Scenes from a Revolution

We take you around the country with dispatches from No Kings protests.

by

While Donald Trump dozed at an uninspiring facsimile of a North Korean military parade, millions of patriots engaged in a new tradition of ruining his birthday, coming together at No Kings rallies to express their displeasure with the state of governance in America. Prospect writers fanned out from coast to coast on Saturday to document the day: here’s what they saw.

PHILADELPHIA—A sizable contingent, estimated by the Philadelphia Police Department to be at least 80,000 people, marched peacefully on Saturday from JFK Plaza, across the street from Philadelphia’s City Hall, up the Ben Franklin Parkway to the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for what the organizers at Indivisible called its “flagship” No Kings protest. The protest concluded with a rally at the Art Museum’s Rocky steps, featuring the Reverend William Barber, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Martin Luther King III, and others.

There was a remarkable diversity of age, with a fairly even split between young and old; in many cases parents and grandparents attended with children and grandchildren. Many attendees donned and/or carried American flags, along with a sea of signs and banners referencing Donald Trump’s dictatorial aspirations. There was also a good deal of paraphernalia and signage about Palestine and the war in Gaza, especially but not exclusively amongst the young.

Mild but palpable ideological divisions were observable throughout. I witnessed an Indivisible organizer directing people away at JFK Plaza from a more radical Palestine-focused march that had formed at the corner of 15th and Arch Street. That cohort would soon join the larger march, and could be heard making pro-Palestinian chants and seen waving pro-Palestinian flags throughout the speeches.

“A big problem I have with No Kings and 50501 is they use a ‘good’ protester model,” said a protester who self-identified as V.R., a lifelong native of the greater Philadelphia area sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cohort. “And they want to be less radical and more palatable to get more middle-of-the-road liberals. When in reality these struggles are all connected.”

The rally speeches covered the topics of the day. Reverend Barber evoked Kim Jong Un in describing Trump’s military parade and authoritarian ambitions, while outlining a political counter-strategy that engaged poor and low-wage nonvoters. Rep. Raskin spoke of the sovereignty of the American people while hitting on familiar talking points about Trump’s ego and Democratic Party policy planks. Martin Luther King III wondered aloud about how his parents would react to everything going on in the world, and lamented the Trump tariffs as un-American.

Jadon George, a Philadelphia resident who attended the No Kings as an observer, described the protest and especially the rally speeches as “maximalist.”

“There was antiwar commentary, there was pro-immigration commentary,” he said. “Teachers’ unions addressed the crowd. People aligned with the Palestinian cause held a protest within a protest on the sidelines. I think Martin Luther King III brought up tariffs. They certainly tried to drill down on immigration and immigration enforcement as a galvanizing issue. Everyone wanted a shout-out, and everyone wanted to be heard.” -Toby Jaffe

CHICAGO—Residents came out in droves for today’s No Kings protest, after days of being in the streets already to stand up against Trump and ICE raids. One of the chants that carried through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd was: “We stand with L.A., immigrants are here to stay!”

The protest was also an expression of all of the anger and fear of the past 143 days since Trump was inaugurated. “Feed kids, not egos,” one sign read. Another referenced healthcare cuts (“If there’s money for a parade, then there’s money for Medicaid”), and many included caricatures of Putin or Elon Musk. 

ICE and deportations were top of mind for many in the crowd. Chicago, with its strong Mexican community, has been a rumored target of ICE since before Inauguration Day. Though Los Angeles has been this month’s target, Chicagoans have their guards up and their voices loud. Protesters draped Mexican flags over their shoulders and held signs that said “¡Chinga la migra!” (“Fuck the border patrol,” approximately) and “In Chicago summer, ICE melts.”

A group of three sisters and their cousin came out to the protest because “we’re all daughters of immigrants,” Isamar Velazquez told me. “We’re born and raised in Chicago, and we’re loud and proud about it,” said her sister Lucelvy Velazquez. 

The third sister, Emily Velazquez, is a Marine Corps veteran who wore the flag of the Marines draped around her shoulders as she marched. 

“Trump is using the military against his own people,” she said, referencing the deployment of Marines against protesters in Los Angeles. “We take an oath to protect the constitution. The president is going against the oath we take. It’s like a slap in the face.” -Emma Janssen

LOS ANGELES—Until about 4:00 on Saturday, law enforcement was mostly peaceful. We’ve seen this pattern before: by day, the officers are generally calm, only for a bad element to come out at night and commit violence. For a while, it looked like for once there would not be any unrest. But then agitators had to stir things up. And by agitators, I meant the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

For the past several nights there’s been a curfew downtown, set at 8:00pm, and the violent element—the police—has been creeping up enforcement of that curfew, bit by bit, night after night. This has been a massive inconvenience and economic disaster for the hundreds of businesses and 80,000 residents of the area.

