Millions of people are expected to march on Saturday, October 18, in more than 2,500 locations across the United States, from small towns to major metropolises, to protest the Trump administration.
The “No Kings” movement, the coalition that organized a similar mass demonstration in June, is again calling on people to take to the streets to send a simple message that Donald Trump is no king, in response to what they see as growing authoritarianism.
Several US cities now have military presence on the ground, most against the will of local leaders. Trump has vowed to crack down on dissent as part of an ongoing campaign of revenge. But organizers say they expect to see one of the largest, if not the largest, single-day demonstrations in US history.
What are the “No Kings” protests about?
A coalition of left-wing groups is again leading a day of mass demonstrations across the United States to protest the Trump administration. The coalition led a previous “No Kings” day of protests in June, drawing millions of people to the streets to protest the president on the same day Trump held a military parade in Washington.
The protests are called “No Kings” to emphasize that America does not have authoritarian leaders.
Where were the protests held?
Organizers say more than 2,500 demonstrations are planned across the country, in major cities and small towns, in all 50 states. Citizens are protesting in their own communities instead of moving to large urban centers, in order to show that dissatisfaction with Trump exists in all corners of the US.
For the October 18th day of action, organizers had identified several key locations: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, New York, Houston, Texas, Honolulu, Boston, Kansas City, Missouri, Bozeman, Montana, Chicago, and New Orleans.
The protests began at different times depending on the location.
Why did the organizers ask the protesters to wear yellow?
The organizers asked the “No Kings” protesters to wear yellow to show their unity in a visually striking way and to align with other pro-democracy movements in Ukraine, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
As the organizers put it: “Yellow is our common badge, bright, bold and impossible to ignore, a reminder that America’s strength belongs to our people, not kings.”
Who organized the protests?
More than 200 organizations have signed on as partners for the protests.
Indivisible, a progressive organization with chapters across the U.S., is the lead organizer. The American Civil Liberties Union is a partner, as is the advocacy group Public Citizen. Unions including the American Federation of Teachers and SEIU are joining the joint action. The new protest movement 50501, which launched earlier this year as a call for protests in all 50 states in a single day, is a partner. Other partners include the Human Rights Campaign, MoveOn, United We Dream, the Environmental Voters’ Club, Common Defense, and others.
Home of the Brave, a group affiliated with Trump critic George Conway that describes itself as “a community of Americans who refuse to be silenced,” announced a $1 million advertising campaign to promote the rallies.
How many people participated in the latest “No Kings” protests?
Several million people participated in the June protests, although numbers vary depending on the source.
The Harvard Crowd Counting Consortium, which uses publicly available data to estimate the size of political rallies, said the June event was “probably the second-largest one-day demonstration since Donald Trump took office in January 2017,” after the 2017 Women’s March.
The Harvard Crowd Counting Consortium estimated that between 2 million and 4.8 million people participated in more than 2,150 events on June 14, though the group notes that it could not confirm the figures for 18 percent of the protest sites, almost all of them in small cities. This was a significantly larger turnout than the Hands Off protest in April, the first major protest day of Trump’s second term.
Another estimate, by data journalist J. Elliott Morris of Substack’s Strength in Numbers newsletter, put the turnout at between 4 million and 6 million.
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Organizers expected millions of people to join the protests on October 18. More locations have signed up to host events than during the June day of action, and organizers expect to see a larger overall number of people on the streets than during the summer.
Why now?
The “No Kings” coalition cites Trump’s “increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption” as a motivation for the protests, including ramping up deportations, dismantling healthcare, redistricting and more.
The movement describes itself as pro-democracy and pro-labor and rejects “strongman politics,” pledging to fight until “we get the representation we deserve.”
The coalition points to what it sees as some of the most significant problems with Trump’s second term: Trump is using taxpayer money to gain power, sending federal forces to occupy U.S. cities. Trump has said he wants a third term and is “already acting like a monarch.” The Trump administration has gone too far with its agenda, defying the courts and dismantling services, while deporting people without due process.
The goal is to “create a massive, visible, nonviolent, national rejection of this crisis” and show that the majority of people are taking action to stop Trump.
