Millions are expected to show out for protests on Saturday at more than 2,500 locations across America, from small towns to large cities, to speak against the Trump administration.No Kings, the coalition behind a mass demonstration in June, is again calling people to the streets to send the simple message that Donald Trump is not a king, pushing back against what they see as increasing authoritarianism.Several US cities now have a militarised presence on the ground, most against the will of local leaders. Trump has promised to crack down on dissent as part of an ongoing retribution campaign. Still, organisers say they expect to see one of the largest, if not the largest, single day of protest in US history.
What are the No Kings protests?
A coalition of left-leaning groups is again leading a day of mass demonstrations across the US to protest against the Trump administration. The coalition spearheaded a previous No Kings protest day in June, drawing millions to the streets to speak out against the president on the same day Trump held a military parade in Washington.The protests are called No Kings to underscore that America does not have kinds of absolute rulers, a ding against Trump’s increasing authoritarianism.“‘NO KINGS’ is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon,” a website for the protests, nokings.org, says. “Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.”
Where are they happening?
Organisers say there are more than 2,500 protests planned across the country, in the largest cities and in small towns, and in all 50 states. It is part of a distributed model where people protest in their own communities rather than travelling to large urban hubs to show that discontent with Trump exists in all corners of the US.For the 18 October day of action, organisers have identified several anchor cities: Washington DC; San Francisco; San Diego; Atlanta; New York City; Houston, Texas; Honolulu; Boston; Kansas City, Missouri; Bozeman, Montana; Chicago and New Orleans.The protests start at different times depending on location. The No Kings website has a map with details for each location.Read more about who organised the protests, why organisers are asking protesters to wear yellow, what Trump has said about them and more in our Q&A here:Here are some more images of other No Kings protests underway in several US states including North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Vermont.Screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy, who created the Star Wars series Andor, was among the thousands of people who gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon for the No Kings protest.Andor, starring Diego Luna as the protagonist, follows Cassian Andor’s journey as a thief-turned-spy for the Rebel Alliance — the good guys whose ranks eventually go on to include characters such as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo — in a crusade to take down the Galactic Empire.“We spent six years making a show about the fascist takeover of a galaxy, far, far away,” he said. “We didn’t think we were making a documentary.”Gilroy said the show offered a clear model for what authoritarian rule looks like – and how to resist it.“We spent a lot of time thinking about sacrifice and courage, and the incremental encroachment of authoritarianism and how it works,” he said. “I think I would have been. I think I would have been here anyway, but the show is only amplified my understanding of it – my understanding of the sort of karaoke fascist playbook, but also my appreciation for the varieties of courage it takes for people to resist.”Gilroy was dismayed by the “vacuum” of leadership among the anti-Trump resistance but saw reason to be hopeful as he looked out at the gathering crowd of Angelenos waving American flags and No Kings posters.The rally in Portland has turned into a massive march, now filling the city’s Hawthorne Bridge with thousands filling the streets leading to the bridge.I just witnessed a remarkable scene further back in the crowd, as protesters carrying handmade signs passed a trio of street performers, dressed as Donald Trump, whose head was entirely constructed of Cheetos, JD Vance and Kristi Noem.Just behind the performers, a group of nine people in black bloc clothing held a banner with the slogan “Organize to Attack the State” and chanted for insurrection and revolution.At least one Portlander passing the group suggested that they looked like entirely “fake antifa”.Fake or not, they were massively outnumbered by a crowd that included hundreds of people in animal costumes, making the protest feel more like a carnival than anything at all threatening.Crowds are amassing outside of City Hall in Los Angeles, where many protesters are carrying American flags and organizers are handing out sunscreen and water.A group is dancing to a live band play as street vendors sell hot dogs and elote. There is a large contingent of inflatable costumes – I’ve spotted a frog, a shark and a duck.Many people are also waving Mexican flags, which have become a sign of resistance and protest amid the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown in the city.There are plenty of signs denouncing Ice and Trump’s deportation campaign. “If you don’t care that he’s a felon, you shouldn’t care if someone is undocumented,” said one, referencing Trump’s 34 felony convictions by a New York jury.Before the march begins, a speaker just led the crowd in a chant: “Fuck Trump. Fuck Ice.”A panoply of speakers in Atlanta addressed both national problems like draconian immigration enforcement and the erosion of civil liberties, as well as issues of sharp local concern, as when a representative of Play Fair ATL – a coalition of anti-homelessness advocates and rights groups – took the stage.Play Fair intends to hold Atlanta to commitments to refrain from sweeping homeless people from the city’s streets ahead of the World Cup next year, skeptical of mayor Andre Dickens’ resolve to resist demands by FIFA and Trump.The suggestion that support for antifa–that is, antifascism–is tantamount to support for terrorism drew particular scorn from protesters.