Listening to anyone in the Trump administration talk about the No Kings protest, you might expect complete anarchy. People in masks, with Molotov cocktails, smoke in the air, burning American flags, police and National Guard in full gear – something more like January 6th.
“This crazy No Kings rally this weekend will be the farthest left, hardest core and most upset in the Democratic Party, and that's a big title,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. saidclaiming that Democrats were waiting for the rally for some reason before negotiating to end the government shutdown. “No kings equal no salaries.”
Republicans had been repeating something along these lines for more than a week before the rally.
“We're calling this the Hate America Rally on Saturday,” Speaker Mike Johnson said that same day. “Let's see who comes to this. I bet you'll see Hamas supporters, I bet you'll see antifa types, I bet you'll see Marxists on full display, people who don't want to stand up and defend the fundamental truths of this republic. And we do.”
Republican Senator Roger Marshall called it's a “Soros-sponsored protest with his professional protesters showing up,” and House Majority Leader Tom Emmer went further and called it an event for “terrorist wing» Democratic Party.
But much to the chagrin of the Republican Party, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C. was not crazy, not very left-wing, and completely peaceful. The atmosphere was extremely energetic and family friendly for both young and old. People walked slowly, often with children. Countless visitors were dressed in large inflatable costumes inspired by Portland frog. There was live music, tables and appearances from Bill Nye, Mehdi Hassan, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others. And while the event was large, the atmosphere was closer to that of a busy farmers market on a beautiful Sunday morning than the right-wingers were so desperate to convince people that this would be the case.
But perhaps just as upsetting for Republicans: the estimated 200,000 people who showed up in Washington—out of some seven million protesters nationwide—represented a large contingent of Americans. Many of them seemed quite concerned about the “founding truths” that Johnson said he was so concerned about.
One of those people was a 49-year-old woman dressed in a massive inflatable bald eagle costume dressed as Uncle Sam. “It's absurd. It's ordinary Americans who are watching…every day there's something new that comes out that is illegal or unconstitutional,” Eagle said when I asked her about the GOP's accusations of antifa and Hamas. “The most American thing we can do, in my opinion, is vote, and the second most American thing you can do is peacefully protest… I'm proud to be an American, and I'm proud to be a part of this country, and I'm an incredible supporter of the Constitution of the United States.”
Darla, 67 (but turned 68 in a week), a military veteran and third-generation Philadelphian, made a similar point about what many No Kings members saw as a distortion of America's founding principles.
“[No Kings] means that we must have three powers, according to the Constitution: the judiciary, the Congress and the executive, and they balance each other. And now there is no balance,” she said. “One person, followed by all the little sycophants and puppet masters, makes decisions that are not balanced. And so the White House is playing king.”
She also tried to lean V massive antifa branding of the Republican Party.
“This is antifa. This is anti-fascism. We have a government that is moving very quickly towards fascist undemocracy,” Darla continued. “My mother fought in World War II. She was an anti-fascist. She served against the fascist government in Germany and Italy, you know, the triad there. So yeah, it's anti-fascist. Give me a break.”
Among this solidly liberal, “protesting the right way” crowd, it took about five minutes for the No Kings to completely destroy the Republican façade. These included retirees, public school teachers, college students and quite a few former government employees who were laid off or given ransom as a result of the DOGE cull.
Chantel, an African-American woman in her forties, worked as a civilian in the Air Force for 20 years before agreeing to a buyout after receiving the infamous “fork in the road” email from DOGE. She attended the event with her mother, Janet Wynne, and held a sign that read “Fight the Radical Right.”
“I couldn't protest until I officially became a government employee. So from October 1st I can protest. So this is my first protest. I'm glad to be here,” she told me. “DEI was also part of my reasoning in deciding to go ahead and leave the government because they were trying to dismantle and dismantle everything that we worked for, in terms of equity, promotions and hiring, it was really disappointing. And if you take away all the black history and black celebrations that we would have… It was just disappointing after 20 years of working with them, because the military has always, I felt they were the most unbiased organization. We hit it the other way around. at all the progress we have made.”
Lee, a resident of Fairfax, Virginia, was fired from his job as a federal contractor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It was wiped off the map, no talk, nothing,” he said. He was there with his wife Laura, a public school teacher. They rejected the idea of being antifa or being paid by George Soros.
“No, and I can assure you that I will use this money. I wish someone would pay me to be here!” – Lee said. “I'm here of my own free will, I believe it 100 percent. I refuse to give in to this madness that has befallen us.”
Chuck Epps, 76, a retired local journalist and schoolteacher from Richmond, offered a similar view to distance himself from such claims, recalling his experiences as an anti-war protest in the 1960s.
“I'm not a supporter of violence. I never have been. I'm old enough to have been involved in anti-Vietnam protests and been exposed to tear gas and so on. And when that kind of street violence happens, I run away. I'm not for violence of any kind,” he said. “99.999 percent of everyone here is because they strongly believe it, or they're just voyeurs and want to check it out.”
“I think there are clearly far-left radicals who do violent things, and I would say there are more dominant right-wingers who do much more violence and defend it. But that's not what anti-fascism is about. They're trying to demonize everyone who opposes the goals of this administration. That's gaslighting.”
Some representatives of this supposed leftist line were present at the event. A smaller pro-Palestinian contingent from Youth Demand D.C. and some members of the Democratic Socialists of America of D.C. was assembled for a protest aimed at raising awareness of Israel's genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
I spoke with Sam Nelson, 33, who has been a member of DSA Metro DC for a decade, about his group's place in the movement, especially since the Trump administration seemed to target them more than many of the other groups present.
“Just marching is not enough, and that's why I think it's really important that we as DSA step up as an organization so that we can tell people that this is not just about Trump. This has been years, if not decades, in the making,” Nelson told me. He also stressed that while DSA members there were looked at “strangely” or treated with “caution,” they viewed it as a chance to work together, rather than as a purity check moment.
“The ruling class is very collective. They like to work together. The ruling class is also very international. They like to work with right-wing oligarchs in other countries around the world. They work together. And we still have to work together… You have to go where the people are,” he continued. – Look how many people are here, especially federal employees. Go where people are mobilizing. And it may look different depending on where you live, and that's okay… There are many, many roads leading to Rome. And there are many paths into the socialist movement.”
It's obvious that Republican proselytizing and fear-mongering about violence and agitators at this rally was strategic, but it's even more obvious that it was an extremely bad strategy. You can't cover your ears and scream “antifa” while hundreds of thousands of Americans march in the streets. It's ridiculous that an event signed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris even served as a sleeper cell for antifa, and yet Republicans have repeated these lies over and over and over again, even as their policies—and their president—become increasingly unpopular.
“This is the real gaslighting of America that this administration is trying to do. Antifa are the people he doesn't like,” Epps told me. “This is gaslighting, and it comes from the highest levels of the US government.”
