The Necessity of Hope
No Kings represents a critical next step to drive change leading to the midterms and beyond
In a media event before the No Kings march in New York Saturday, speaker after speaker talked about the necessity of fighting. This was a collection of advocates and activists, most of whom have devoted their lives to working for political change.
They were there to praise millions of Americans coming together on a single day to reject the tyranny of a ruler and demand democracy, but they also offered a serious reminder: The fight for a better, more inclusive America is a struggle that demands ongoing participation.
And as much as the word “fight” came up again and again, another word undergirded the remarks of everyone there and everyone who took to the streets of America and around the world this weekend. That word is hope.
Given the daily onslaught of the Trump regime’s assault on our democracy, system of justice and basic human decency, there are many days when hope feels like a fantasy. How do you find it when this regime has empowered a murderous squad of masked men who terrorize communities by abusing undocumented immigrants and American citizens and ignoring our rule of law?
Where could it be when his so-called Justice Department mocks the law by ignoring its responsibility to protect victims of crime while covering up for rich and powerful child rapists and other sexual predators? Where is hope when a malignant sociopath launches a war with another country without authorization, support from the public or a plan that would avoid disaster and mass casualties?
But it’s the desire to set things right, to confront the abuses of power, to seek democracy and justice, to demand change—especially when it’s hard and the way forward is hard to grasp—where hope resides.
We seek change because we know that things are wrong. We seek change because we know that things can and should be better. We seek change because we have hope.
And that’s not just true on our good days—a day like March 28, 2026 when some eight million people joined together with solidarity and hope. It’s true every day when you may wake up and feel overwhelmed by the dark forces that are working methodically to further enrich the billionaire class by stealing from everyone else who struggles to make ends meet and get ahead. It’s true when you despair that you yourself or we the people have the power to fight against a hateful regime that does not care about democracy or justice or making things better.
Even on our worst days, those feelings of doubt or despair are the dark side of hope—not the absence of hope, but the shadow that exists because you have seen or can envision the sun. We only understand the darkness because we can see or sense the light. Hope exists in the light and in the darkness.
Allow me to share a few of the remarks from Saturday’s speakers.
Nancy Hagans, New York State Nurses Association president: “When our communities are under attack, we fight back.”
Padma Lakshmi, TV host, producer and activist: “I know that fear thrives in silence. We will not be silent…Today we reject fear. We demand accountability…and compassion.
Letitia James, New York State Attorney General: “The defense of our democracy does not lie in the courts. The defense of our democracy lies in the hands of the people..my job is to protect the Constitution. I will not capitulate, I will not genuflect, I will not bow, I will not bend.”
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York chapter of the ACLU: “Millions of of us are not afraid to know our rights, exercise them and stand up for each other…We will not be pushed around.”
L. Joy Williams, president of the New York chapter of the NAACP: “We don’t consent to anti-democratic rule…What we are doing today matters. Marching matters. Demonstrating matters. Showing up matters…This moment demands strong leaders—and if you cannot stand strong with the people, you need to get out of the way.”
The last speaker was Robert De Niro, one of the world’s most accomplished actors and an esteemed New Yorker, who was simply introduced as an actor and activist. As you probably know, De Niro despises Trump with the heat of a thousand suns…like so many of us do.
His scripted words were carefully stated: “When the crowds are cheering ‘No Kings,’ what I’m really hearing is, as we all know, is ‘No Trump’…He must be stopped—and he must be stopped now…It’s time to say no to Donald Trump. We’ve had enough.”
De Niro suggested that Trump and his ilk should be afraid of the collective power of the No Kings movement and the majority of Americans—“because we still believe in the core American values of justice, equality, decency and kindness.”
After the applause died down and the event concluded, I pushed to grab a quick minute with De Niro, even as his handlers were hurrying him out the door.
“How do we get rid of Trump?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he initially acknowledged, before describing how mass public protest and a growing opposition movement like No Kings is part of how it happens.
He started to walk away, but I had one more question: “Are we really going to have to endure three more years of Trump?”
