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Listening to anyone from the Trump administration talk about the No Kings protest would have had you expecting complete anarchy. Masked men with Molotov cocktails, smoke in the air, American flags burning, police and National Guard in full riot gearâsomething more akin to January 6.âThis crazy No Kings rally this weekend, which is gonna be the farthest left, the hardest core, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party, which is a big title,â Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, claiming that the Democrats were for some reason waiting for the rally to happen before negotiating to end the government shutdown. âNo Kings equal no paychecks.âRepublicans have been repeating something along those lines for over a week leading up to the rally. âWe call it the âHate Americaâ Rally thatâll happen Saturday,â Speaker Mike Johnson said that same day. âLetâs see who shows up for that. I bet you you see pro-Hamas supporters, I bet you youâll see antifa types, I bet you youâll see Marxists in full display, the people who donât want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic. And we do.â Republican Senator Roger Marshall called it a âSoros, paid-for protest where his professional protesters show up, while House Majority Whip Tom Emmer went one step further and called it an event for the âterrorist wingâ of the Democratic Party. But much to the chagrin of the GOP, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., was not unhinged, not very far left, and entirely peaceful. The atmosphere was extremely energetic and family friendly for both young and old. People walked slowly, often with kids in tow. Countless attendees wore large inflatable costumes, inspired by the Portland frog. There was live music, tabling, and speeches by Bill Nye, Mehdi Hasan, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others. And while the event was massive, the vibe was closer to that of a lively farmerâs market on a nice Sunday morning than it was to whatever the right was trying so desperately to convince people it would be. But perhaps equally upsetting for Republicans: The 200,000 people who are estimated to have shown up in D.C.âof the roughly 7 million protesters nationwideârepresented an expansive contingent of Americans. Many of them seemed to care quite a bit about those âfoundational truthsâ Johnson pretended to be so worried about. One of those people was a 49-year-old woman wearing a massive inflatable costume of a bald eagle dressed as Uncle Sam. âItâs absurd. This is everyday Americans who are looking at ⌠every day thereâs something new that is illegal or anti-constitutional,â the eagle said when I asked her about the GOPâs antifa and Hamas allegations. âThe most American thing I think we can do is vote, and then the second most American thing you can do is peaceful protest.... I am proud to be an American, and I am proud to be part of this country, and I am an incredible supporter of the United States Constitution.â Darla, 67 (but 68 in a week), a military veteran and third-generation Philadelphean, placed a similar emphasis on what so many No Kings attendees saw as a bastardization of Americaâs founding principles. â[No Kings] means that we should have three powers, as per the Constitution, judicial, congressional, and executive, and they balance each other. And right now there is no balance,â she said. âOne person, followed by all the little sycophants and the puppet masters, is making decisions that are not being balanced. And so the White House is playing king.â She also made a point to lean in to the GOPâs mass antifa branding. âIt is antifa. Itâs anti-fascism. We have a government thatâs very quickly going into a fascist non-democracy,â Darla continued. âMy mother served in World War II. She was an anti-fascist. She served against a fascist government in Germany and in Italy, you know, the triad there. So, yeah, itâs anti fascism. Give me a break.â It took maybe about five minutes among this solidly liberal, âprotest the right wayâ No Kings crowd to completely shatter the Republican facade. These were retirees, public school teachers, college students, and quite a few former government workers whoâd been fired or took the buy out in the DOGE culling. Chantel, an African American woman in her forties, worked for the Air Force as a civilian for 20 years before taking a buyout after receiving DOGEâs infamous âfork in the roadâ email. She attended the event with her mother, Janet Winn, and was holding a sign that read âFight the Radical Right.ââI wasnât able to protest until I was officially not a government worker. So as of October 1, I can go to protest. So this is my first one. Iâm happy to be here,â she told me. âThe DEI was also part of my reasoning with making the decision to go ahead and get out of the government, because them trying to eliminate and dismantle all those things we worked for, as far as having equity and with promotions and hiring, it was really disappointing. And taking away all the Black history and the Black celebrations that we would have.... It was just disappointing after 20 years of being with them because the military was always, I felt, like the most non-biased organization. Weâve hit reverse on all the progress we made.â Lee, a Fairfax, Virginia, resident, was fired from his job as a federal contractor for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. âIt was wiped off the map, no conversation, nothing,â he said. He was there with his wife Laura, a public school teacher. They rejected the notion of being antifa, or being on George Sorosâs payroll. âNo, and I could assure you, I could use the money. I wish someone was paying me to be here!â Lee said. â I am here of my own volition, I 100 percent believe in this. I refuse to back down to this insanity that is upon us.âChuck Epps, 76, a retired local journalist and schoolteacher from Richmond, made a similar point to distance himself from such claims, recalling his experiences as an anti-war protester in the 1960s.âIâm not a proponent of violence. Never have been. Iâm old enough to have marched in anti-Vietnam protests and gotten tear gassed and so forth. And when that kind of street violence occurs, I bolt. Iâm not for violence of any kind,â he said. â99.999 percent of everybody here is here because they feel strongly about this, or theyâre just voyeurs and want to check it out.ââI think thereâs clearly a far-left fringe that does do violent things, as I would argue that thereâs a more predominant right-wing fringe that does a lot more violence and advocates for it. But thatâs not what antifascism is about. Theyâre trying to demonize everybody whoâs opposed to this administrationâs objectives. Itâs gaslighting.â There were some members of that supposed left fringe in attendance. A smaller pro-Palestinian contingent from Youth Demand D.C. and some D.C. Metro Democratic Socialists of America members were gathered by a die-in protest aimed to raise awareness of Israelâs genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. I spoke to Sam Nelson, 33, who has been a member of the D.C. Metro DSA for ten years, about his groupâs place in this movementâespecially given that the Trump administration seems to have targeted them more than many of the other groups in attendance. âSimply being in a march is not enough, and thatâs why I think itâs very important that we as DSA show up as an organization, so we can tell people that this is not just about Trump. This has been building for years, if not decades,â Nelson told me. He also emphasized that even though the DSA members there received some âweird looksâ or were approached with âcaution,â they see it as a chance to work together rather than a moment for purity testing. âThe ruling class is very collective. They love working together. The ruling class is also very internationalist. They love working with right-wing oligarchs in other countries around the world. They work together. And weâve got to work together all the same.... Youâve got to go where the people are,â he continued. âLook how many people are out here, particularly federal workers. Go where the people are mobilizing. And that might look different depending on where you live, and thatâs okay.... There are many, many roads that lead to Rome. And many paths into the socialist movement.â Itâs obvious that Republican proselytizing and fearmongering about violence and agitators at this rally was strategic, but itâs even more obvious that it was a piss poor strategy. You canât plug your ears and yell âantifaâ while hundreds of thousands of Americans march through the streets. Itâs laughable that an event co-signed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris would even serve as a sleeper cell for antifa, and yet Republicans told that lie over, and over, and over again, even as their policiesâand their presidentâbecome increasingly less popular. âItâs the ultimate gaslighting of America that this administration is trying to pull. Antifa are the people he doesnât like,â Epps told me. âItâs gaslighting, and itâs coming from the absolute highest levels of U.S. government.â
Republicans Should Be AfraidâJust Look at Who Joined No Kings Protests | The New Republic
