‘How to Convert the Success of the No Kings Protests Into a Nationwide Anti-Trump Uprising’

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On Saturday 18^th October, as one does, I dressed up in a giant inflatable frog costume, and joined a local #NoKings protest, part of a nationwide series of demonstrations, against the Trump administration’s cruel and increasingly authoritarian policies.  The #NoKings aim is to call out Trump’s imperial behaviour and remind Americans that America’s democracy was founded in opposition to monarchy. 

My frog costume was in honour of the protestors in Portland, who have been mocking Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to that city by dressing up in absurd costumes, such as inflatable frogs, unicorns, and pink ponies, and prancing around to music in front of an ICE detention facility, to disprove Trump’s allegations that the city is rocked with violence. My costume was a hit. Dozens of other protestors lined up to take selfies with me; people cheered as I walked by; and cars hooted as they drove past.

Everyone was on their best behaviour – to avoid giving any pretext to Trump officials to accuse the participants of disorderly, unpatriotic or hateful conduct. There were lots of American flags on display. The overall atmosphere was good-humoured, and fun. A couple of policemen were on standby, but at a discreet distance. They told me they were just there to make sure no-one got hurt.

The turnout for the event, in the middle of the day when many families are busy driving their kids to events, or doing household errands, was also pretty good. I estimate there were almost two thousand attendees during the period I was there. I eventually had to retreat after – like the proverbial frog in boiling water – I became increasingly over-heated in my airless garb. According to the organisers, almost seven million Americans took part in over 2,700 similar protests across the country – with particularly large turn-outs in major cities such as Chicago, New York, and Washington DC.

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This is a meaningful increase on the estimated five million people who participated in the first NoKings protest in June. The deliberate ridiculing of the administration with witty slogans, funny costumes and satirical memes is also a highly effective way to get under Trump’s skin.  The organisers are trying to sustain momentum by circulating guidance on new ways to challenge the administration, such as lobbying members of Congress, canvassing in upcoming elections, and helping register new voters. 

And yet, I can’t help feeling that this is not yet enough to make a difference. Seven million is barely two per cent of America’s roughly 347 million population. Even in my neighbourhood, a highly educated, professional suburb just outside Washington DC, filled with federal workers,  many of them working unpaid or on furlough during the current government shutdown, I came across people who literally had no idea the protests were taking place. One extremely well educated acquaintance of mine, whose business will potentially be seriously affected by Trump’s ongoing trade wars, told me she simply had “no idea” who to believe these days, and felt “both sides” were equally to blame for America’s current dysfunction.  

At our event, it looked like almost everyone there was over 50 years old, many of them perhaps veterans of the civil rights movements of the 1960s, or of the anti-Vietnam war protests and women’s rights movements of the 1970s. I saw very few young people, or people of colour, though the latter is perhaps understandable given the fear of ICE harassment. One participant told me she felt younger generations simply didn’t understand what was at stake. 

Trump displayed his own contempt for the protests by posting an obscene AI-generated video of him dressed up as a King, flying over protestors and bombing them with what appeared to be excrement. Many suggested this was rather an apt metaphor for how he seems to regard America generally – a place on which he can dump upon from a great height. Any other President behaving in such a puerile, disdainful way towards voters would be rightly condemned by members of their own party, as well as the opposition. But, yet again, Trump seems to get away with it, defying political gravity. 

The very nature of the protests, arguing to uphold America’s constitutional rights and freedoms, also did not stop prominent Republicans from ludicrously accusing the participants of being an anti-American, Hamas-loving, extremist mob. Vice President J D Vance posted a meme of himself and the President wearing crowns. White House Deputy Press Secretary, Abigail Jones wrote “who cares” in response to media enquiries about the marches. 

At the end of the day, Trump is still President. Republicans are still in charge of the executive and both houses of Congress. The conservative-dominated Supreme Court still seems to view with a tolerant eye the administration’s many instances of executive overreach. There is no sign of anyone in the administration planning to recalibrate their approach in response to the protests. In fact, on October 19 Trump told Fox News Anchor Maria Bartirimo that he would invoke the Insurrection Act and tap into “unquestioned power,” if Democrats continued to push back on his use of the National Guard to fight crime and his use of ICE and Border Patrol agents to deport illegal immigrants.

For sure, the marches reflect growing public opposition to the Trump administration. They are a warning sign to Republican members of Congress up for reelection in close seats next year that they may face stiff opposition. But, the Republican Party is busy gerrymandering electoral districts in states governed by their party to favour incumbents (a practice unfortunately the Democrats are guilty of as well), and will doubtless be looking for other ways to obtain electoral advantage, in order to cling onto power. 

One of the most politically explosive ways they are seeking to do that is by supporting a case currently before the Supreme Court concerning the extent to which race can be considered as a factor in determining electoral districts. Based on oral arguments so far, it looks possible that a majority of the conservative-dominated bench could vote to water down Section 2 of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which barred discrimination in voting, to dilute the voting power of minorities. This could potentially allow Republicans to redraw up to 19 districts nationwide in their favour, giving them an almost unbeatable hold on the House of Representatives. 

Americans opposed to this administration are going to have to be laser-focussed on trying to protect the integrity of the electoral system, and also upholding the ban on Presidents serving for three terms, given Trump’s flirtation with the notion of running again in 2028

Another major factor hampering effective opposition to the administration remains the absence of either a charismatic figurehead, or a strong, unified opposition, offering a compelling alternative to voters. The way American politics works, political parties only rally around an individual leader once that person has won the nomination to stand for President – which won’t happen until just before the next Presidential election, in 2028. Meantime, there is no Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, or Nelson Mandela type figure spearheading the protests against Donald Trump, uniting all the different groups behind them, and ensuring they all speak with one voice. 