De Niro stopped, turn around and took a step closer. “Well, if we don’t win the midterms,” he said, “he’ll be totally out of control.”
In that moment, I heard his alarm, indeed his fear. But I also heard that other necessary ingredient to fight against that possibility: I heard hope—hope that we can make change and overcome this malignant force in our world.
Here’s a warm moment before the event when AG James greeted De Niro.
In thinking about Saturday’s protest, I looked back at my essay from July last year entitled “Hope Is a Discipline.” Its subtitle: “This hateful regime wants to exhaust us and convince us that victory will be theirs. We have the individual and collective power to prove them wrong.”
That remains true today—and Saturday showed that more and more Americans have had enough and refuse to be exhausted. Allow me to share an excerpt of my resolve from a year ago, which upon re-reading I’m only more sure of now:
This government depends on the consent of the governed. Abusers of power will take only as much as we permit them.
But let’s zoom out for a moment to keep in mind this truth: Our large and diverse country is inexorably becoming a white minority country and the goose-stepping march by a tyrannical minority to dismantle our liberal democracy is motivated by their belief that they cannot let America achieve its egalitarian promise. There may be no words that they fear more than ‘all men are created equal.’ Their war on America is not a sign that they are winning, but in fact a response to the reality that they are losing in their hunger to ram a white nationalist future down our throats.
These days and the days ahead will be full of pain and tragedy. There will be plenty more reasons to worry that we won’t find our way through. But I’m here to assert that we are living in a moment in time that we have the power to overcome—and indeed, we will. This is not just an idle hope, unrealistic and untethered.
It’s my belief based on many times in our history when the reality was bleak and the light was hard to find. But the Confederacy did lose, slavery was abolished, Hitler and the thousand-year-Reich did die by suicide in a bunker, Joseph McCarthy’s attack on Americans as communists ended with shame and his death from alcoholism at 48, John Lewis did not give up the dream of civil rights after a bloody beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Throughout our 249-year-old democratic project, Americans have forged ahead and refused to accept that the promise of freedom and justice cannot be realized and must be abandoned.
All this gives me hope. All this reminds me not to get overwhelmed by the daily madness. It doesn’t mean ignoring the tragedies and the ongoing nightmare. Rather it gives me hope that the fight is worth it and we can’t allow ourselves to indulge in the feeling that our democracy is finished.
Part of our task right now is to recognize that hope is a discipline, a way of grasping what’s at stake. This requires looking to the past and envisioning the future to strengthen our capacity to manage the present. Some days that task will be harder than others, but I beseech you to build that muscle and hold tightly to hope.
The third No Kings protest—eight million strong—was a critical forward step in building that muscle. We need to keep making it stronger, right through the Nov. 3 midterms and beyond.
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Every day he attacks democrats and disregards the law and promotes anti American values like impeding the right to vote and harasding citizens, he is violating his oath. Like swearing to tell the truth and then committing perjury. Apart from democracy being disregarded he his intentionally violating his oath of office. How can there be no repercussions. Like a bank president stealing from his bank. The problem is not autocracy. Its lying stealing cheating and causing death destruction and financial harm.
Saturday was a wonderful day here in my town…full of hope and determination. I realized something, too…that the collection of folks from all age groups and walks of life who stood shoulder to shoulder with each other were, well…ordinary folks. I realized, too, that because I live in a ‘red’ state, that if I had seen any number of them at a grocery store, that I would have assumed they were Trump supporters by the way they ‘look’. Silly. Absurd. But when you live in a state that is top-heavy with Republicans you develop a sort of protective attitude. You don’t want to speak out. You whisper your opposition when you are sitting at a cafe or restaurant for fear of being overheard. I heard another woman say just that.
The bustling, crowded, ebullient protest on Saturday made me realize that you cannot identify pro-democracy folks by the way they wear their hair, or clothes, or whether they are old or young. So…I realized that I should speak up and out from now on because there are lots of us who need to know that we are not alone. We are not living in a MAGA universe. Such thinking is the language of fear.
Wear the t-shirt…and SMILE…at EVERYONE. You never know who is waiting to be reassured that they, too, are not alone.