What just happened?

No Kings demonstration organizers have estimated that some seven million Americans came out on Saturday to make a political statement against the current administration. In addition, G. Elliott Morris reports the crowd as likely between 5.2 and 8.2 million. In both cases, the numbers show that Saturday’s anti-Trump, pro-democracy protests are the largest single-day political protest in American history—and the largest demonstration of any kind since Earth Day’s debut in 1970.

People marched through the nation’s capital. People gathered across the country, in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. They assembled in Charleston, WV. They lined up in Kent, Ohio. They even came together in Dublin, Ireland.

I myself went down to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia along the Potomac to follow the march across the Memorial Bridge from the Virginia side into the District. The day was celebratory and festive. Based on what I saw, what other people reported from around the country, and some of the data that’s come in, I have thoughts about the state of the resistance to Donald Trump in the U.S. right now.

But before I get started, the most important thing to know is that what happened over the weekend is a beginning, but in order to be a real beginning, it has to become more than just a beginning—at least if we want to stop the authoritarianism expanding and solidifying in government and civil society.

On Saturday, the march I followed went from Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. Demonstrators then walked around the Lincoln Memorial and down Constitution Avenue.

The march diverted onto the National Mall to go by the Washington Monument. Then demonstrators continued down the Mall to the main gathering between 3rd and 6th Streets along Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, where we entered a densely packed crowd that stretched past the visible horizon.

Many other events took place simultaneously all over the DC metro area. Every highway overpass I saw in Virginia was lined with demonstrators and signs (“Virginia is for Lovers not Kings”). A friend sent me photos from another event at Ballston, where she said the vibe was “very chill and very Arlington,” as people handed out lyric sheets for “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

North of the city, in Bethesda, Maryland, a crowd of demonstrators—many researchers among them—gathered for a vigil at NIH headquarters, as they have weekly for months. There were speeches from Representative Chris Van Hollen and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, both from Maryland, along with other speakers.

From my own perspective on the bridge march, it seemed to me more under-thirty attendees had shown up than at prior events, but that might be because I spent most of the morning walking a march that stretched three miles, which would knock out a lot of older folks and people with disabilities (though the march did have a small wheelchair brigade). The Portland frog and chicken both had a visible impact, with those costumes popping up again and again, along with many other inflatables.

Checking out the signs, I saw little mention of kitchen-table issues that moderate Democrats in party leadership are building their resistance narrative around. Which isn’t to say that those don’t matter. They just may not be what’s motivating people to turn out right now. Insurance rates will soon go up tremendously for millions and millions of people, and that may be the impetus for several new protests on more specific themes. My sense is that whole process can be additive rather than zero-sum.

A subset of demonstrators were also focused on the Epstein files. From signs calling Trump a CHOMO (child molester) to demands to release the files, people aren’t forgetting about this unfinished business.

On the street

I talked to a trio from a Louisiana National Guard unit that had been stationed along Constitution Avenue to keep an eye on the march. Their sergeant said they were enjoying the city and the people and hadn’t been verbally harangued much over their presence since their arrival (they got to DC some time before the weekend, though he wouldn’t tell me exactly how long they had been in town).

I mentioned that I’d heard many DC residents were unhappy over law enforcement or military personnel of any kind being sent to the city by the president for what felt like no good reason, but that I nevertheless hadn’t heard the kind of comments about the behavior of individual guard members in DC that I’d heard about ICE. My sense, I told him, was that even if most residents of DC didn’t want the guard there, at least in their city, they saw the guard’s actions as separate from ICE.

“I should hope so!” the sergeant said, obviously taken aback. I’ll address this comment more later.

I ran into a schoolteacher named Katie and asked what had brought her out. She said that her family was a military one, and she was worried about where her loved ones might be sent into combat. She said she was anxious about her child with an IEP and whether they could get an education going forward. Her adopted African American daughter faced a more uncertain future on many fronts, and she was concerned about what teachers would even be allowed to teach at schools anymore. “I love my country,” she said, “and I want people to know the real history of it, even when it’s not pretty. We can make it better, so that we can love it even more.”

Another person I spoke with was a Black Vietnam vet and a recipient of the Purple Heart from combat in Vietnam. When asked why he had come in from Maryland for the march, he said “I put my life on the line for democracy, not to have a dictatorship. I’m pissed off.”

Looking at the numbers

As I mentioned, researchers seem to agree that Saturday was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. But and at least one of them did a deeper dive, with a team on the ground interviewing No Kings attendees on Saturday.

American University professor Dana Fisher has been doing snapshot on-the-ground surveys of protests during the Trump administration for a while. This weekend, she found that as with prior surveys, attendees were predominantly white and highly educated—88% held a bachelor’s degree or higher.

I’ve discussed before about why this is and why it’s likely necessary right now, but the short version is that white Americans need to mobilize in big numbers to shift the dominant culture and also to stand up in places where people of color and especially immigrants may not be safe right now. These rallies were on the whole, very low-risk, but in my opinion, it’s good that people without much experience begin engaging. This is part of how you build a mass movement.

