Still No Kings: Millions To Protest Trump on Saturday
Millions of people will take to the streets again this Saturday to protest the autocratic regime of President Donald Trump, his government shutdown, and his demolition of Medicare, Medicaid, and other public programs in service of tax cuts for billionaires. The protests, under the brand No Kings, have the potential to be the largest ever in the United States.
As of last Friday, 2,500 events were planned across every state, Europe, and Canada, No Kings organizers said. They expect that number to grow. Multiple cities will host anchor events, including Bozeman, Montana, a college town that rarely makes national news. Other No Kings anchor protests will be in Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The latter two have been burdened by a persistent federal law enforcement presence over the past several weeks.
“If you are cynical, you might not understand the utility of simply standing together and showing the massive agreement in this moment around our disdain for a president who believes he is a king,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen and one of the rally’s organizers.
A goal of the protest is to engage more people to take a stand against America’s slide into fascism, and Gilbert’s recommendation for anyone who doesn’t know what to do is to take one extra action they’ve never done before. Never attended a rally? Go to a rally. Never called your senators? Call your senators.
“We’ve seen in other countries in the world that the thing that enabled people to fight back was an activated populace,” Gilbert said. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve here, just this groundswell of activation.”
Each event will likely have its own flavor, said Ellen Chapman, a member of the leadership of Indivisible, a social movement organization and No Kings partner. She’s a planning committee member for the protest in Sacramento, which will focus on building long-term power and passing Proposition 50. That measure would redraw California’s congressional maps to give Democrats the edge for five U.S. House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, to counteract Trump’s efforts to gerrymander districts and preserve the Republican House majority.
The event in June introduced the idea that “we need a big tent of opposition,” Chapman said, encouraging community members to understand that, regardless of other disagreements, “we can all agree on one thing—that in America we don’t tolerate kings.” Since then, the group has held small group meetings to continue discussing how to build grassroots power and what is needed to fight authoritarianism, including building connections to business leaders, educators, faith leaders, and veterans, some of whom will speak at Saturday’s rally.
“We need a big tent of opposition.”
“Previously we have been focused on contacting your elected officials—those are your windows into power,” Chapman said. Now the group is showing how to go beyond that and modeling the possibilities with its choice of speakers. Doing so can “give a permission structure to people, like, ‘Oh, here’s a person of faith, I’m a person of faith,’” and take heart that they could speak up, too.”
It’s been four months since the last No Kings protests, which drew millions of people to events in every state and across the world on June 14. Estimates vary for how many people attended; organizers on Friday put the tally at about three million, a figure they based on on-the-ground crowd counts. The data journalist G. Elliott Morris estimated far more, putting the total attendance at up to six million, or nearly two percent of the U.S. population.
Protesters who spoke with the Prospect that day said they were there out of anger toward Trump and fear for everyone his regime is abusing. They objected to Trump’s racist immigration policies and his torment of Palestinians abroad and at home, including Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil. They were outraged by Trump’s illegal layoffs of federal workers, his cuts to federal programs, and his big wet kisses to fellow oligarchs.
Conditions have only grown worse since then. Trump and his attack dogs have continued to rip up the United States and the rule of law, with National Guard deployments to states that don’t want them, persecution of his enemies, including the recent lawfare against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and ongoing racist immigration raids that have locked up 59,762 people in squalid detention sites, the most in U.S. history. At least 18 people have died in Trump’s gulags this year, also the most in U.S. history. Some have died by suicide. The vast majority of the prisoners have no criminal convictions.
Conditions have only grown worse since the last No Kings protests in June.
Trump has extended his destruction all over the globe. He has cut billions in humanitarian aid to starving people, leaving children screaming for food before they die; murdered Venezuelans and Colombians, likely civilians, in an illegal Caribbean Sea bombing campaign; and bailed out Argentina’s clownish libertarian leader Javier Milei to the tune of at least $20 billion.
Meanwhile, Trump is gorging on crypto and enriching himself further with overpriced garbage, like his $250 perfume called Victory, $375 quilted vests, $1,200 deck chairs, and $18 beer koozies that say “Trump 2028.” He’s spending his time falling asleep at events while his face goes slack on one side, paving over the historic Rose Garden, and building a $200 million ballroom while working Americans struggle to feed themselves and their families. These are just some of the horrors organizers said make Saturday’s mass protests necessary.
Republicans have begun to frame the protests as “hate America rallies,” and claim that they will be paid for by nefarious forces. The Trump administration has set in motion plans to investigate Indivisible and other liberal organizations in an attempt to crush dissent.
Activists from around the country said the stakes are rising by the day and the need for mass collective action has only grown. “We’re hoping for a day where people come together and find courage for what’s to come, to know they can say no to all this in a safe and nonviolent way and that they’re not alone,” Chapman said.
Organizers and activists have spent the last four months preparing for Saturday, including preparing volunteers with safety and de-escalation training. All hosts must attend mandatory training sessions, and more people will serve as safety marshals.
No Kings organizers emphasized that the day of mass protests will be nonviolent, and they acknowledged that some may be fearful of coming out to march given Trump’s hateful rhetoric against anti-fascists, increased immigration raids, and the shooting death of Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo at a June No Kings march in Salt Lake City. Other No Kings protests were marred by counter-protesters brandishing firearms.
One safety lead, Thadd Selden, started volunteering with No Kings in Sacramento after he went to the June rally as an attendee, the first protest he’d been to since anti-Iraq War protests in Washington, D.C. in the early 2000s. Ten thousand people came out to the earlier Sacramento protest. Selden said more are expected next weekend. About 40 safety personnel will be stationed throughout the crowd in high-visibility vests, looking for disturbances and ready to help with any emergency, including medical issues such as heat stroke or falls, he said.
Selden said the most important thing for attendees to do is to be aware of their surroundings and the people around them, and suggested watching No Kings de-escalation trainings, such as the Zoom session on October 15. “The biggest thing is pay attention, stay calm, and go to the safety people,” he said, if attendees see any disturbances.
“We’re expecting it to be a very positive event,” Selden said. “If you spend most of your time doomscrolling, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the news. Being among people who care about the same things and who are passionate about it is very energizing.”
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Whitney Curry Wimbish is a staff writer at The American Prospect. She previously worked for the Financial Times newsletters division, The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh, and the Herald News in New Jersey.