WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Leavitt vs. Sartre

St. Paul

Organizers estimated at least 9 million people joined more than 3,300 No Kings Day rallies worldwide, with over 200,000 in St. Paul and tens of thousands more in major cities like San Diego, Austin, and Boise.

---

Leavitt vs. Sartre

Liar-in-Chief, Karoline Leavitt

“Iran has been defeated. Any violence beyond this point will be because Iran refused to understand they have already been defeated.”

That’s a bit like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll just knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and strut about like it's won anyway.

Leavitt’s evidence of victory?

When Leavitt claims victory on the grounds that the U.S. has “destroyed Iran’s navy, air force, air defenses, and senior leadership,” she’s leaning on a familiar imperialist formula: If the enemy is smaller and has no navy, no air force, and no meaningful air defense, then victory is inevitable.

The problem is that this formula has failed in every major war since 1945. The absence of a navy or air force has never stopped an opponent from defeating the United States.

Jean-Paul Sartre

“In football, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.” — Critique of Dialectical Reason

Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960) is his giant, late‑period attempt to fuse existentialism with Marxism. It’s not a breezy read. It’s a 700‑page effort to explain how individual freedom and collective structures interact, especially under conditions of scarcity, conflict, and political struggle. But to break it down — Sartre understood the basic physics of conflict; the White House and Pentagon obviously do not.

* * *

Leavitt, echoing Trump and Hegseth, once again declared victory in Trump’s war on Iran. The only problem, according to Leavitt, is that Iran doesn’t yet realize it’s been defeated. They talk about war like it’s a game of football (soccer) with a fixed goal line and a set time limit.

If Sartre were still around, like he was during France’s colonial war in Algeria, he would likely point out to Leavitt that you don’t send 10,000 troops to invade another country just to kill a pigeon.

Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for 20% of the world’s oil and gas supply. Two of the US aircraft carriers are out of commission, and thousands of Israeli’s are spending their days in shelters as Iranian (and now Houthi) missiles elude the so-called Iron Dome.

Sartre is the antidote to Leavitt’s “the war is already won” doctrine. For Sartre, conflict is defined by the stubborn fact of the other side — the opposing team that complicates every play. His entire analysis of Algeria rested on the premise that you cannot dominate a people and then pretend their resistance is a mere inconvenience.

More Weekend Quotables

Lizz Winstead

“We are the flagship rally of No Kings Day, simply because we showed the world how to do it, y’all. Why did they think they could mess with Minnesotans?” — The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead emceed the rally in St. Paul

Gov. Tim Walz

“We will never leave the side of our Somali Minnesotans. Here's our pledge to you, our Somali Minnesotans: your great-grandchildren will still be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history.” — Speech at No Kings rally.

Pope Leo

Speaking to tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square, he said God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war… your hands are full of blood.” — Reuters

Prof. John Mearsheimer

“…And I don’t think most people fully realize it, but the Iranians hold almost all the cards in a protracted war.” — Singju Post

Bruce Springsteen

“Your strength and your commitment told us that this was still America,” he said. “And this reactionary nightmare, and these invasions of American cities, will not stand.” — At St. Paul rally

---

R.I.P. Rudy Acuña & Ernie McMillan

Two old friends, both freedom movement giants, left us this week—one who carved Chicano Studies into the academy, and one who carried the Southern freedom struggle from jail cells to community centers without ever relenting. Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña and Ernest McMillan came from different worlds, but both spent their lives insisting that people erased by power deserved to be seen, counted, and taught on their own terms. Their work bent institutions, rewrote memory, and left maps for anyone still trying to build a country worthy of its people.