Bruce Springsteen wrote a protest song about two Americans killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, and on Saturday he’s going to perform it in front of 80,000 people less than 15 miles from where they died.
The Boss is headlining the flagship “No Kings” rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, alongside Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and Sen. Bernie Sanders — a lineup that reads like the ruling class’s worst nightmare.
It’s one of 3,000 protests planned across the country this weekend.
Three thousand.
Organizers say they expect to surpass the 7 million people who turned out for the October “No Kings” demonstrations, which would make Saturday the largest day of mass protest in American history.
“When you have the opportunity to sing something where the timing is essential and if you have something powerful to sing, it elevates the moment, it elevates your job to another level,” Springsteen told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “And I’m always in search of that.”
The song is called “Streets of Minneapolis,” written for Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — two Americans who died at the hands of federal agents during Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city.
Springsteen, who already has a show scheduled at Target Center in Minneapolis later this month, will also perform at the Saturday rally.
The “No Kings” movement isn’t pulling punches about why people are in the streets.
“Masked secret police terrorizing our communities. An illegal, catastrophic war putting us in danger and driving up our costs. Attacks on our freedom of speech, our civil rights, our freedom to vote. Costs pushing families to the brink,” the group’s website reads. “Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant.”
This is the third round of “No Kings” protests. The first was last June, organized as a counter-event to Trump’s military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — which conveniently fell on his 79th birthday. The second hit in October.
Since then, the list of outrages has only grown longer: more immigration raids, government shutdowns, the fight over the Epstein files, and an ongoing war in Iran.
Organizers are banking on all of it to drive turnout through the roof.
“His administration is sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities,” the organization states. “They are targeting immigrant families, profiling, arresting, and detaining people without warrants. Threatening to overtake elections. Gutting healthcare, environmental protections, and education when families need them most.”
Rebecca Larson, an Indivisible Twin Cities organizer helping coordinate the St. Paul event, told Minnesota Public Radio the movement’s north star hasn’t changed.
“Our goal is to continue to build a peaceful and nonviolent movement that gets us to the place where we have a healthy, functioning democracy, and communities and state and country where we can all thrive,” Larson said.
The rally’s location is deliberate. Minneapolis became a national flashpoint after federal agents launched immigration operations that turned deadly. Holding the flagship protest in Minnesota puts the movement squarely in the place where Americans watched their government kill their neighbors.
An Oscar winner, a folk legend, a rock icon, and the most popular independent senator in the country — all on one stage, in one city, backed by 3,000 simultaneous demonstrations from coast to coast.
The “No Kings” website closes with a line that sounds less like a slogan and more like a dare: “The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings — and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”