Trump’s ICE raids in Chicago are performance, not policy — “they want those images,” Edwin said, of a city made to look like a war zone.
Chicago’s answer has been community: People protecting one another, refusing fear, and turning outrage into civic action.
Susan tied that same spirit to the No Kings protests, a national stand against manufactured chaos and creeping authoritarianism.
Both warned that democracy won’t survive on outrage alone — it depends on citizens reclaiming agency from propaganda and power.
Edwin called the tear gas from ICE in Chicago’s streets what it is: a stage prop. “They’re not putting it out there to subdue a population,” he said, “they’re putting it out there because they want those images.” The point isn’t enforcement; it’s control of the narrative. What breaks that spell is the refusal to perform in it — neighbors walking kids home, volunteers guarding schools, citizens turning the spectacle of fear into a display of solidarity. Chicago isn’t acting out a script of submission; it’s writing its own story of civic courage.
That same defiance is spreading far beyond city limits. The No Kings protests, Susan argued, aren’t about party, but about reclaiming the meaning of public power itself. When citizens gather not in despair but in insistence — on transparency, on justice, on truth — they redefine leadership from the ground up. The antidote to authoritarian showmanship isn’t counter-theatre, it’s participation: Millions of people refusing to be told what democracy looks like. This is not only a resistance, but a renewal; the quiet reawakening of self-government through collective visibility.
That was the thread of their conversation: Democracy doesn’t die when institutions are attacked; it dies when people stop defending one another. The defense of freedom is now a neighborhood act, a moral decision repeated daily until it becomes culture.
Tune in to this powerful conversation with Susan Demas and Edwin Eisendrath — and carry that defiance into your own streets this weekend.
Don’t miss Edwin’s show, It’s the Democracy, Stupid, Fridays on Lincoln Square!
