Donald Trump has promised to crack down on dissent and sent troops into US cities. His allies are claiming antifa, the decentralized antifascist movement, is behind plans to protest. He’s looking for any pretext to go after his opponents.
Still, this Saturday, even in cities with troops on the ground, millions of people are expected to march against the president as part of a second “No Kings” protest. The last No Kings protest in June drew several million people across more than 2,000 locations. This time, more than 2,500 cities and towns nationwide are hosting protests.
Organizers expect this Saturday’s protests to draw more people than the June events as the American public sees the excesses of the Trump administration more clearly.
“Their goal is to dissuade you from participating,” said Ezra Levin, a cofounder of Indivisible, the progressive movement organization with chapters around the US that is a main organizer of No Kings. “That doesn’t mean that everybody has the same threat level. It doesn’t mean that people should ignore what the threats are, but it does mean we’re going to need to see a lot of courage out there on Saturday.”
More than 200 organizations are signed on as partners for the 18 October protests; none have dropped off for fear of a Trump backlash, Levin said. The American Civil Liberties Union, the civil rights group, is a partner, as is advocacy group Public Citizen. Unions including the American Federation of Teachers and SEIU are in the coalition. The new protest movement 50501, which began earlier this year as a call for protests in all 50 states on a single day, is also a partner. Other partners include the Human Rights Campaign, MoveOn, United We Dream, the League of Conservation Voters, Common Defense and more.
Resistance to Trump continues to grow. The Harvard Crowd Counting Consortium, which tracks political crowds, noted that 2025 has seen “far more protests” than during the same time period in 2017. The June No Kings protests were “probably the second-largest single day demonstration since Donald Trump first took office in January 2017”, second to the Women’s March in 2017, the consortium said.
In June, on the same day a man shot and killed a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, tens of thousands of people still turned out for No Kings in St Paul while the shooter was on the loose, with attendees saying they didn’t want to back down in the face of political violence.
The messages behind the No Kings protests are simple: Trump is acting like a king, and the US rejects kings. The No Kings coalition has cited Trump’s “increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption” as motivation for the protests, including ramping up of deportations, gutting healthcare, gerrymandering maps and selling out families for billionaires.
In the months since the first No Kings protests, Trump’s menace against the opposition has only grown, particularly after far-right commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered. Trump declared antifa to be a terrorist organization and has promised to investigate and take action against any leftwing groups he deems support terrorism.
Amid this backdrop, tens of thousands of people have joined calls in recent weeks to prepare safety plans, train on how to serve as marshals for the protests and learn de-escalation tactics.
Still, some people may decide to stay home because the threats against them are too great, including the fear of deportation for participating in peaceful protest.
“They’re making choices like that every day when they decide whether to go to school or whether to go to work or whether it’s safe to go grocery shopping,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “Unfortunately, that’s the climate that the Trump administration is engendering aside from this particular day of activation, so I assume that people will make that calculus on this day as well. But I also think that the fact that people have to make that calculus is part of the reason for our protest.”
Cities under occupation prepare for protests
Trump has declared war on Chicago, one of the several Democratic-run cities that have seen infusions of federal forces and increasingly militarized immigration agents on the ground. A judge last week blocked the deployment of national guard troops to the Chicago area for at least two weeks, but ramped up immigration enforcement has continued and Chicago is one of several cities that will have protests on Saturday despite the federal presence on the ground.
It’s not clear what posture federal agents and military troops will take for the event. In response to questions about whether immigration enforcement officials will be at protest sites, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: “As it does every day, DHS law enforcement will enforce the laws of our nation.”
In Portland, Oregon, where Trump sought to send in national guard troops but was blocked by the courts, protesters in recent days have leaned into the absurd, showing up naked on bikes, or in inflatable costumes. The Washington Post declared “inflatable frog suits” the “protest fashion statement of the year”.
Portland organizers are planning Saturday events they’ve called joyful and family-friendly, including music and speakers. “Trump is sending militarized agents into our cities, muzzling voters and showering billionaires with handouts. Hard-working American families are left behind,” Dannelle D Stevens, who helps run Miller Street Indivisible, said in a statement. “That’s not democracy. That’s tyranny. And we will not meet it with silence. We refuse to give up.”
