On October 18, an estimated seven million people turned out in all fifty states for one of more than 2,700 “No Kings” rallies, in what was likely the second largest single day of protest in the history of the United States (after the first Earth Day in 1970). Despite escalating rhetoric from the White House comparing Democrats to “terrorists” and “criminals,” these large-scale public demonstrations were peaceful, joyous, and largely non-ideological.
Photos from the rallies show a diverse range of participants: old, young, urban, rural, queer, straight, and multi-racial. These were clearly not the “hate America” cabals that House Speaker Mike Johnson warned of in the days leading up to the protests. A sizable contingent of demonstrators waved American flags, and some paraded in patriotic costumes—George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Uncle Sam, and Lady Liberty could all be spotted marching and mingling with their compatriots. In Washington, D.C., protestors unfurled a giant replica of the Constitution, to which they added their own signatures. In New York City, where more than 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets, police reported a grand total of zero protest-related arrests.
Victor Grigas (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A No Kings rally in Concord, Massachusetts, on October 18, 2025.
Although the rallies were unarguably a success in terms of turnout and visibility, some folks did question their political utility. “Wake me up when ya’ll are ready to do something about ICE,” one person wrote in response to photos posted on social media from a rally in Upstate New York. In The Atlantic, George Packer cited the protests approvingly, but also wondered whether “intermittent” protests could really sustain an effective political movement. We shouldn’t automatically dismiss such doubts and negativity: If some people question the efficacy of the protests or see them as useless virtue signaling, then we need to spell out exactly what they represent and what they can realistically achieve.
Civil resistance aims to change the status quo, but that’s not the only measuring stick. Protests of this sort are not only about the impacts they have on the external world; they are also important for effecting internal change. People who participate in these protests learn to straighten their spines and lift their voices. They learn about the possibilities for broad solidarity, and they learn the value and the discipline of nonviolence.
Protests like No Kings are a way to exercise fundamental democratic rights and assert moral principles against the nihilism of the MAGA program. By locking arms with others and directing our shared sense of despair toward building a resistance movement, we bolster the sense of agency and possibility that democracy requires.
People who have experienced long periods of authoritarian repression often describe feeling sullied and compromised. The Czech dissident-turned-president Václav Havel described this as the “contamination of the moral environment.” No matter how you see yourself in relation to the government or where you sit on the political spectrum, everyone in an authoritarian society lives in the shadow of the regime’s lies and against the backdrop of its violence and stupidity. Even those who oppose it are still exposed to these contaminants.
President Donald Trump and his MAGA hype-squad want you to feel demoralized, to believe that the system is degraded and rotten. It’s part of an overarching plan to convince would-be opponents that democracy is beyond repair and, therefore, no longer worth defending. With every Immigration and Customs Enforcement assault, every deranged artificial intelligence-produced video, every racist outburst, every groundless health directive, and every attack on vetted knowledge and free inquiry, the Trump Administration aims, first and foremost, to deprive the opposition of any sense of hope or idealism.
Protests can help to replenish and polish what the regime has drained or tarnished. Civil resistance opens a pathway to engaged citizenship. No Kings and similar protest movements are, therefore, a moral decontamination project. By responding en masse to unprincipled, immoral leaders and policies, these demonstrations keep alive the ideals of democratic citizenship, and they revitalize the rights and duties which democracy aims to instill.
Lorie Shaull (CC BY 4.0)
A No Kings rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, on October 18, 2025.
Like other authoritarian movements, MAGA wants to transform its citizens into obedient subjects and pressure the population into a reactive mode of life. This means taking our political cues from others and behaving in the ways that some authority expects or demands. A thoroughly reactive individual is a kind of marionette—controlled by others, pulled this way and that by external forces.
Democracy, in contrast, requires citizens to embrace an active mode of life. It depends on our ability to muster free will and channel this toward collective moral projects. A free and active life is made possible when people declare their values and begin to extract themselves from what the political philosopher Hannah Arendt called “the isolation of the fictitious world of the [totalitarian] movement.” We need to connect with others who also wish to repudiate the moral ugliness of the regime.
Asserting pro-social values and showing up for each other is never an empty gesture. Protests preserve and solidify a space where we can reimagine the country, think about how to build a better future together, and incentivize the political elites who claim to represent us. The exercise of our First Amendment rights isn’t only about the exercise of free speech and assembly for their own sakes. It gives those who strive to be free the opportunity to share and debate with others their visions of a just society.
Protests are no magic bullet. They will not, by themselves, restrain the bad actors who are now engaged in the tearing down of civil society and the steamrolling of the rule of law. But this is not the same as saying that protests don’t work or don’t matter.
Scholars such as Erica Chenoweth have shown that nonviolent civil resistance is more effective at creating change than movements based on violence. David Meyer, author of How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter, has argued that protests do not transform the world in one fell swoop; rather, they foster change over time when combined with other tactics. Getting people out to protest is the first imperative, but what is most important is what happens when they go home.
Susan Kilmer
A No Kings rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 18, 2025.
In a contaminated moral environment, protests rarely happen, and when they do, they tend to fizzle and fade away quickly. It’s difficult in a country as large as the United States, where the information ecosystem is so fragmented and unstable, to concentrate and maintain a social movement. But those who participated in the recent No Kings events know that something hopeful was awakened here. The rallies have launched America’s resistance movement toward something consequential, even if the road ahead is uncertain.
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. described a “process of self-purification” which was necessary to give the members of his movement strength in the face of violent opposition and keep them advancing on a path toward justice. The recent No Kings rallies are, likewise, a prefatory exercise. They invite us to begin a critical self-inventory. Their purpose is to prepare us for the work that lies ahead and the risks which may be entailed.
That’s what everyone was able to glimpse in the seven million who chanted, sang, and marched over the weekend. A people preparing to pay the costs of democracy. A people making themselves worthy of a Republic.