My sense from DC at least was that this protest had more young people than the large ones that have taken place here this year. But Fisher’s survey suggests that the median age this weekend was 44, actually a hair older than attendees at the June No Kings event. Which made me wonder if perhaps a number of significantly older and significantly younger folks showed up not changing the overall percentages but still making an impression about the sheer numbers of young folks.

In an email answering questions from me, Fisher noted that a key shift in responses this weekend came in the answer she got to one question. People were asked to agree or disagree (or to neither agree nor disagree) with the statement “Because things have gotten so far off track, Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”

Saturday, 59% disagreed with this statement, in contrast to 38% at the June No Kings Rally respondents. Asked how she interpreted this, Fisher replied, “I had been noting at previous marches including Hands Off and No Kings 1 that we were seeing increasingly violent signs, but that was gone and it was replaced by festive costumes.  There's no question that the recent assassinations and the violence we've seen from ICE and National Guard in cities has played a role.”

A note on violence

Despite all the talk on so many news sites about peaceful protests, it’s worth keeping in mind that those standing against Trump are often not the ones who get to decide whether violence comes into play during a demonstration. The government has access to munitions and the capacity for violence far beyond the current means of those who oppose the president, who is currently unleashing that violence around the world, at home on immigrants, and on U.S. citizens as well.

To me, the shift toward more people who don’t believe that political violence is likely due to two things. The first (as Fisher suggested) is that the response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, while it doesn’t currently appear to be more than the work of one person opposed to Kirk’s policies, led to a tremendous backlash. It may be that more people are now sensitized (temporarily or not) to the costs of political violence.

The shift may also mean that people are feeling less hopeless, that seeing or taking part in a building momentum against Trump around the country allows people to feel more powerful and less at the mercy of the president.

On-ramp to change

Since the weekend, many people have said, more or less, “Great! Millions of people showed up, but no one actually made any demands that had to be met. They just showed up and went home.” And in the long run, of course demands will have to be made, and specific goals will have to be pursued. But first we have to build a movement beyond the core people who have been safeguarding shards of our democracy while consistently being brutalized.

Any nationwide movement at the start is going to need to feel fun and welcoming, with low barriers to entry and some emotional rewards for showing up. For those who say this is babying people, that’s a fair criticism. But many Americans have little or no experience with political action, and wresting the entire political landscape from those in power now is going to require more of them to get engaged.

And the mere presence of that many people does begin to shift the window of possibility. Over the weekend, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called for a general strike. Whatever your opinion of Johnson, for the mayor of a city to call for a general strike suggests a tremendous force is gathering.

These things take time. Yet we don’t have a lot of time left to stop the administration’s power grab. This is our dilemma. And meanwhile, many thousands—including whole communities—are already being subjected to horrific violence and abuse.

Some communities have already been organizing in very concrete ways and making demands in the face of significant oppression. Other people are just recognizing there’s a problem that requires a response from them. This is our conundrum, and there will be tensions that have to be addressed within and between communities. But I think this weekend was a good step toward expanding the pool of people who want to be part of the solution.

Shifting power differentials

And don’t underestimate how alarming millions of people in the street are to Trump’s cohort. They understand the growing threat to them very well—the power represented by these millions.

In addition, the very overt rejection of violence in these marches that the administration tagged as organized and populated by terrorists is useful to the left as PR. The costumes, the singing, the mockery have an effect. The fact that the police did not instigate violence in many locations on Saturday—despite being handed a White House invitation to do so—is obviously disturbing to Trump and his allies. They themselves would not hesitate to do harm; to imagine anyone else having discipline is unsettling.

And one note about the police. The DC cops I saw at Smithsonian metro station Saturday afternoon said that they had not only not seen or responded to any incidents so far, they hadn’t heard of other officers responding either.

Many departments, including the NYPD, came out over the weekend to say in a very public way that no arrests had been made, and that the protests were peaceful. Their words were followed by Austin police, San Diego police, and others.

I would argue that this is very good news, too. The reason is not because of some change of heart about police methods, or reforming of department abuses. I’ve mentioned before that while groups can act morally to bring down authoritarian rule, often key parts are played by different factions within a government as they engage in a power struggle with one another.

In this case, I’m saying that in various places, police are choosing to thumb their nose at the Trump administration. They are beginning to imagine themselves in an institutional role that might defy the president’s overreach. It’s in part a bet made to protect their own prerogative and authority over state-administered violence in their regions. And it’s in part a bet on which side they think is going to win in the long run. Whatever you think of cops, my sense is that it’s very good news for those opposed to Trump that departments put out these PR bulletins this weekend. I suspect that some part of all this was on the mind of the sergeant I spoke to, as well.

Institutions tend to look out for their own interests. As professor Lisa Corrigan noted over the weekend, the rallies in small towns were typically larger than the police force in those areas. Whatever some or most of the police would like to do, a lot of people showing up in the streets of towns across the country will make not only the president but others pay attention.

