What Mike Johnson said yesterday broke almost every chain. The Speaker of the House said on Wednesday: "Anyone participating in the 'No Kings demonstrations' this weekend to protest against the Trump administration is a Hamas supporter or belongs to Antifa." And he added that such people should "also be treated accordingly."
This means that protest is no longer seen as part of democracy but as a security risk. Johnson has chosen the vocabulary of the state of emergency - and directed it against his own population. "To be treated" - two words that recalled darker times. A declaration of war on the idea that the state protects its citizens rather than fights them. They shift the relationship between power and society by a few millimeters - enough to lose balance.
The "No Kings movement," which has planned nationwide protests for October 18, 2025, the one Johnson is targeting, does not stand for chaos or violence. It stands for the opposite: for the reminder that democracy is based on control, not obedience. People have joined together to remind that no office stands above the law. That this is now considered a threat describes the state of the country more precisely than any statistic. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles County, California, the state of emergency continues - because of unlawful ICE operations. When federal agents act without coordination, it is more than administrative failure. It is the moment when institutions no longer trust each other. Johnson is using exactly this climate - uncertainty, fear, mistrust. His words are not a random slip but part of a strategy in which language replaces violence until it prepares it. Whoever calls protesters terrorists creates the moral justification for their silence.
Both sides are preparing as if more were at stake than just a political confrontation. One can only hope that it does not completely escalate. When journalists themselves have to ask what protective gear to take to a protest, then it is no longer a fringe phenomenon. That is the moment when a society realizes how far the state has already distanced itself from what it once sought to protect.
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German 
Das hört sich an wie eine offene Drohung für mich… Terroristen werden mit Waffen bekampft und festgesetzt…ist jetzt nach der verbalen Zuspitzung damit zu rechnen, dass es bald so etwas wie das Tian’anmen-Massaker in den USA gibt?
Es schüttelt mich, wo soll das alles nur hinführen…
Passt auf Euch auf, Rainer, und findet rechtzeitig den Exit-Point, wenn es notwendig wird.