Today they must have wanted to get the battering over with and go home early. So after the massive No Kings protest that began around 10:00, with between 30,000 and 100,000 people (depending on the estimate) swarming downtown, the agitators in the Sheriff Department got antsy that not enough people vacated the Civic Center area quickly enough.

I arrived late (I checked out Stephen Miller’s birthplace of Santa Monica first, which was massive; there were 30 protests in the L.A. region today) and was there for a couple hours, leaving shortly before 4:00. Everyone there to protest was waving flags, chanting, supporting one another with offers of water and energy bars, and generally doing what the mayor, the governor, public officials and law enforcement urged for a week: exercising their First Amendment rights. About the most aggressive thing I saw was a piece of performance art: a man standing stock still, with three blocks of ICE slowly melting in front of him on the ground and speakers playing ominous music.

At the Roybal Federal Building, National Guard troops stood in front of the entrance while several hundred protesters mostly yelled things like “Shame!” and “Leave!” The agitators then just called a dispersal order at 4:00, four hours before curfew was to begin. They claimed, as they’ll do, that they were provoked by people throwing rocks and bottles. I can’t say this was 100 percent a lie, but given my own experience and hours of documentary evidence, my confidence level of that lie is 99.9 percent.

So the agitators started shooting their “less lethal” weapons, an oxymoron that has gotten a workout this week. For the sin of staying too long at a protest, people were stung with rubber bullets, charged by sheriff’s deputies mounted on horses, smacked with wooden batons, and in some cases trampled.

The problem for these agitators is that their attacks reached another violent gang: the LAPD, which over police scanners complained of getting hit by the rubber bullets. This gang was busy dispersing the crowd on another side of the Federal Building, tossing tear gas and other munitions into the crowd. The wind shifted and the Sheriff’s Department agitators started taking the tear gas.

The Keystone Kops would admire this lack of professionalism. But caught in the crossfire of this violence were citizens of Los Angeles exercising their right to protest.

There’s no other way to write this story: Scenes of defiance against Donald Trump, against ICE, against oligarchical capture of the government were marred by out of control, heavily armed delinquents who broke the law and happened to be carrying badges while doing it. -David Dayen

BROOKLYN—Six miles away from the huge march in Manhattan, a smaller gathering of about 200 protesters from across Brooklyn met near Grand Army Plaza, where a mess of multi-lane streets converge a few steps away from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s co-op. Drivers gave supportive honks as they sped towards Eastern Parkway, and the group rewarded them with cheers. 

Protesters complimented each other’s signs: “Why should I respect Trump’s birthday when he never respected our rights,” “Tax the Motherf*cking Rich,” and “King of Farts.” Someone blew bubbles and they floated into the sky. One demonstrator, who gave the pseudonym Naomi, held a sign that read, “Andrew Cuomo: a real…’fuck that guy’ kind of guy.” “Everyone can agree with that statement,” she said, drawing laughter from those around her. The crowd was friendly, optimistic, and happy to be around one another. A dozen cops watched from the other side of the street.  

The rain fell in sprinkles, then in sheets. Some protesters had protected their signs in plastic, as one woman did a large piece of cardboard. She had juxtaposed a black and white photo of Elvis with a color shot of Trump, to whom she’d added a red wig and a clown nose. Arrows to the first indicated “The King.” Arrows to the second, “NOT the king.” The protests sent a strong message and “it’s also very cheering” for those who showed up, she said. After days of reading bad news at home, “It’s good to get out with other people,” and she added that she was there to represent her loved ones who wanted to protest but didn’t feel safe doing so. 

A professional illustrator and cartoonist had likewise weatherproofed his sign: a drawing of Trump as a fussy baby in a wet diaper, with word bubbles of Me! Me! Me! “Depose the King of Narcissism,” the sign read. “It pretty much epitomizes what his whole administration is about,” the illustrator told the Prospect.

As the peaceful rally wound down, one protester urged people to join him marching alongside Prospect Park towards Windsor Terrace. Others looked for a nosh at the nearby Saturday greenmarket, where apple cider donuts were $1.50.  -Whitney Curry Wimbish

NEW YORK CITY—Over 100,000 sopping-wet New Yorkers marched down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday to reclaim the American flag, and the Republic for which it stands. Unlike Trump’s Putinesque military parade in Washington D.C., the will of the people—not petroleum—powered the No Kings Day mobilization.

