or organizations such as Planned Parenthood or the ACLU, might have made up, with evidence of diabolical terrorist networks.

"You're seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match," Bondi told Fox News. "They are organized and someone is funding it. We are going to get to the funding of antifa, we're going to get to the root of antifa and we are going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos."

Note to Bondi: Matching signs are not a conspiracy. Just ask Kinko's.

But in her defense, it was a mere two weeks ago when President Trump addressed the leaders of the U.S. military at Quantico, Va. There, he warned that the use of military troops on American protesters was about to become reality, if he has any say in it.

"This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control," Trump said.

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That came on the heels of his executive order declaring antifa — a general descriptor for anyone who opposes fascism — as a terrorist organization.

So to recap: The president declares "antifa" a terrorist organization, warns military brass that they must be ready to defeat internal enemies, then MAGA Republicans begin to falsely claim No Kings rallies are full of "antifa."

Bad journalism

Grossman calls the idea that she is anti-American "preposterous."

"We wouldn't be out there spending our time and energy if we weren't desperately worried for our country. Of course we love America," she said.

Here's where I eat my own: Media are failing miserably and unforgivably in covering this issue — this terrifying march to turn peaceful protest into a criminal offense. We shouldn't be asking Grossman whether she hates America. We should be pushing Johnson and his ilk to defend his attack on people like her.

"We can both recognize that it's ridiculous and also that it's pretty sinister," Leah Greenberg told me.

She's the co-executive director of Indivisible, the organization behind the No Kings effort, and she'll be at the D.C. event — the one Johnson specifically condemned. At the first No Kings rally in Philadelphia, her husband led more than 1,000 people in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, some real anti-American stuff.

"We have to see what is currently happening here, not only as Republicans desperately grasping for a message, but also of them creating a permission structure to, you know, invite a broader crackdown on peaceful dissent," Greenberg warned.

I asked Grossman whether she felt personally at risk by taking on this organizing role at such a fraught moment, even in Beverly Hills, that hotbed of radicalism. At first, she said she didn't. But when I asked her why not, she paused for a bit.

"We have to put ourselves out there and it takes risk sometimes," she finally said. "I mean, I don't consider myself a freedom fighter by any means. I consider myself a woman of a certain age, you know, who has to stand up and be loud and noisy."

In her regular life, Grossman runs one of the preeminent literary salons in Los Angeles, drawing authors and luminaries including Rob Reiner, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and legal podcaster Joyce Vance. She was also one of the "abortion yentas" who last year fought a losing battle to protect a controversial abortion clinic in the neighborhood. So she knows risk and doesn't shy away from it.

But this moment is different, because it's not normal for a president to declare protests to be terrorism, or for legislators to deem them un-American. It is not normal to fear that the military will be used to silence us.

Which is why No Kings is so crucial to this moment.

It is a movement that seeks to draw the most normal, the most average, the most mild of people to highlight just how abnormal this government is. No flags are going to be burned (though that is a protected 1st Amendment right, no matter what Trump says). No Molotov cocktails will be tossed. Hamas is not invited.

Greenberg said that "anybody with eyes" can see who comes to a No Kings rally.

"You see veterans, you see members of faith communities. You see federal workers, dedicated public servants. You see parents and grandparents and kids all coming together in this joyous and defiant opposition," she said.

Those are exactly the types that turned out in June, when somewhere between 3 million and 6 million people marched in what felt like a cross between a fall school carnival and a Fourth of July parade. People sauntered, they sat, they sang. But most of all, they showed up.

"If we're going to be afraid and not say anything, then [they] win," Grossman said. "The only way to stand up to oppression is to get out there in huge, great numbers."

So like her mom, she'll march and she'll ignore the poison — and much to the dismay of MAGA, I suspect millions of others just like her will too.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: Justices lean toward rejecting race in redistricting, likely boosting GOP in 2026
The what happened: Mike Johnson's nightmare: Kevin Kiley is unhappy with the speaker and has nothing to lose
The L.A. Times special: USC finds itself in funding battle between Trump and Newsom over the campus' future

P.S. This is another bit of propaganda from the Department of Homeland Security. "Remigrate" is a term often embraced by the far right that alludes to the forced deportation of immigrants, legal or not, especially those who are not of European origin.

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