A Challenge for ‘No Kings’ Protests, the Third Time Around

<div><div><div><p>Deflated by their electoral losses and demoralized by President Trump’s return to power, millions of his most ardent opponents turned out at two nationwide protests last year and found an outlet for their discontent.</p><p>They hit the pavement again on Saturday for the third “No Kings” demonstrations, a boisterous show of force that filled television screens, social media feeds, and cities and towns in all 50 states. </p><p>“We’ve got to rise up,” said Mitch Campbell, 72, who brought a sign that said “No Kings Except Elvis” to the protest in Oxford, Miss., an hour’s drive from Elvis Presley’s birthplace.</p><p>“It’s reached a point now where — how can people ignore this?” Mr. Campbell said. “They’re just trampling on the Constitution. Whether it’s gas, or the tariffs, or cost of living, or whatever, I mean, we’re just not paying attention.”</p></div></div><div><div><p>Organizers hoped Saturday’s protests would turn out to be the largest yet. But as the marchers tried to fulfill that promise, it remained an open question whether another big turnout would be enough to influence the course of the nation’s politics. Can the protests harness that energy and turn it into victories in the November midterm elections? How can they avoid a primal scream that fades into a whimper?</p><p>The phrase “No Kings” is a nod to the anti-authoritarian, democratic principles the country was founded on — which the protesters say Mr. Trump has ignored.</p><p>Otherwise, organizers said, “No Kings” protests intentionally lack a single, specific demand, reflecting the diffuse nature of the anti-Trump effort. The signs protesters carried on Saturday highlighted a wide range of issues, including immigration patrols (“ICE Needs to Melt”), democracy, diversity and the war against Iran. “We Can’t Afford the War or the Gas,” read one sign in Atlanta.</p><p>Nor has a high-profile leader or public face emerged, in the way that Tom Hayden did during the 1960s antiwar protests or Jerry Falwell in the 1980s for Christian evangelicals. Luminaries of today’s left like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez act as champions of progressive causes rather than only as foils to Mr. Trump.</p><p>Organizers say the idea is to attract as many opponents of the administration as possible — especially the disaffected.</p></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/style/nuns-podcast-ultimate-frisbee-… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/style/nuns-podcast-ultimate-frisbee-… alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/27/multimedia/27NUNS-PODCAST-01… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/style/nuns-podcast-ultimate-frisbee-… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/travel/budget-rental-car-discount.ht… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/travel/budget-rental-car-discount.ht… alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/26/travel/26trippedup-budget-il… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/travel/budget-rental-car-discount.ht… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/magazine/son-weight-loss-drugs-house… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/magazine/son-weight-loss-drugs-house… alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/04/05/magazine/05mag-ethicist/05ma… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/magazine/son-weight-loss-drugs-house… href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/us/politics/no-kings-protests-trump-… ADVERTISEMENT</a></div></div></div><div><div><p>“You might think his consolidation of power is inevitable, but it isn’t,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, a progressive group that is organizing “No Kings” events.</p></div></div><div><div><figure><div><span>Image</span><div><div><source><source><source><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/28/multimedia/28nat-nokings-zpw… chant during the No Kings march in Washington on Saturday.</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span><span>Eric Lee for The New York Times</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div><div><p>Protesters held events in thousands of locations from Alaska to Florida, in liberal big cities and Republican strongholds, in addition to cities overseas. And beyond urging the faithful to turn out in big numbers and remain nonviolent, organizers were hands-off about what they expected from attendees.</p><p>Bob Norberg, 70, from Gainesville, Fla., has been involved in all three “No Kings” events. He said he hoped on Saturday “to invigorate the community to get involved, get motivated and help build momentum.”</p><p>Mr. Norberg said he believed the lack of focus in the “No Kings” message might have been less energizing for some. But, he said, he also believes the ambiguity is intentional and effective: The pro-democracy message can appeal to people on many levels.</p></div></div><div><div><p>He said, “It’s become apparent that ‘No Kings’ means ‘all of the above.’”</p><p>Organizers said before Saturday that they were hoping to exceed the seven million people they said showed up at the “No Kings” rallies in October and the millions of people they said turned out in June. (The New York Times has not verified those numbers, which encompass thousands of rallies.)</p><p>Large crowds gathered in cities like New York, Chicago and St. Paul, Minn., where Bruce Springsteen took to the stage to sing his protest anthem, “Streets of Minneapolis,” written after two citizens were killed by immigration agents earlier this year in the Twin Cities.