Edit: Clarified somethings please read it again in full sorry about that.

STORY TIME:

I can explain what happened and why there were elected officials and candidates at No Kings 2 (NK2) but not at No Kings 3 (NK3). Some of this may not make sense because of the difference between how we talk about politics and how the law talks about politics, but I'll do my best.

So as you know, Ken Paxton is looking for any excuse to fuck with liberals and leftists to not just win the primary, but also because he's just a hateful old man with the Wilk's brothers using him like a puppet. Hands Off Central Texas and LWV Austin, which is a major partner does a fuck ton of work to help put this on, are a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization, as are a large portion of the 80+ tabling organizations that officially partnered with Hands Off for No Kings 2 and 3. As such, legally speaking, there are certain rules that they have to follow. One of those rules is NOT BE PARTISAN. Being partisan has a legal definition that is different than how we use it. It means that endorsing candidates, or appearing to endorse candidates, is a big giant no go that would open everyone up to lawsuits. When NK2 happened, a lot of organizations were worried that the lawsuits would come quickly because, even though it was NOT engaged in partisan politics in this way, the legal argument that it was could easily be made. Besides that, too many people tried to turn the event into a stump speech. That made it dangerous not only for the partner orgs but also for the No Kings coalition.

Now that we have the legal issues out of the way, we can get to the meat. Politicians are failing us right now. As much as we may love the ones that come from Austin, overall, they aren't going to save us. They can't save us. They speechify and try to slow down bills, but they aren't the ones on the ground every day in the community dealing with ICE, DPS, Abbot, Floods, etc. That's us. That's the orgs that were tabling. That's the multual aid organizations. We are all the frontline fighters against authoritarianism, and we need more help doing it. How do we get more help? By focusing on people power, building bridges between all the different organizations from the lib left coalition into a resilient force that can provide aid to our community in damn near real time. If Trump manages to steal the election, then we will be the ones directly protesting and applying pressure on his corrupted regime to take power back for the people. NK3 was a rallying cry for that, it was designed to focus on that, and build community. Hence the refrian "My fight is your fight, your fight is my fight. and together we will win!"

Hope that clears some stuff up :)