Erin Bosack is acting CAPA Co-President and delivered this speech at the Wilmette, IL No Kings Day Rally on 3/28/26.
Good morning. I’d like to ask you to do something. Take a moment to acknowledge yourself or someone else in the crowd for doing whatever it took to get here today. Anything you’ve done to work for peace and justice and democracy – big actions or small — it makes a difference.
Is anyone here for their first protest ever?
And raise your hand if you’ve been doing this for a long damn time?
Okay, now make some noise if you are ready to create a world that works for everyone.
Most of us in this country want all the things that make life work — affordable healthcare and housing, good schools, wages that allow us to thrive, quality food and enough to eat, safe neighborhoods, infrastructure to combat climate change and an end to war.
And yet our elected leaders fail miserably at representing these interests. Far too many politicians work for power, not for people. They commit our resources to forever wars. They inflict trauma. They take life.
How do we change this?
Yes, by all means, we should go to the polls in November. We should work to get the most progressive candidates elected. But once they’re in office, we can’t go back to business as usual. It would be nice if we could trust our representatives to do the job of representing us and keeping the promises that compelled us to vote for them. But much too often, we can’t.
Even those who go into office with the best intentions find out quickly that the system is working against them, as well. Too often they are forced to compromise their values, to sell out, to give in. And before you know it, they’re voting to fund another genocide or passing a law that hurts their constituents while lining the pockets of oligarchs. We must say no more!
How do we transform a system that allows this to happen?
We keep participating in our democracy even after an election. We hold elected officials accountable. We tell them over and over what we expect, we thank them when they do the right thing, and if they don’t…we own our power.
If our government doesn’t work for us, we the people can withdraw our consent, stop cooperating, remind those who have gotten too comfortable with power and privilege that the people make this system run. Our labor and our consumer dollars keep it going. And we can withdraw them both.
We say no to a government that refuses to acknowledge the harm it has done to black and brown people throughout history and continues to do to this day. A government that treats human beings as expendable in service of an economy that demands constant growth. A government that allocates more than half its discretionary budget to the military. One that spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined.
We say no to politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, who wreak havoc around the world, kidnapping leaders, starving civilians, destroying infrastructure, ruining lives, all under the guise of spreading democracy and human rights, all while people at home suffer and as the militarism we enact abroad creeps its way further into our own society.
How do we transform a system that refuses to affirm life? We organize and build community. We show our leaders that if they won’t take care of us, we will take care of each other. We will not disappear behind closed doors in fear. We will not turn on our neighbors.
The wealthiest 1% would love nothing more than for the rest of us to point fingers, place blame, and fight to the death if needed if it means they won’t be held accountable. Instead we have to come together building mutual aid networks, having difficult conversations when we don’t see eye to eye, showing up as one diverse people, and recognizing that what we have in common binds us much more than our differences separate us.
Donald Trump is not an aberration. He is a symptom of a much larger problem. If we don’t do the hard work of calling out hypocrisy, challenging the accumulation of wealth, thinking critically, and restoring checks and balances, then another Trump will emerge to seize more power and sow more discord.
It would be easy to despair in these conditions or to throw up our hands and say the problem is too big. That we’re not enough. But it’s not true. Alone we are not enough, but together we can be. Seek out stories of positive change that inspire you. Learn the history of movements that have succeeded, largely through the efforts of black and brown people, by enacting boycotts and legal challenges, mobilizing voters and lobbying legislators.
And then look around. Whatever injustice you see, whatever upsets you most or lights a fire in your belly, there is a group somewhere working on it. Join them. Go to a meeting and take a friend. Ask questions. Learn about the issue and find out how you can help. Do your part. Democracy needs all of us, and showing up today is just the beginning.