One of the first things you’ll see upon entering the ornate terminal at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station are gaggles of National Guard troops loitering about, clad in full tactical camo. Most look bored, a hand slung casually over the rifle they’re now authorized to carry, a suspicious eye on the teenagers milling about the food court in the after-school rush. Wander around the city and you’ll encounter similar gaggles posted up at almost every major point of interest, as well other federal forces whose agents have for months now been brutalizing anti-ICE protesters around the nation.
They’re there because Donald Trump has prioritized a physical and legal crackdown against his political opposition, one that has primarily targeted Democratic cities and lawmakers. The administration has recently directed its attention toward protesters, free speech, and liberal nonprofit groups, in particular, with the president signing an order labeling anti-fascists a domestic terror group, and a memo targeting “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Americanism,” as the administration sees them. The goal appears to be to make existence miserable for activist groups and organizations that support resistance to Trump’s authoritarian power grab.
It may all come to a head this weekend as millions across the country prepare to march in the second iteration of the “No Kings” protest. Over 2,500 events have been planned across the United States and abroad, with some of the largest expected to take place in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and, of course, Washington, D.C.
The Republican ecosystem has been working hard to demonize the protest movement ahead of this weekend’s demonstrations, adopting Trump’s framing of his opposition as anti-American terrorism. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared on Fox Business and described the more than 2,500 protests that are expected to take place across the country and in cities abroad as “part of antifa” and “paid protesters.” House Speaker Mike Johnson called the planned events a “a hate America rally,” adding that “the pro-Hamas wing and the, you know, the antifa people, they are all coming out.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) also referred to the event as a “hate America rally,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called potential participants part of the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed the protests would be stocked with the “hardest core” members of the left. Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.) even called it a “blue hair, anthropomorphic experiment,” during a Wednesday appearance on Fox Business.
No Kings is a coalition of grassroots demonstrations bolstered by liberal and left-leaning advocacy groups. The first No Kings event in June drew as many as six million participants nationwide, according to estimates. The protests took place the same day Trump hosted an awkward attempt at a military cortèges, in the style of the autocratic leaders he admires, on the National Mall. At the time, organizers told Rolling Stone that in order to defeat a tyrant “you need to have a visible demonstration that Americans are against authoritarian overreach.”
In the intervening months, the organizations involved in the No Kings have been building up their coalition, and training activists and partner organizations on how to weaponize principles of “strategic non-cooperation” against the administration.
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June’s protests were almost universally peaceful across the country, and organizers tell Rolling Stone that they expect the second iteration of the event to go off in much the same way. But they are not blind to the reality that the events will be taking place amid Trump’s sweeping crackdown against anti-ICE protesters in major Democratic cities, and that Republicans are openly attempting to brand opposition to the president as terrorism.
“This is about one thing and one thing only: to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold […] a hate America rally in D.C. next week,” Emmer said Friday of the upcoming protests.
“[We] want to be out there carefully, peacefully speaking our minds,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen — one of the organizations participating in the No Kings coalition — tells Rolling Stone. “The one thing we cannot be in this moment is cowed by what [Trump] is threatening, and we won’t be bullied into fear and silence in this moment.”
The Trump administration’s escalation of its campaign against Democratic and progressive nonprofits followed the assassination of right-wing activist and organizer Charlie Kirk — even though senior law enforcement officials don’t believe Kirk’s killer was working with any organization on the left, with one senior administration official recently telling Rolling Stone the prospect was “never on anyone’s radar.”
“I think it’s very clear that they’re lashing out because they fear this kind of peaceful, organized people power, and that’s true of authoritarian regimes all over the world,” says Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible — a progressive activist group focused on peaceful resistance to the Trump regime.
Administration officials have told Rolling Stone that they intend to make Trump’s enemies, including progressive groups, “suffer,” while another source said that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller declared the administration to be “at war” with left-leaning groups. Some in the administration have compared the strategies they want to use to go after these groups to those used in the “war on terror,” as they put it.
Levin dismissed Republican attempts to rebrand Saturday’s events as “hate America” rallies.
“They understand that the phrase ‘No Kings’ is so damn popular that they should avoid mentioning it, so they’re trying to come up with other ways to refer to it,” he says. “[It’s] encouraging that they’re taking note and worried about what a peaceful display of the people’s power is going to do to their own image […] and then part of it is serious. They are coming after our First Amendment rights, and that’s the whole point of doing this protest.”
Trump has recently made a public spectacle of openly targeting some of his most prominent critics in recent weeks, and even escalated his rhetoric toward suggestions of the necessary annihilation of his political opposition. Jimmy Kimmel was briefly pulled off the air after direct threats from the FCC against the ABC News, with Trump threatening to sue when Kimmel was reinstated, and openly suggesting that his other critics in the entertainment world should watch their backs. The president has also filed a series of frivolous — but financially punitive — lawsuits against major networks and media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, for reporting he believes makes him look bad. Trump even flat-out bragged that “we took the free speech away” earlier this month while signing an executive order aimed at punishing anyone who burns the American flag.
“If the first No Kings was about pushing back on Trump’s image as a strong man on [the day of] the ridiculous military birthday parade he threw for himself,” Levin adds. “This one is a reaction to the invasion and occupation of American cities, the crackdown on comedians and other peaceful protests, and the bullying of media institutions and political opposition.”
The GOP’s alarming rhetoric about the protest movement is coming straight from Trump, who has characterized anything and everything that opposes him — from comedians to the news organizations — as a threat to America, and something to be discarded. Earlier this month, he complained that Republicans had “to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats” during a speech at the Norfolk Naval base. Days before, he told senior military leaders gathered at Quantico that “America is under invasion from within. We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in any ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform you can take them out.”
Gilbert notes that the entity putting Americans at risk is not the protest movement, but the administration itself: “The authoritarian intensity that we’ve seen from this administration has just doubled our desire to be out there and to do everything we can do. Which is to litigate, organize, fight back, and mobilize people to do more in this moment.”
On the insinuation that the protests are being stocked with paid attendees or receiving funding from extremist boogeymen, something Trump and Republicans in Congress like Ted Cruz says needs to be investigated, Gilbert laughs. “These are locally supported events by community members and leaders. It is not funded centrally in any way,” she says. “We are not funding 2500 events around the nation.”
“Nonprofits are another forum where they are attempting to silence dissent, and it’s un-American, and it’s appalling, and that’s a big part of why we’re actually out there right now,” she adds.
No Kings cannot predict exactly how many people will turn out at home and abroad on Saturday, but with over 2,500 planned events, the turnout is expected to exceed their first day of protest in June. “There is no other way to protect your constitutional rights other than exercising them,” Levin says. On Saturday — in communities big and small — millions of Americans will do exactly that.
From Rolling Stone US
