I think I’ve read five hundred articles in the last four months asking: Is this the moment that we became a fascist country?

A better question to ask is: Is this a teachable moment? And yesterday we had one, so stark in its imagery and so perfect in its timing that it should help us for many years in the drive against authoritarianism.

By now you’ve seen the images of California Sen. Alex Padilla pinned to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents for the crime of Asking Questions at a Press Conference. Every decent American looking at those images should think: “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.” (It’s hard to imagine what Hispanic Americans looking at the scene must think). But what makes the scene so exemplary is what happened right before, and what will happen shortly after.

They allow people everywhere, from many different backgrounds, to join in what till now has always been the basic American message: No Kings. Not George, Not Elon, not Don.

The before: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, previously best known for gunning down her puppy and for posing in front of caged prisoners in El Salvador, had just finished the most un-American sentence imaginable. She and her various neck-gaitered federal agents in LA, she explained, “are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

The Trump administration, in other words, considers it its right to “liberate” Californians from their elected leadership. And it demonstrated that prerogative by tackling and handcuffing one of the Golden State’s two Senators—a man who had received 6.6 million votes (compared with, say, the 217,000 votes cast for Noem the last time she ran for governor of South Dakota, and second only to his California colleague Adam Schiff for the most votes any Senator has received). No federalism, no respect for other branches of government, just the raw exercise of power through the use of troops and police. I can think of no starker challenge to America’s basic freedoms in my life.

And, happily, it comes at the right moment. Because we are now just a few hours away from what may be the biggest outburst of antiauthoritarian sentiment in America since—I don’t know. Maybe the uprising against the Intolerable Acts in 1774, when King George closed Boston Harbor and began the process of uniting colonial America against his rule.

Tomorrow is No Kings Day, a loosely organized set of protests set for every corner of the nation. Scheduled to coincide with his absurd tank parade through the streets of D.C., it’s now the perfect opportunity to react to the LA mess. If you don’t know where to go in your community, here’s the map. The demonstrations will be different across the country (I’m going to be in a rural corner of Elise Stefanik’s upstate New York district, a red region). But they allow people everywhere, from many different backgrounds, to join in what till now has always been the basic American message: No Kings. Not George, Not Elon, not Don.

And Sen. Padilla has reminded us of how to play it: firm, dignified, and peaceful. Had he started swinging at police he would have lost the day; instead he demonstrated yet again the power of courageous nonviolent resistance. His image now hangs next to those of John Lewis and Rosa Parks in the pantheon of entirely civil and entirely powerful disobedience. It may not be easy tomorrow—one Florida sheriff threatened to “kill” protesters “graveyard dead.” But I have no doubt it will be overwhelmingly peaceful, dignified, and crucial.

Once the day of demonstrations is past and the grind of steady opposition returns on Monday, we’ll be able to think in the slightly longer term.

If you don’t like what the assault on Sen. Padilla represents, then help build the power of states and cities everywhere to run themselves on the energy that falls nearby.

There is a very real chance that........

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