But before upstaging the self-aggrandizing king of New York on his birthday, protesters kicked off with a “NO CUOMO” rally in Bryant Park around noon. Scores of people who braved the intermittent deluge of steady rain heard from an impressive lineup of speakers.

Actress and comedian Ilana Glazer professed her “deep pride in being a New Yorker” before ripping into Andrew Cuomo, reminding of how the state dished out millions of dollars to “cover his legal fees while being investigated for sexually harassing women he employed.” The Broadway star also pointed out how his administration deliberately concealed COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes at the same time Cuomo was in the process of “securing a book deal,” slashed funding for public schools and hospitals, and sued for accusers’ gynecological records.

Then, New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander took the stage. After agreeing to cross-endorse each other last week, the duo leaned into their shared vision for New Yorkers. Lander began by paying tribute to early resistance against British forces in New York City during the Revolutionary War, and drew distinctions among previous mayors, calling out Rudy Giuliani and Eric Adams for using “tools of oppression and persecution rather than tools of liberty and freedom.”

Mamdani’s remarks were more personal.

“This is a city and a country that I came to at the age of seven; it’s a city that I grew up in, a city that I fell in love with, a city where I got my citizenship,” he said. “Just blocks from one of the most beautiful days of my life—when I was sworn to belong to this country—is where, today, immigrant New Yorkers are going for their regular check-ins wondering whether they will see their family again.”

Zeroing in on the palpable tension of recent protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Mamdani condemned the cruelty of detaining New Yorkers attending immigration hearings, also vowing to “finally bring an end to this collaboration between NYPD and ICE,” “hire the 200 lawyers we used to have before the pandemic,” and “provide defense for immigrants in detention proceedings.”

No Kings Day was also the first day of early voting in the New York City mayoral primary. Recent polling placed Mamdani 5 percentage points ahead of Andrew Cuomo. In Bryant Park, Mamdani promised to be a mayor who can “look authoritarianism in the eye and not see a reflection of themself,” telling the jubilant crowd that—with their help—he would send Cuomo “back to the suburbs.” 

As my colleague Whitney Wimbish points out, Cuomo has lost ground to a candidate whose brand of economic populism has visibly struck a chord with working people in New York City and beyond. Emma, age 31, rejected the emphasis Cuomo’s campaign has put on “experience,” saying in an interview that electing a leader who “has the perspective of the majority of people” was important to her. “Legacy, dynasty politicians, how is that any different from a monarch?” -James Baratta

LEADING UP TO THE 2:00 MARCH, No Kings Day-ers poured into Bryant Park, prompting crowd managers to divert the heavy foot traffic down Fifth Avenue. It wasn’t long before dozens of riot gear-clad police officers stepped onto the scene.

The crowd was roaring; No Kings! No Cuomo! No ICE! Contrary to the scenes in Los Angeles and Foley Square in Manhattan just days before, No Kings was reminiscent of Climate Week NYC; it was entirely peaceful, albeit as jam-packed as Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday.

Emerson, a 37-year-old immigration attorney and former asylum seeker, could be seen wearing a black t-shirt with “Dirty Immigration Lawyer” written on the front in bold yellow type. It was a quip at former attorney general Jeff Sessions who, in 2017, bizarrely accused immigration lawyers of encouraging asylees to say “the magic words needed” to claim asylum in the U.S.

“If you look at the history of authoritarian regimes, they start by targeting the most vulnerable, and in this country, one of those groups are immigrants—especially the recent arrivals,” Emerson told the Prospect. “What's going on in New York City right now with these arrests at people's court hearings is one of the clearest examples of why too much concentrated power in the executive is a problem.”

Mitchell, age 31, also cited unchecked balances as his reason for participating in No Kings Day, telling the Prospect: “I don't think Donald Trump is the first person to overreach with the executive branch, but I think he's reaching further than anybody has reached before.”

Two-hundred or so miles away, the U.S. Army mustered tanks and troops, granting Trump his birthday wish to co-op the service branch’s 250th anniversary parade. For Mitchell, the American people ought to celebrate things like Medicaid and Medicare too. “We have other things that we can be proud of and be excited for,” he said. “We're a society that is supposed to be helping people up.”

