Thousands of protesters march through downtown Austin for the No Kings rally, Oct. 18, 2025. The rally against President Donald Trump and his policies included speakers, a march from the Texas State Capitol to Auditorium Shores and live music and occurred in conjunction with others across the country.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Who knows? Maybe Gov. Greg Abbott really does fear giant chipmunks, frogs, pigs and chickens. Why else would he threaten to call out the Texas National Guard on flag-waving families, grannies and the brave souls wearing full-bodied, inflatable nylon costumes in 93-degree heat?
“I think we are probably the least violent people you will ever come in contact with,” a smiling and sweating woman told me at Saturday’s “No Kings” rally in Austin, as she briefly unzipped her unicorn attire to get some fresh air under the elm trees outside the Capitol. “The fact that (Abbott) said we’re violent made me just want to prove a point.”
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She was joined by dozens of dinosaurs, cows, raccoons — even a Santa in rose-colored sunglasses — all of them showing the absurdity of the governor’s announcement Thursday that he would deploy the National Guard to Austin “ahead of a planned antifa-linked demonstration.” It was a feeble attempt at strongman theatrics, embarrassingly off-base even by Abbott’s standards.
“Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas,” said Abbott, whose office did not respond to my questions Friday about what made this democracy-in-action gathering — cosponsored by the likes of the ACLU, League of Women Voters and Sierra Club — the work of “antifa.”
To be clear, the Austin Police Department didn’t ask for the Guard’s help. “APD is fully capable and prepared to manage the events this weekend,” spokeswoman Anna Sabana told me Friday.
And come Saturday, the National Guard was nowhere to be seen as tens of thousands of rally-goers marched from the Capitol to Auditorium Shores, chanting protest slogans and passing the placid aromas from Congress Avenue coffee shops, steakhouses and the occasional cloud of pot smoke.
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Mayor Kirk Watson had previously posted on social media that he was told “the Guard will not be on the streets of Austin unless there is a determination that there is an emergency need.”
Take note, governor. There was no need.
APD reported zero arrests. The only interactions I saw between protesters and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, who handle security on the Capitol grounds, were officers helping heat-stricken attendees find shaded places to rest. The scorching weather was the most dangerous part of the day.
Still, the political temperature keeps rising. As the news from Chicago and Portland reminds us, we’re living in a moment when legitimate protest is treated as insurrection, and soldiers are dispatched to suppress dissent. All of this from a president who pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters who battered cops and smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol to try to overthrow an election — you know, actual insurrectionists. But there’s no irony or hypocrisy in that contrast. Only the consistency of a president who will deploy force, trample the law and cast off norms to get his way.
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To be sure, violence can erupt from anywhere on the political spectrum, as we saw with the horrific shooting of conservative Charlie Kirk. That is why we need leaders who defend the pillars of democracy: free speech, access to voting, non-gerrymandered districts where elected officials reflect the will of the people. Because there are only two ways to manage political conflict: with the tools of a peaceful democracy, or with the intimidation of armed soldiers.
If Abbott wants to keep invoking the Guard, protesters should keep showing him it’s ridiculously unnecessary. Lourdes Flores did her part Saturday, carrying a hilarious poster of an older woman wearing curlers, a “Black Lives Matter” button, an NPR tote bag and a sweater that reads, “I am Aunt Tifa.”
“I’m 68 and I never thought we would be in this place,” Flores told me. She thought about bringing her passport with her on Saturday, in case she needed to prove her citizenship to an immigration agent. Then she shook her head. “We shouldn’t have to do that,” she said.
At the rally end-point at Auditorium Shores — across the grassy expanse from the Raging Grannies singing “This Land Is Your Land” with the same exuberance of their flower-power youth — I caught up with members of the Democratic Study Group, most of them residents of the Westminster retirement community. Several wore signs saying, “Grandmas for Democracy.”
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“I’ve been a Republican for 60 years,” said Kay Arms, dismayed at how her party has abandoned its small-government ideals. “Get the government out of our bedrooms, our bathrooms, our hospitals and doctors’ offices.”
“We’re under attack for all the things I fought for in my 20s and 30s,” added JoAnn McKenzie, now 78. She remembers the days when women couldn’t get their own credit cards or bank accounts without their husband’s approval. She remembers Jim Crow — and worries the continued unraveling of the Voting Rights Act will drag America back to something like it.
All heavy stuff. Which makes the costumes, the witty signs and the joy of peaceful protest all the more essential to sustaining resistance.
“The most important part (of the rally),” McKenzie told me before the retirees returned to their bus, “is for it to be fun enough for people to come back and bring five friends the next time.”
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Across Lady Bird Lake, a man still dressed as a banana peddled his bicycle west along Cesar Chavez, heading home.
Bridget Grumet is the Statesman’s editorial page editor.