“I think that’s absurd,” said Nicky Cooper, a software developer in Atlanta. She wore a shirt with an antifascist symbol on it to the rally. The labelling of people as somehow sympathetic to terrorism is chilling, she said. “I mean, we’re leaving a digital trail of this. You know? I have antifascism mentioned on my social media stuff. I mean, I’m not a ‘member’ of antifa, because how do you join antifa? So it’s like, who the hell are we looking for here?”Comments by defense secretary Pete Hegseth to an assembly of high ranking military leaders last month featured prominently in the words of speakers and the reaction of protesters.Brian Woods, 65, from Lawrenceville, is a former Army communications staff sergeant. “I thought it was unnecessary. It goes against what we know as military people.” He marveled at the decision to put that many leaders in the same room at the same time, potentially providing an immense military target to America’s enemies. “He could have said that over one of their so-called secured lines,” a dig by a commo guy at Hegseth’s Signal chats. “They have a bulletproof mentality, so they just do things recklessly, without real thoughts that go into those types of conversations and communications.”Atlanta’s protest march concluded at 2 PM without incident, traveling down streets hallowed in civil rights history from the Atlanta Civic Center to the state capitol building about 1.2 miles away. At least 35 other affiliated No Kings Day protests demonstrations progressed across the state, from Brunswick near the Ice detention center in Folkston on Georgia’s southern border, to Dalton in the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s northwest Georgia district.Initial crowds of about 10,000 in Atlanta contracted a bit as the day progressed, but turnout was roughly equivalent to those in June in Atlanta, and more widely dispersed across the state.Erik Malewaski, a college professor who lives in Marietta–where protests also had been planned–attended the Atlanta event anyway.“I did the Marietta protest last time, and I wanted to see exactly what would go down here, particularly I thought we may get speakers like Warnock and Stacey Abrams.”As well he did. Both senator Rev Raphael Warnock and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Abrams described the actions of the federal government under President Donald Trump as fascist in plain terms.“They want us to believe that we’re in danger if we speak up…that if we assemble like the First Amendment tells us we can, that there’s a problem,” Abrams said, arguing that the attacks on press freedoms and the firing of outspoken Trump critics like Karen Attiah and Jimmy Kimmel are discrete steps on a path to autocracy. “They want to break democracy forever.” said Abrams. “Their destination is to take our country from us.”I am in downtown Portland, where many thousands of No Kings protesters, many in inflatable animal costumes, are rallying in a riverfront park.A small group of eight counter-protesters in Maga hats and Charlie Kirk shirts have been making their way through the crowd, trying to antagonize demonstrators by blaring air horns and shouting praise for Trump and transphobic slurs through megaphones.The group is led by Tommy Allen, a pro-Trump streamer who was recently charged with assault by Portland prosecutors for punching a protester outside the Ice facility in south Portland during a skirmish instigated by Nick Sortor, a conservative influencer.Their IRL trolling has led to jeers from some members of the crowd, but they have largely been ignored so far. One man, holding a sign in favor of trans rights, repeatedly screamed at the Trump supporters that they were “bootlickers”.Other protesters alerted Portland police officers to the fact that Allen seemed to be trying to provoke conflict, while recording video, and that he was recently arrested. Officers on bicycles seemed to be tracking the movements of Allen and his group from a distance.The New York police department posted on social media that most rallies across the city had ended and that there had been no arrests, adding that more than 100,000 people showed up to peacefully protest.“The majority of the No Kings protests have dispersed at this time and all traffic closures have been lifted,” the NYPD wrote. “We had more than 100,000 people across all five boroughs peacefully exercising their first amendment rights and the NYPD made zero protest-related arrests.”Good afternoon from Los Angeles, where more than two dozen No Kings protests are planned across southern California.In California, San Diego and San Francisco have been identified as the “anchor” cities for the No Kings protests, but a major demonstration is expected to kick off in downtown Los Angeles, at Gloria Molina Grand Park.Here activists are encouraging voters to pass “Prop 50” – a ballot initiative to redraw California’s congressional boundaries to give Democrats an additional five seats to offset the Republican-drawn and Trump-sought gerrymander in Texas.Earlier this morning, a group of protesters formed a human banner on Ocean Beach in San Francisco that read, according to the local ABC affiliate, “No Kings Yes on 50”.Reports are coming in that more than 200,000 people in the Washington DC area rallied near the US Capitol during the No Kings protest today. The event is of the largest nationwide mobilization since president Trump returned to office.Millions took to the streets today across more than 2,700 cities and towns, marking a day of defiance against Trump’s authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of American cities.Many people at protests across the nation appear inspired by “Operation Inflation”, an initiative where demonstrators wear colorful and inflatable costumes to protests, usually resembling an animal or Pokémon-type character.The trend started with a protester dubbed the Portland Frog, who began dressing in an inflatable frog costume to attend Ice protests.The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has joined the No Kings protesters in New York.“I proudly marched side-by-side with labor unions and so many more of our fellow citizens in NYC,” he wrote on social media. “We have no dictators in America. And we won’t allow Trump to keep eroding our democracy.”From my colleague Siri Chilukuri in Chicago:The No Kings protest kicked off in Chicago, Illinois, at Grant Park’s Butler Field at noon. There are at least 10,000 people as the speeches begin. An intergenerational group of protesters has gathered, most with signs opposing Ice’s presence in Chicago or mocking Donald Trump.Many flags, signs and T-shirts read, “Fuck Ice”, and others read “Hands Off Chicago”, a rallying cry that began when Trump first announced his intent to send the national guard into the city. Other signs read “Resist Fascism” and “Hands off our Constitution”.Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke to the crowd, which erupted in cheers when he took to the stage.“They have decided that they want a rematch of the civil war,” he said.“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit. We do not want troops in our city.”The crowd erupted in chants of “Fuck Donald Trump” while the Illinois representative Jonathan Jackson spoke to the crowd. Later, as ACLU Illinois’s communications director Ed Yohnka spoke, the crowd chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”Senator Dick Durbin, Lt Gov Juliana Stratton, Representative Chuy García, President of the Cook County board of commissioners Toni Preckwinkle, as well as local aldermen and state representatives were in attendance. More