By 3:00, converging crowds of demonstrators had come to a near-halt on Fifth Avenue. One crowd manager seamlessly navigated the claustrophobia-averse horde of largely immobile protestors to provide frequent updates, advising them to “get inches” where possible. After about a half-hour, the marchers were finally on their way.

Jo-Ann, age 47, held a sign above her head that said “Free Mahmoud Khalil,” the Palestinian Columbia University graduate retaliated against by the Trump administration for leading campus encampment protests against the Ivy League last year. “It's an absolute abuse [...] to hold this man hostage for months for absolutely no reason,” she told the Prospect. “It’s a travesty of justice.”

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of New Jersey Michael Farbiarz upheld the government’s argument that Khalil must remain detained. This came after the court determined that the basis for Khalil’s detention—a flimsy State Department national security determination—was unconstitutional.

By 5:00, most No Kings Day-ers had reached Madison Square Park. Crowd managers in neon-colored vests formed a line behind protestors at the tail-end of the march, guiding them forward as a creeping wall of riot police followed.

On Saturday evening, Rev. Paul Raushenbush, president and chief executive officer of Interfaith Alliance, a pro-democracy faith organization and national partner of the No Kings coalition, spoke to the Prospect after attending the No Kings mobilization in Philadelphia. Similarly to the Big Apple’s demonstration, the streets of Philly came alive with the sound of joyful resistance undergirded by “a seriousness [...] about the stakes,” he said.

Interfaith Alliance engaged with numerous religious communities in advance nationwide day of defiance, urging them to take a stand in the fight. Authoritarianism has long been an affront to religious freedom, and for centuries, the nation has served as a refuge for those fleeing persecution from repressive monarchs. Accordingly, the chance to uplift the values religious traditions uphold “was not a hard sell,” Raushenbash told the Prospect.

Rather than Republican or Democrat,  Democracy or authoritarianism, “ are the sides now,” Raushenbush told The Prospect. As Trump endeavors to distract the American people by pitting them against an imaginary enemy, broad coalitions have an opportunity to lean on each other’s strengths, forgive each other’s weaknesses and confront a real menace. “No one has to suspend any of their core beliefs, but there are ways we can all work together to preserve democracy,” he said. -James Baratta

BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS—When I first arrived at the No Kings rally in Brookline, I was struck by how joyous the event felt, perhaps because of its grim premise. Hundreds of people were packed along the sidewalks at the intersection of Beacon and Harvard Streets, chanting and cheering as cars honked in solidarity. The crowd was diverse in terms of age; attendees included children, seniors, and everyone in between. Although most came with friends or family, there were a handful of people who stood alone, independent and fearless.

A single man with a keffiyeh wrapped around his shoulders, waving a massive American flag, caught my eye as I weaved through the crowd on Harvard Street. It was quite powerful imagery: a young man of color, bearing the symbolic weight of a flag that has become inexplicably associated with right-wing politics. He introduced himself to me as Jordan, and during our conversation he spoke of hope as a process, not a privilege, crediting climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiration. “If you are at home right now and you are feeling despair, get up, do something,” he said. “When you do something, that hope will start to come, but it has to be earned.”

From that moment forward, I recognized each person as someone who had merited hopefulness, transforming it from an intangible emotion into a physical practice. Indeed, I gathered this even from attendees who expressed feelings of frustration, despair or exhaustion with the state of political life in the United States.

While interviewing other attendees, I found myself swept up in the energy of the No Kings movement, rather than pondering Trump's military parade in the nation’s capital. I was surrounded by raw emotion, not nationalist propaganda, by a beautiful representation of resistance, not a rigid display of authoritarianism. Two women who I spoke to separately on the other side of Harvard Street were both overcome with emotion during our conversations, and when they became particularly moved, it felt as though the din of the crowd faded away. One of them was named Savannah, who held a hand-painted sign and told me how the actions of the Trump administration deeply affected her on a personal level. She is in the immigration process with her partner, and told me that “I am not a fearful person, and yet I fear every day for his safety and for my community.” Her presence, along with many others gripping signs with messages about Trump’s immigration policies, was an impactful reminder that the detentions and deportations that we see through our screens are not just images, they are a terrifying reality.

When I left, there was a sole person dressed in all black, their face covered, standing on the traffic median between the two streets, holding a sign high above their head. Drawn on the poster board was a very inappropriate rendering of Trump, an image which had passersby laughing and pointing. Its absurdity was strikingly powerful. It was yet another manifestation of the event’s commitment to intertwining joy and resistance. -Naomi Bethune

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