“No Kings” protests have been held since the start of the second Trump administration, protesting his handling of immigration, the economy, foreign intervention, and his governing at large. This past weekend was the third major “No Kings” protest, with over 3,300 local events.
The protests were backed by about 500 groups with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenue. The lead coordinator for the protest was the Indivisible Movement, a Democratic political advocacy organization funded by billionaire George Soros. Arrests were made in Los Angeles, where dozens of protesters, including one with a dagger, refused to disperse.
Those on the right tended to note that the anti-Trump protests provided a shared emotional catharsis for attendees but not tangible change. On the left, many had criticisms of the protests while also noting that getting millions of people into the streets is a major feat and shows the widespread discontent with Trump.
A psychotherapist wrote in the Wall Street Journal Opinion (Lean Right), “At their core, the rallies resemble bad group therapy—gatherings that offer validation, solidarity and emotional release. They feel good in the moment. Participants vent, find reinforcement among like-minded people, and leave feeling heard and aligned. The experience can seem productive, even clarifying. But like bad group therapy, it stops at validation. The feelings are processed but not challenged, reinforced but not examined. There is relief but little resolution, and the underlying problems remain. It offers the feeling of progress without the substance of it.”
In Common Dreams (Left) a writer and activist argued, “When you get a record eight million people into the streets protesting fascism, war, and bigotry (and a host of other concerns), that’s something to celebrate. It’s no minor feat…We need both the huge, unifying if diffuse mass protests and more concrete, impactful actions, whether huge or not. We need both a big Democratic victory in the midterms and a strong resistance movement that is independent of the party. We need to both celebrate and critique (and change) the ‘No King’ rallies,” adding, “Liberals and lefties will never agree on everything and won’t always support the same candidates or causes; but we must collaborate and coalesce to every extent possible.”
A National Review (Right) writer said, “All of the observations I made about the demography of the ‘No Kings’ rally-goers back last year applied in redoubled measure to this year’s attending class: These people were overwhelmingly old, white, deeply elite progressives, and vastly fewer in number this second time around…And I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. The younger generation has many more discontents than their parents do right now, and it’s not as if they lack the appetite for political change themselves. I fear that, in their disillusionment and impatience with the gestural politics of boomers, they prefer more destructive methods.”
A Guardian (Left) columnist wrote, “In demonstrating the vastness of American popular discontent and the intensity of ill will toward the political right, the No Kings protests will show the human faces behind Trump’s disastrous approval rating; they will give politicians, ahead of the looming November midterms, a sense of the wisdom, or lack thereof, in following Trump’s political lead…The No Kings protests are an opportunity to demonstrate – to politicians, to the media, and to America itself – that this country also contains large swaths of liberal and left-leaning people, people who dare to imagine that they matter as much to what this country is as the conservatives do.”
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