</p><p>Demonstrators were steadfast in their opposition to the Trump administration. There was also evidence of community in a shared purpose.</p><p>A live band played as separate protests united on a lawn outside a Washington, D.C., metro station. Volunteers passed out care packages and gathered signatures for different causes, including stopping an ICE detention center from being set up in Maryland.</p><p>In Lander, Wyo., music blared from speakers, dogs wandered through the crowd and protesters — many retirees who regularly show up at similar events — chatted while holding signs with messages like “Impeach Trump.”</p></div></div><div><div><p>Phyllis Roseberry of Lander placed an upside-down American flag in a flag holder. A man pulled over and called her a “Communist bastard” before driving off.</p><p>The comments don’t anger her, she said: “I’m here because I love my country.”</p><p>Videos of the peaceful demonstrations, whether taking up several city blocks or a small-town street corner, are meant to rev up the politically weary, organizers said. So are the whimsical costumes and homemade placards, with cheeky sayings like “Make Orwell Fiction Again.”</p><p>But skeptics of such events say that during Mr. Trump’s first term, progressives mistakenly thought that mass protests were a sign of the movement’s widespread popular support, without mastering the harder work of organizing.</p><p>“These large-scale protest events make people feel like they’re not alone — it’s like collective therapy,” said Dana R. Fisher, a professor at American University who studies civic engagement.</p><p>She has surveyed “No Kings” participants in her research and supports their work. But, she added, collective catharsis and hitting what she called “a magical number” of participants is not enough to sustain an effective political movement. “What we really need to do is the work of defending democracy in our communities,” she said. “It’s not about inflatable costumes. It’s not about clever signs.”</p></div></div><div><div><p>Some anti-Trump organizers have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/to-stop-trump-democrats-can-…; the conservative Tea Party movement as inspiration. Its combative, no-compromise spirit became an effective rallying cry for Republicans as they stymied President Barack Obama’s agenda — just as Democrats would like to do to Mr. Trump.</p></div></div><div><div><figure><div><span>Image</span><div><div><source><source><source><img alt="A woman wrapped in a banner with red and white stripes." src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/03/28/multimedia/28nat-nokings-02-… participate in a “No Kings” protest at Gallagher Park in Omaha, Nebraska.</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span><span>Vincent Alban/The New York Times</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div><div><p>But the Tea Party thwarted Mr. Obama with the help of an expansive political infrastructure and wealthy donors willing to pay for it.</p><p>“No Kings” protesters do share one thing with their Republican counterparts: a belief that the country is being led to a precipice by a reckless president. In the Tea Party’s case, that was Mr. Obama.</p><p>“What really motivated the Tea Party was a deep, philosophical disagreement with Obama about what government should be — and the sense that his policies represented such an unprecedented overreach,” said Tim Phillips, a conservative activist and former president of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity.</p></div></div><div><div><p>“People wanted to stop that,” he said. “The people opposing Trump today see their fight the same way.”</p><p>Mr. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 36 percent as of March 23, from 45 percent around the time he took office last year, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/data/trumps-approval-rating-2025-01-21/">Reuter…;. </p><p>That kind of drop should help activists, but the “No Kings” rallies have forced progressives to assess whether their messaging is simple and direct enough to reach most voters.</p><p>Ms. Fisher of American University and a team of researchers <a href="https://danarfisher.com/2025/06/28/what-we-learned-studying-the-nokings…; participants at more than 300 “No Kings” events last summer and found them to be predominantly female, college educated and middle-aged. Close to 90 percent were white, the surveys found.</p><p>They were also deeply engaged politically, with more than two-thirds saying they had participated in a political boycott in the last year.</p></div></div><div><div><p>The organized opposition to Mr. Trump has had little difficulty summoning the nation’s outrage at opportune moments. Quantifying the impact of those protests is much harder.</p><p>Lara Putnam, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies political protest movements, said the recent level of activity inside the Trump opposition has been striking. In Pennsylvania, for instance, she said that she had found 80 different “No Kings” events across the state last October. That compared with 27 events on the day of the Women’s March in 2017, a mass demonstration against President Trump during his first term.</p><p>Because of social media, “it is much easier to get people in the same place,” Ms. Putnam said. “But it doesn’t necessarily make the other pieces needed for building a political movement.”</p><p>Neelam Bohra, Katie Klingsporn, and LaReeca Rucker contributed reporting.</p></div></div></div>