Opponents of President Donald Trump’s policies have organized another national day of protest called “No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance” on Saturday, Oct. 18, with four scheduled in Kane County in Geneva, Aurora, Elgin and Pingree Grove.

We Can Lead Change Fox Valley, Fox Valley Activists, Fox Valley Rising Indivisible, HIKE Indivisible and Indivisible Batavia-Aurora organized the Geneva rally.

“This will be our 14th rally,” said Miki Powell of St. Charles, who serves on the steering committee for We can Lead Change Fox Valley.

As to how many people will be expected, Powell said the largest past rally was about 10,000 and the smallest was 300.

“We don’t know what to expect, but we’ve had a high number of RSVPs,” Powell said.

As to why these rallies continue, Powell said, it is because “this country is a democracy.”

“We’ve never had a king and currently, our president is acting like a king and moving in that direction,” Powell said. “We refuse to allow that.”

The very public nature of the anti-Trump rallies also serves the purpose of building community of those who agree and want to get involved, Powell said.

“Some people even pull off the road, come park and participate at the moment,” Powell said of past rallies. “This one is one of thousands all over the country. ... There will be a lot of people with homemade signs. ‘No Kings’ will be the message of the day.”

Organizers of the Geneva rally will also be collecting items for a local crisis shelter: Pull-Ups, baby shampoo body wash, diapers, paper plates and bowls, disposable flatware, tissues, and all single-serving cookies, fruit cups, applesauce and chips.

On Oct. 10, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson condemned the rallies against the Trump administration, calling them “hate America rallies.”

“They have a hate America rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall” in Washington, D.C., Johnson said. “It’s the Antifa crowd and the pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxists – they’re all going to gather on the Mall."

Geneva resident Heidi DeMarco, also one of the rally organizers with Indivisible Fox Valley Rising and We Can Lead Change, disagreed with Johnson’s comments.

“If anything, it’s the most American thing you can do,” DeMarco said of the protest rallies.

“That is how our country was founded. It’s one of the biggest reasons it was founded, because people could not speak out against the government,” DeMarcop said. “It’s one of the biggest rights our forefathers started with. They made it our First Amendment right ... and we need to use it in this fight against fascism.”

Information about the four rallies:

• Geneva No Kings rally, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Randall Road and Gleneagle Drive.
• No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Kimball Street and North Grove Avenue, Elgin.
• Aurora No Kings rally, noon to 2 p.m. at McCarty Park, 350 E. Galena Blvd.
• No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance, noon to 3 p.m. at Illinois Routes 47 and 72, Pingree Grove.