Chicago, too, is fighting back, both in the courts and on the streets. People have sought to run immigration agents out of their neighborhoods. Some are using whistles to warn their neighbors when agents are nearby. Protests at detention facilities are ongoing, and agents have used teargas and pepper balls to deter protesters.
On Saturday, the city is one of several sites serving as anchor protests, expected to be some of the day’s most attended.
In June, more than 70,000 people attended Chicago’s main protest, overflowing Daley Plaza, said Denise Poloyac of Indivisible Chicago. On Saturday, the protest will be in the larger Grant Park, with a march planned to begin and end at the park’s Butler Field. It’s hard to predict turnout for a protest, but Poloyac said there’s been a surge of interest and engagement in the event.
Trump is “using our tax dollars to attack and declare war on our city and on the people that live here,” and locals should make it clear in large numbers that they don’t agree with it, Poloyac said. “We’re asking people to lean into their courage.”
Organizers will have more than 150 safety marshals along the route and in the rally location, she said. The idea is that “we keep us safe.” Marshals from Indivisible Chicago and other organizations helped serve at other events, like Mexican Independence Day parades, to protect their community, she noted.
People are “already taking risks” just by going about their daily tasks in the city now, Poloyac said. There’s also a sense of strength in numbers at a protest; when there are tens of thousands of people, it’s harder to single someone out, she said.
“We’re hoping that people who didn’t come out in June are really angry now and upset and see what’s happening,” Poloyac said. “Those of us who do have more privilege need to come out and especially use that privilege to make our voices heard and to make it clear how unacceptable this is, what Trump and his agents are doing.”
Republicans seek to undermine
Trump’s allies, including members of Trump’s cabinet, have preemptively blamed No Kings for the government shutdown and smeared them as anti-American or paid protests, a common refrain against street protests.
House speaker Mike Johnson said the protests would be filled with the “pro-Hamas wing” of the Democrats and the “antifa people”. Tom Emmer, a Minnesota congressman, called the protests the “hate America rally” and said Democrats were beholden to the “terrorist wing of their party”. By claiming the protesters are part of antifa, the Trump administration could seek to go after people as domestic terrorists because of Trump’s recent executive order.
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said: “You’re seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together. They are organized, and someone is funding it. We are going to get to the funding of antifa. We are going to get to the root of antifa, and we are going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos.”
Levin, of Indivisible, said the Trump administration is nervous about demonstrations that threaten its power, “so, in a weird way, it’s a compliment of our relevance and power.” These mass days of protest are often filled with “moms and grandmas and kids and dogs” and a joyful atmosphere, he said.
The No Kings coalition affirms a commitment to nonviolent action on all of its marketing materials, and organizers emphasize that their groups are all trained in tactics that enforce nonviolence.
“The violence is coming from the administration through their militarized crackdowns and through masked agents roaming our streets terrorizing communities, not coming from protesters,” Gilbert said. “The president wants us to be scared, but we will not be bullied into fear and silence, and it’s incredibly important for people to remain peaceful, to stand proud and to say what they care about, and not to be cowed by that fear.”
What comes next
Mass distributed protests help show that opposition is large and growing, in all corners of the country. They can help people find organizations or like-minded neighbors to work with on future actions, and they let people know that they aren’t alone in their dissatisfaction.
But street protests alone are just one tool to counter the presidency. Other non-cooperation tactics, like economic boycotts or pressure campaigns, can help protesters achieve policy changes or get companies and pillars of civil society to stiffen their spines instead of caving to Trump.
Levin cited the recent Disney boycott campaign after the company temporarily took Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air as a successful model. This year’s Tesla Takedown boycotts and protests led to lower stock prices and reputational damage for Elon Musk’s company.
The president of the Communications Workers of America union, Claude Cummings Jr, called on protesters to use No Kings to spread the word about a boycott of T-Mobile for its alignment with Trump, calling the phone company “some of the worst union busters in America”.
“We know boycotts can work,” Cummings wrote in email this week.“We need to keep showing these companies that there’s a cost for embracing Trump’s un-American actions”.
Gilbert, of Public Citizen, said protesters should think about how to take it one step further: “If you’ve never called your senator before, you do that. If you’ve never thought to boycott because of political issues, you do that. If you’ve never thought to post on social media about how you feel about militarization of your city, you do that. It’s really asking everyone to activate just a little bit more and to stay engaged.”
