No Kings Day Was a Joyous Carnival for Democracy

Across the United States this past Saturday, millions of patriotic, Constitution-loving, First Amendment–protecting, immigrant-defending, diversity-embracing, decent, and kind human beings took to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian presidency.

The Trumpies responded the only way they know how: by trolling. Taking their cues from House Speaker Mike Johnson, one elected GOP figure after the next denounced the protesters for participating in “Hate America” rallies and the Democrats for being a party dominated by “Marxism.” GOP figures took to the airwaves to accuse marchers of supporting Hamas supporters, embracing terrorism, and being paid by shadowy liberal funders to show up and condemn Trump. The White House spokesperson, when asked about the largest single day of protest in US history, responded with a dismissive “Who cares?”

In California, “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance presided over a display of Marine might—complete with amphibious landings, military airplane flyovers, and rounds of live ammunition fired over Interstate 5, which forced California to shut down the busiest north-south artery in the state for several hours. Governor Gavin Newsom called the display a “vanity project.” But in cities all around that vanity project, protesters refused to be intimidated, even holding a small No Kings rally at the entrance to Camp Pendleton itself.

The military theatrics weren’t restricted to the shores of California. In Texas and Virginia, GOP governors seeking to curry favors with the White House preemptively activated thousands of National Guardsmen, including Rapid Reaction Forces and Non-Lethal Weapons Platoons, to deal with what they clearly hoped would be a violent anarchic uprising. Governor Greg Abbott, never one to turn down the opportunity to throttle free speech, helpfully explained that the state had received word of a “planned antifa-linked demonstration.” In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis stayed relatively quiet, perhaps believing that his comments in June, before the previous No Kings protests, when he said that Floridians could run protesters over if they felt that their lives were at risk, didn’t need to be elaborated on.

The GOP rhetoric went from bad to worse. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas predicted that the country would be flooded with “paid agitators”—that threadbare trope that every demagogue since Joseph McCarthy has deployed against progressive protesters—and that the National Guard would have to be used to put them down. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also warned against a flood of “paid protesters.”

In the event, while millions marched—including hundreds of thousands in New York, DC, Chicago, Boston, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and other major locales, and tens of thousands even in such sleepy, affluent, and traditionally small-c conservative communities as Carlsbad, California—there were hardly any arrests. There weren’t arrests even in the heart of Trump country, where protesters in their thousands took to the streets in towns and hamlets from Idaho to West Virginia to Alabama. And most of those who were detained by police turned out to be violent MAGA supporters out to mix it up with No Kings protesters—people who drew guns, attempted to tase protesters, or even sought to drive into them with vehicles.

All things considered, it was an extraordinary day of self-discipline by the anti-Trump multitudes. The No Kings protesters had been baited for weeks by an administration itching to use any whiff of violence from anti-Trump forces as an excuse to further militarize their rule and corrode democratic norms. But instead of hurling rocks or Molotov cocktails, instead of constructing barricades out of uprooted chunks of sidewalk or burning buildings, as the administration was practically goading them to do, they showed up in inflatable frog, dinosaur, giraffe, and unicorn costumes. They came dressed as Lady Liberty. They arrived in plazas and parks and on freeway overpasses carrying humorous yet pointed placards. They sang Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” They signed enlarged copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In Sacramento, where tens of thousands gathered outside the domed Capitol, I saw a poster that read “abort unwanted presidencies,” another denouncing the “turd Reich,” and one that piquantly noted “elect a rapist, expect to get fucked.” I saw a rainbow-colored unicorn with a banner that somewhat cryptically stated, “I fart democracy not fascism.” And, of course, there were the countless images of World War II soldiers and references to how the United States has been antifa since 1941. What I didn’t see, in the hours that I was on the grounds of the state capitol, was any sign of violence. I didn’t see any weaponry. I didn’t see any physical altercations.

All told, the millions who showed up around the country to defend America’s best values turned October 18 into a joyous and overwhelmingly nonviolent carnival for democracy. I can imagine—or at least dream—that one day there will be a national holiday on October 18 in homage to those who refused to stay silent when a would-be dictator and his sycophantic cabinet tried to take a wrecking ball to constitutional governance.

By day’s end, it was clear just how intellectually and morally bankrupt were the GOP efforts to tar the protesters as Hamas-loving, antifa-anarchist traitors. The New York Post, arguably the most reliably MAGA paper in the country, didn’t even bother to cover the protests—since there was nothing negative it could have said—instead splashing yet another anti–Zohran Mamdani story across its front page the next morning.

The festive tone of the protests drove MAGA’s most high-profile figure mad with rage. OnTruth Social, Trump released a 19-second AI-generated video showing him as a crown-wearing fighter pilot in a “King Trump” jet, dropping tons of shit on No Kings protesters in New York City. Yes, you read that right: The president of these United States is fantasizing both about being a king and about dropping liquid turds on people who criticize him.

In this brutal and coarse age, that ludicrous video segment apparently passes for a presidential response to mass, peaceful discontent with Trump’s erratic and authoritarian reign.

Back in 1776, Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, his best-selling masterpiece denouncing monarchical government and celebrating the great potential for liberty among the American populace. He opined, “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”

Today, I fear, even as Trump puts in place gaudy, militaristic celebrations in preparation for the 250th anniversary of US independence, the president’s response to Paine would be to blow him a raspberry, accuse him of supporting terrorism, and deport him to a prison in El Salvador.