On Saturday, crowds gathered in cities across the United States to protest President Donald Trump and his administration. Organizers of the No Kings rallies claim that more than 7 million people attended in all, across 2,700 cities in the Unites States and beyond. The gatherings provided a clear picture not only of how widespread the resistance to the Trump administration has become, but also the diversity of the coalition driving it. Not to mention the signs.
“Today, millions of Americans stood together to reject authoritarianism and remind the world that our democracy belongs to the people, not to one man’s ambition,” said Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, cofounders of the nonprofit Indivisible—which took the lead on organizing the rallies—in a statement.
Ahead of Saturday, House speaker Mike Johnson described the planned gatherings as the “hate America rally” and warned that the crowds would be filled with “antifa types.” In reality, the protests were uniformly peaceful, with inflatable costumes appearing to outnumber conservative bogeymen by a wide margin. And Trump’s response to No Kings? An AI-generated video of himself, wearing a crown, piloting a fighter jet and dropping massive amounts of excrement on protesting US citizens below.
In the real world, the crowds walked their routes without issue. Below are snapshots of No Kings from cities across the US, a look at a protest movement that is increasingly motivated and able to mobilize.
