Thread by @SethAbramson

(🚨) I’ve never—in 30 years in journalism—published a report like this: one that could really bring *hope*. I spent 15 hours curating/labeling photos from hundreds of No Kings Day protests. It’s the largest archive of its kind (+ lots of Easter eggs).

🔗: sethabramson.substack.com/p/over-250-pho…

1/ I almost don’t know where to start in talking about the last 15 hours. They were emotional. I have renewed hope for my country. I also feel renewed awe at its size and scope.

2/ This archive is truly massive. It takes viewers all over the United States—including to some way-off-the-beaten-path corners.

3/ But I didn’t stop with America. This archive has photos of No Kings Day protests from Central America, Africa, Asia, Europe... it reminds us that we are not alone.

4/ All over the world, people detest Donald Trump and desperately want America to be rid of him. For the first time in a while I felt like we actually *do* outnumber them.

By a *lot*.

5/ But this report is bigger than that. It contains, as noted, some memes—and a link to a larger meme archive I’m building focused on No Kings Day—a personal essay about my own protest history, an argument for making No Kings Day an annual holiday and more.

6/ I think yesterday was bigger than some realize. I think the resistance to Trump has a new flag now, a new motto, a new benchmark for what organizing can accomplish, and a rallying point for our battered spirits. I think No Kings Day can be a beginning, rather than an endpoint.

7/ I wanted to publish this report now because I began seeing yesterday that while some outlets had small photo archives of the day, they focused only on big cities. I wanted to show the sweep and scope of the day—which touched every corner of this country and much of the globe.

8/ But even having said this, I can’t do the report justice.

Not because of my own contributions to it but because it’s quite simply *very emotional* to see hundreds of gatherings across the country... Americans in their different clothes, weather and habits all speaking as one.

9/ Any MAGA who thinks to look at this report and take comfort from it—Oh, they couldn’t draw a crowd in X red state or Y hamlet!—no, you’re wrong. You’ll be disappointed. People are energized to fight tyranny, as this nation has often, and every corner of America is ready to go.

10/ And have no fear, one of the many components of this report is an assessment of how *colossally embarrassing* the Trump parade was. Truly it was one of the low points not just of American political history but American military history. Trump humiliated us on the world stage.

PS/ A “finding” from this 15 hours of labor: it was almost impossible to find a No Kings Day protest that reported <300 participants. IOW, the photos you see from smaller towns—showing a few dozen people—were attached to writings about those events that placed attendance at 300+.

PS2/ I suspect many who read this—especially as you find that there’s a lengthy Conclusion after the photos (which Conclusion itself contains more photos)—will repeatedly think to themselves, My God, how long is this? Well, the crazy part is that this is only 10% of the protests.

NOTE/ Just a note to say that I’ve become a bit addicted to finding new No Kings Day photos from new locations—so there’s a good chance this archive will get even bigger than it already is. I just have to be careful, as Substack has an upload limit and the report is already huge.