by Johanis Tadeo and Stan Taylor
Everywhere we turn we see the overreach and destruction of the MAGA presidency.
Pick an issue and the policies are a destructive disaster. The list is long: Wars of imperialism against Iran and Gaza; attacks on health care for veterans, women and trans people; the attacks on the right to vote; the attacks on labor unions and working-class Americans; and the use of DHS and ICE to attack immigrants in our communities.
In this moment, things feel heavy, uncertain, and for many in our community, unsafe.
We are watching a rise in policies, rhetoric, and actions that echo something dangerous, the normalization of fear, exclusion and control. Some call it politics. Many of us recognize it for what it is, an early form of fascism. And history has already taught us what happens when communities stay divided in the face of it.
The truth is, the only way forward is when we come together.
We organize. We build. We protect one another. Because no system, no government, and no single leader will save us, only community will.
Here in Springfield and Eugene, our people are feeling the impact. Families are living with fear of detention and separation. Students are navigating schools where they don’t always feel seen or safe. Workers, immigrants and people of color are too often treated as if their existence is something to question, to monitor or to criminalize. That is not justice. That is not democracy.
We deserve better. We deserve to feel safe walking in our neighborhoods, safe sending our kids to school, safe being who we are without apology.
“Mi pueblo es tu pueblo.” My people are your people. Our struggles are connected. When one group is targeted, all of us are at risk. And when we stand together, across communities, across identities, across differences we become powerful.
If we want a different future, we have to build it together. Show up. Speak out. Support one another. Get involved in your schools, your city council, your neighborhoods. Create spaces where people feel seen, heard, and valued.
Because the future we deserve will not be handed to us. We will create it together.
That is what “No Kings” represents. Not just a protest, but a call to action. A reminder that power does not belong to a few it belongs to the people. It belongs to all of us.
As communities in alliance, the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield (ACES) and the Springfield Alliance for Equity and Respect (SAfER) have partnered to organize No Kings 3.
Springfield was chosen as the venue to embrace solidarity between the activist communities in our two cities and to raise the voices of our most vulnerable community members.
Join us in creating this alliance of communities. No Kings 3 is March 28 at the Springfield City Hall with music beginning at 10:30 am, followed by a rally and march, with sign-waving along Main Street. For more information and to register for the NK3 go to Mobilize.us
Johanis Tadeo is the director of the Springfield Alliance for Equity and Respect. Stan Taylor is a steering committee member of Indivisible Eugene Springfield and a co-founder of the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield.