Exercise the right to protest at 'No Kings' rallies

"It made it all the more rebellious of us to be there," Grossman told me. "It made us more insistent that we had to be there.

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DEMONSTRATORS PROTEST amid tear gas during a ", No Kings " event along Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles on June 14.

(JASON ARMOND Los Angeles Times)

Today, that rat poison is being metaphorically hurled by MAGA leaders such as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), in the form of noxious allegations that the No Kings marches are "Hate America" rallies staged for a "rabid base" of criminal agitators.

"It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they're all coming out," Johnson said on Fox News.

Of course, that is dumb and false. It would be all too easy to write off comments such as Johnson's as partisan jibber-jabber, but his insidious words are the kind of poison that seeps into the soil and shouldn't be ignored.

The 'enemy within'

Johnson isn't the only Republican working overtime to smear everyday folks such as Grossman. Talk about organized campaigns-Trumpites are all going after No Kings with the same script.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said: "These guys are playing to the most radical, small and violent base in the country. You'll see them on Saturday on the Mall. They just do not love this country."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has parroted similar messaging, and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), diving into old, antisemitic conspiracies, described the events as "a Soros paid-for protest," adding that the National Guard would probably need to be activated.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi added her two cents, apparently confusing printed signs, the kind that say, a union or organizations such as Planned Parenthood or the ACLU, might have made up, with evidence of diabolical terrorist networks.

"You're seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match," Bondi told Fox News.