Was there even a point?

Still, last weekend is just a start. We have to normalize dominant American culture becoming one that stands up for vulnerable people. Getting more feet out in public makes a movement more attractive.

I realize the frustrations of those who’ve been organizing in concrete ways or who’ve remained unseen while subjected to violence form the government. It’s terrible to be isolated and left to deal with abuse then have people show up and dance around in inflatable costumes as if the whole thing is a party, maybe even imagining their contribution is the same kind of contribution that community activists have been making for years, even decades. It can feel exhausting.

What I understand less is people who are out there discouraging others from acting at all. By all means, go to the big protests and recruit people for real action. Organize local mutual aid efforts or specific demands on referendums or policing where you live.

But if your specialty is just “I’m going to criticize but do nothing myself” or “I get to be the boss of everybody, and here’s what you’re doing wrong,” it turns out those lines of thinking aren’t very useful most of the time. More often than not, the fact that different people have different motivations and are good at different things can be a strength. Sometimes I think people imagine just because holes are visible in someone else’s approach, it means they shouldn’t do what they’re doing. Maybe all that needs to happen is for someone to fill those holes.

And it’s true that sometimes an approach to pushing back against authoritarianism is deeply flawed and counterproductive. But I’m not seeing that in these protests so far—I’m seeing a lot more possibility. In any case, if you want to convince people to change what they’re doing, you have to be able to persuade them. Which means presenting them with something better and more effective then motivating them, not just shredding the first attempt they make.

What did outsiders see?

In terms of other institutional responses, the strangest one came from the White House itself. The administration immediately pivoted to showing Trump as a king in different settings. JD Vance posted video of Trump in a crown. Trump himself posted AI slop video that shows him as “King Trump” in a jet, dropping shit onto protesters. The AI slop that should be embarrassing enough on its own, but was made more so given the ticky-tacky dollar-store traitor vibe. (I’m not going to link to AI-generated videos here, but I’m sure you’ve seen them already.)

It’s good to press Trump into this corner. As the president normalizes talk of making himself king or continuing to seize power, some number of those people who thought it was a joke will realize the breadth and depth of the scope of power he’s aiming for.

Again, there might not be a big number of independents or weak Trump supporters who will shift. But we don’t need to change a lot of minds. Though we do need to change the minds of enough to build in a window for new gerrymandering that will lead to voter suppression, the numbers that need to shift are within the range of possibility.

What else changed

I want to say one other thing about this weekend. Especially in deep- red communities, people drove through their streets and saw their neighbors demonstrating. Maybe it was someone who seemed annoying or strange to them—the quintuple-pierced or rainbow-haired local activist that Mike Johnson warned them about. Yet they saw a peaceful demonstration. Even if they never encountered another clip or legitimate news story about the event, that seed is planted in their head. What if the other demonstrations really looked like the one in their town?

I’m thinking of Kendra Sullivan in Beckley, West Virginia, the state I grew up in. Sullivan staged a one-woman No Kings protest. People in her community confronted her, called the police on her, and even physically threatened her. But after she kept her vigil, who knows who else in Beckley now realizes that someone else feels like they do?

The next step

The question “what’s the next step” is far more important than “what just happened”? The answer is to do something concrete and encourage others to join you.

One of my favorite contingents I saw this weekend was a group of women carrying signs that read “The Most dangerous Immigrants arrived in 1492” and a flag that said ‘YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND.” They chose a role and their message meant both for their fellow demonstrators and for the world.

I’m also thinking of the Black woman at the Women’s March in January 2017 carrying a sign reading, “White women voted for Trump.” That’s someone who’s also found a role they can play.

Maybe you think the whole protest should be provocative signs like those. Or maybe you don’t like signs with an adversarial edge.

Or maybe you don’t like corporatized protests, with official sponsors and celebrity speakers. If that’s the case, avoid the frivolity and only address serious matters seriously through mutual aid or concrete, measurable goods. Build your own organization or plug into an existing one and work with like-minded people. I don’t say any of this to dismiss anyone. The thing you’re wishing everyone else was doing instead of what they are might be the best contribution you can make—go out and do that.

You could work against ICE recruitment where you live. You could organize to bolster food banks that are already facing incredible crises, which are likely to become more profound as we move toward winter. If you’re still out in public complaining that you don’t know what to do at this point, ask yourself why you don’t know. But then do something.

In a post from Friday, Amanda Litman has listed 51 specific actions that you can take to make a difference. Some of them may seem tiny or off-topic, but they’re all geared at helping you imagine the world you want to live in and then beginning to build that place. If you can think of something better than what she’s posted, then do that.

Different people will do different things, and the truth is that while history gives us a rundown of some of what has worked in the past, it’s an imperfect guide to what exactly we need to do in the present. We can’t be sure where or what the tipping point will be. The more things we try, the more people we get moving, the better.

Your paid subscriptions support my work.