The Democrat party brand overall remains weak. In most recent favourability polls, Americans had a more favourable view of the president compared to the Democratic party or his own Republican Party. The Democratic Party garnered 33.6% favorable rating and 59.8% unfavorable, according to RealClear Polling, versus Trump’s 44.1% favorable rating and 53.2% unfavorable and the Republican Party with 40.8% favorable and 53.9% unfavorable.

Even the prolonged government shutdown has not meaningfully worked in the Democrats’ favour. In a CBS News poll conducted in early October, 39% blamed Republicans and the president for the government shutdown, while 30% blamed congressional Democrats and 31% blamed both equally. The top two words Americans chose to describe the Democratic party were “weak” and “extreme” while the top two for the Republican party were “extreme” and “strong.”

Different Democrat party figures such as Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, or Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois are certainly trying to challenge the administration. But they are also competing with younger or more radical members of the party, such as New York representative Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, or New York mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, who are pushing for a more progressive approach. Their message is diluted as they fight amongst themselves. They have not come up with a compelling vision of what they are FOR. None of them has the same profile, reach or solid command over their party to match Trump. 

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Many critics believe the Democrat party has also chosen the wrong issue on which to make its stand over the current government shutdown. Democrats are insisting that the Republican party extend Obamacare health insurance subsidies and stop Medicaid cuts, in order to provide affordable and accessible healthcare for all Americans. This is certainly a worthy cause. But, arguably, the wiser course would be to let the Republicans fully own this issue, and suffer the electoral consequences once the health cuts begin to hurt millions of ordinary Americans. Instead, the Democrats risk bailing the Republicans out of a mess of their own making.

Moreover, healthcare is not the core issue at stake in America right now. Nor is the administration’s stance on immigration, grotesque and inhumane though it is; or its stance on diversity, trans people, foreign policy, cuts to government services, or rollback of environmental and consumer protections. Many of the administration’s policy goals  remain popular with voters, even if they disapprove of the extreme way in which some of them are being carried out.  

These policies are all symptoms of the more fundamental problem, which is the administration’s cavalier disregard for the norms and traditions of American democracy. The core issue is that the administration is upending the checks and balances built into the American system, by arrogating ever more power to the executive, wilfully defying rulings by the judiciary, and trampling on the rights of the legislature to determine government spending, and have a say in matters of war. 

One reason the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014 were successful, ultimately resulting in the then President Yanukovich being forced to flee to Moscow, was because Ukrainians collectively understood what was at stake. The proximate cause of the protests was Yanukovich’s refusal to sign an Association Agreement with the EU, which would have brought Ukraine closer politically and economically to the West. More fundamentally, the protests were a rejection of injustice as a way of life and of the post-Soviet politics of corruption and nepotism. Ukrainians understood that failure to integrate more closely with the EU risked consigning them forever to remain in Russia’s sphere of influence. 

Likewise, the NoKings protests need to focus on a single message – the challenge Trump’s administration poses to American democracy itself. 

The protests also need to become broader based and take place more frequently, to sustain momentum. 

In the republic of Georgia, protesters have taken to the streets daily since flawed elections in November 2024, for almost 330 days now. They have refused to give up or back down, despite facing brutal government tactics such as tear gassing, water cannons, beatings, arrests and imprisonment of multiple attendees on trumped-up charges. Americans need to display the same resilience and determination, and be prepared for the long haul. 

In South Korea in 2024, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s effort to impose martial law failed because parts of the civil service, legislature and military, including members of his own political party, refused to support it. In the US, protests against the Trump administration’s behaviour are unlikely to succeed as long as so many of its elite structures, such as universities, businesses, law firms, and members of his political party, choose to go along with it, for opportunistic reasons of their own. 

Where America’s elites have failed, ordinary Americans need to increase pressure on them through product boycotts, or name and shame campaigns, along the lines of the successful #Tesla Takedown movement, which eventually compelled Elon Musk to quite his role as head of DOGE.

Americans working with or inside government also need to overcome their engrained tradition of respect for the office of the President, despite President Trump’s visible contempt for them. This seems to be a side effect of too many people taking America’s democratic institutions for granted, and trusting too much in its fabled system of checks and balances. I find it simply astonishing, given the Trump administration’s non stop attacks on federal workers, that there have not yet  been mass walkouts or strikes across government. The government shutdown would quickly come to an end if, for example,  America’s air traffic controllers, all currently working without pay, collectively decided to walk out. 

The NoKings protests also need to mobilise more young people, along the lines of the coalition of students, union leaders and young pro-democracy activists who successfully forced President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia to step down after he refused to accept he had lost the presidential elections in 2000. 

Finally, there is one aspect of this struggle which is unique to America. All the other examples of successful resistance movements cited above were helped by support from democracies outside, none more so than the United States itself. For decades, the United States has supported pro-democracy activists around the world by offering them political support, financial aid, and strategic advice, and using a mix of carrots and sticks to try to compel authoritarian regimes not to clamp down too brutally, and open up more democratic space.

There is no such assistance coming from the outside world for Americans. If American democracy fails, democracy movements around the world will also collapse. So, we all have a stake in this fight. But this is a fight which Americans are having to face alone.