This is a call for you—yes, you specifically—to organize an anti-authoritarian bloc in your community for the “No Kings” demonstrations on October 18. If you are willing to do this, skip directly to the how section.

Fascism has come to power in the United States. People around the world are horrified. But simply marching in the streets once every few months is not enough. We have to get out there and draw people into concrete organizing and activity. No one else is going to do this for us.

Far-right billionaires have bought up practically all of the media outlets and communications platforms. Our best chance to reach people is in the streets, through grassroots initiatives. “No Kings” is not our only opportunity to reach out to people, but as Trump consolidates control, we can’t afford to let a single opportunity pass us by.

Anarchists are known for our courage; we have gotten used to acting boldly in an array of contexts. What is needed now is the courage to take the first step to establish public positions around which a fighting movement can cohere. This both scarier and simpler than many of the things we have done in the past.

To face down Donald Trump’s power grab and his terror campaign targeting “antifa,” we need everyone, of all walks of life, to proclaim that opposition to fascism is both laudable and urgent. We must contribute to a ferment that brings together everyone from the fiercest participants in the George Floyd revolt to the retirees that protested at Tesla outlets last spring. This does not mean limiting ourselves to lowest-common-denominator proposals—that is no way to make a big-tent movement. Rather, we need everyone to show up with their own political analysis and objectives and organizing culture, but with an understanding that we all need each other.

We have arrived at this crisis because capitalism has concentrated so much power in the hands of the extremely wealthy that the entire social order has become unstable. This is not just about a single authoritarian politician—to get out of this mess, we will have to enact social change on a larger scale than any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Yet that same instability gives more people a stake in that change than ever before. The stakes are high, but together, we can rise to the opportunity.

How to Do It

If you participate in organization with a social media platform or you feel comfortable organizing over your own social media accounts, announce a meeting point and visual cue in advance. For example, “Meet at the corner of 14th and Broadway at 10 am, at the banner reading ‘No Kings, No Masters.’” If you don’t have a social media platform, invite everyone you trust over Signal.

Even if there are only two of you, you can still paint a massive banner and carry it between the two of you, making your message clear to everyone. Who knows how many anarchists and potential anarchists attended the “No Kings” demonstration in June, but concluded that they were the only ones there because no one—including them—had made such a banner.

If you anticipate that there will be three or more of you, make sure everyone has something to do. To equip anyone who might join you, you can print out posters on 11” by 17” paper and affix them to cardboard. Better still, break the poster image into quadrants and print each quadrant out at 400% size, then assemble them parts into a much bigger whole. You could also make a piñata or some other form of effigy.

If there are dozens of you involved in the organizing, make your bloc festive and lively with a drum corps or a sound system. Just for practice, you could bring shields or a reinforced banner emblazoned with your message—not with the intention of getting into any sort of confrontation, but simply to normalize such things for other demonstrators so they can learn to feel comfortable around them.

Make fliers in advance promoting an event to take place after the “No Kings” rally. Make at least hundreds of them—you don’t want to run out. This may be your only chance to see most of these people.

If there are only a few of you, your post-“No Kings” event could be an educational event teaching people about how to resist ICE or practice proper security culture or engage in direct action planning. If there are more of you, you could invite them to a subsequent protest, or a mutual aid event, or a community assembly about how to organize collective defense. The idea is to see them again in an environment that will enable you to build political affinity together—or at least determine the extent to which you share it—without taking any needless risks that could expose you to agents provocateurs.

If your community already has an announcements-only Signal loop for rapid response organizing, you could distribute that via fliers, as well, so the people you encounter will have more than one chance to get involved.

Prepare some chants in advance!

It’s conceivable that you will encounter pushback from reactionaries or from irascible liberals, or even from official “No Kings” organizers. Stand your ground. You do not have as much to fear from them as you have to fear from what is in store for all of us if we do not mobilize. Some people will appreciate you being there—those are the ones you have to reach at all costs.

However frightening it is to take this step, the consequences of not trying will be more frightening. Remember, if you can read these words, there are others putting themselves out there at least as much as you are. That means you are not alone, and the struggle is not hopeless.

We don’t expect the October 18 “No Kings” rallies to be as widely attended as the ones last June. In June, a wave of protest activity was already sweeping the country, starting in Minneapolis and spreading to Los Angeles and beyond. Contrary to the liberals who fear that confrontation scares people away from movements, we have seen over the past decade that people are most likely to get involved in struggles when they see that there is something concrete immediately at stake.

Nonetheless, people will come to the “No Kings” demonstrations, and you should be there to engage with them. At the very least, you will be building skills and networks and a habit of acting that will serve you well in the months to come.

We should concern ourselves with forging a future where no single person—whether king or president—can claim the right to rule over millions. This means rejecting the increasingly authoritarian form of government we live under today and building something better—a society rooted in true self-determination, decentralized and non-hierarchical decision-making, and cooperative economics.

-Ryan Only and Eric Laursen, “No Kings!”? How about “No Presidents!”?