Americans across all 50 states began marching in protests against the Trump administration on Saturday, aligning behind a message that the country is sliding into authoritarianism and there should be no kings in the US.
Millions of people have turned out for the No Kings protests, the second iteration of a coalition that marched in June in one of the largest days of protest in US history. Events are scheduled for more than 2,700 locations, from small towns to large cities, reflecting a decentralization in an anti-Donald Trump protest movement that focused on demonstrations in Washington DC during his first presidency.
The rallies are a turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats seemed at a loss as to how to counter Republicans’ grip of the White House and both houses of Congress after stinging national election losses.
“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group, told the Associated Press. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”
In Chicago, at Grant Park’s Butler Field, at least 10,000 people assembled, many with signs opposing federal immigration agents or mocking Trump. TV stations with feeds from protests warned viewers they could not be responsible for the language used in the signage.
Some of them said “Hands Off Chicago”, a rallying cry that began when the president first announced his intent to send the national guard into the city. Others read “Resist Fascism”, but many others used language unsuitable for broadcast.
The crowd erupted in chants of “Fuck Donald Trump” when Illinois representative Jonathan Jackson took the stage.
Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, told the crowd the Trump administration had “decided that they want a rematch of the civil war”, which the white supremacist Confederacy lost to the Union in the 19th century.
“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit,” Johnson said. “We do not want troops in our city.”
More than 200,000 Washington DC-area residents rallied near the US Capitol. In many cities, protesters wore inflatable animal costumes – a Dada-esque theme created during immigration enforcement protests in Portland, Oregon, to counter the administration’s narrative of a city under the grip of lawlessness and chaos.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, costumed characters included unicorns, chickens and frogs. “It’s about the absurdity of it all,” resident Amy Adler told the Santa Fe New Mexican while wearing a lobster suit she described as an ode to Portland.
On FoxLive, national security analyst Lt Col Hal Kempfer debated whether the costumes were for defensive purposes “I don’t discount that they are just showing off the costumes but any costume like that could provide a certain amount of defensive protection from pepper balls and stuff. But you have to weigh against that you can’t move very fast and you can’t see as well.”
In Georgia, at least 10,000 people had filled the field of the Atlanta Civic Center in preparation for a march to the state capital by mid-morning.
“I heard an American president stand up the other day and say to generals in our military that we’ve got to stand up against the enemy within,” said the US senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
“I don’t care what your politics are. If you are an American citizen, you should be deeply concerned,” Warnock said. He warned about the presence of federal law enforcement “showing up in communities all across our country.
“What the hell is happening? And all of us have to be concerned.”
Trump has cracked down on US cities, attempting to send in federal troops and adding more immigration agents. He is seeking to criminalize dissent, going after left-leaning organizations that he claims are supporting terrorism or political violence.
Cities have largely fought back, suing to prevent national guard infusions, and residents have taken to the streets to speak out against the militarization of their communities.
Trump’s allies have sought to cast the No Kings protests as anti-American and led by antifa, the decentralized anti-fascist movement, while also claiming that the protests are prolonging the government shutdown. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has said he would send the state’s national guard to Austin, the state’s capital, in advance of the protests.
Some politicians, including Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy, and independent senator Bernie Sanders, attended the protests. The No Kings coalition has repeatedly underscored its commitment to nonviolent resistance, and tens of thousands of participants have trained on safety and de-escalation tactics.
“What’s most important as a message for people to carry is that the president wants us to be scared, but we will not be bullied into fear and silence,” said Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of Public Citizen, one of the protest organizers. “And it’s incredibly important for people to remain peaceful, to stand proud and to say what they care about, and not to be cowed by that fear.”
More than 200 organizations have signed on as partners for the 18 October protests. Organizers have identified several anchor cities: Washington DC, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, New York City, Houston, Honolulu, Boston, Kansas City in Missouri, Bozeman in Montana, Chicago and New Orleans.
The simple framing of the protests is that the US has no kings, a dig at Trump’s increasing authoritarianism. Trump told Fox News on Friday: “They say they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king.” Leading Republicans, including House speaker Mike Johnson, have described the protests as a “hate America rally”.
In Washington DC, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders responded to Johnson’s characterization, saying: “Boy, does he have it wrong. Millions of Americans are coming out today not because they hate America, but because we love America. We’re here because we’re going to do everything we can to honor the sacrifices of millions of men and women who over the last 250 years fought and sometimes died to defend our democracy and our freedoms.”
Among the themes the organizers have pointed to: Trump is using taxpayer money for power grabs, sending in federal forces to take over US cities; the president has said he wants a third term and “is already acting like a monarch”; the Trump administration has taken its agenda too far, defying the courts and slashing services while deporting people without due process.
Leftist groups have called for the enunciation of a clear political program and concrete demands. In a 15 October statement, No Kings, No Nazi Führers! Mobilize the Working Class Against Trump’s Dictatorship!, the Socialist Equality Party said the central slogan, “No Kings”, articulates vast popular hostility to autocracy but warned that “anger and outrage are not enough to stop dictatorship”.
The progressive group Public Citizen said the protests aimed to counter “the most unlawful administration in American history”, adding that “millions of Americans will come together in peaceful pro-democracy protests to show that we will never bow to a king”.
The June No Kings protests drew millions to the streets, with the Harvard Crowd Counting Consortium estimating that between 2 million and 4.8 million people attended protests across the more than 2,000 locations in what was “probably the second-largest single day demonstration since Trump first took office in January 2017”, second to the Women’s March in 2017.
