"No Kings": No Violence, No Clue, No Point
A Protest Without A Message Accomplishes Nothing
Prior to yesterday’s “No Kings” protests I anticipated there would be violence, bloodshed, and possibly worse.
Happily, it turns out that was not the case.
Reading the disclaimer that Inequality Media Civil Action was asking prospective event attendees to sign, it seemed a not unreasonable extrapolation to conclude the Democrats were going to use the protests to foment further violence and insurrection in this country.
What else can one conclude from the disclaimer the principal organizer of the No Kings rally—Inequality Media Civic Action—has on their web page to RSVP for the event?
I hereby and forever release and discharge the Releasees from and against any and all costs, damages, and liability for death, injury to person, injury or damage to property, or other damages, costs, losses, or expenses of whatsoever nature, caused during or by reason of my participation in this event. I am 18 years of age or older. If I am a parent or guardian of an individual under 18 years of age, I make this agreement on behalf of myself and that individual.
Umm…..excuse me? Liability for death? Injury to people? Damage to property?
Would a reasonable person conclude from this language that the rally organizers are anticipating—even intending—that the rally become more than a little unhinged? Would a reasonable person conclude that the “No Kings” rally is, from start to finish, conceived as a violent uprising, which is to say a rebellion and an insurrection?
This reasonable person does conclude precisely that.
Extrapolations are inferences and, in this case, a prediction. Both can be proven wrong when hard data becomes available, and they were proven wrong here. While there was some rioting in Portland as well as Chicago—where 15 rioters were arrested at an ICE detention facility—by far the tenor of the protests was peaceful. I have seen no reporting in corporate media, alternative and independent media, or even social media to contest that assessment.
I said at the time I would be happy to be proven wrong. I am very happy to be proven wrong. Peaceable assembly is part and parcel of this country’s cherished traditions and is every bit as essential to a Free Society and a Free People as the moral imperative of Free Speech. These assemblies were peaceful, and I celebrate that.
I reject their message. I also reject the utility of these particular protests. By the day’s end, what was accomplished?
For Democrats, nothing at all.
A Very Democrat Protest
While corporate media has almost reflexively billed the protests as a display of deep dissatisfaction within the broad American electorate with the policies of President Trump, the protest event sizes themselves tell a much different tale.
Even the protest locations illustrate that they were concentrated primarily in Democrat strongholds.
It is telling that the New York Times blanched at giving estimated turnout even for the New York City event, confining its estimates primarily to the overall national turnout, and emphasizing the large number of events instead.
CNN was similarly reluctant to go into specific even turnouts. They reported overall turnout of some 7 million, but gave few crowd estimates, although they did report the size of the New York City event at 100,000.
CBS was a little braver, giving some crowd estimates for a few large cities.
In Los Angeles, organizers said they expect 100,000 people to attend. Beyond New York and San Francisco, protests are scheduled in major cities such as Washington, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans, but also in small towns across all 50 states.
New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago are among the deepest blue cities in America. Large turnouts in Democrat strongholds signifies that Democrats are still rabidly anti-Trump—something that has been well known and even more well documented for over a decade.
With corporate media as of this writing having declined to provide turnout specifics for most major cities, we must look to an equally problematic information source—Elon Musk’s “Grok” AI engine on X—to get a state by state breakdown of turnout.
It is worth noting that Google’s Gemini AI engine gives similar size estimates.
The “No Kings” protests on October 18, 2025, involved over 2,500 events across all 50 states, with organizers estimating millions of attendees nationwide.1
While a complete, independently verified, state-by-state breakdown of the total attendance for all events is not consistently available, organizers and news reports provided estimated numbers for major cities and some states, including:
California (Various Locations):
Los Angeles: Over 200,000 protesters.2
San Francisco Bay Area: Over 140,000 total, with about 50,000 in San Francisco, over 10,000 in Oakland, and about 12,000 in San Jose.3
San Diego: About 60,000 people.
Illinois (Chicago):4 An estimated 100,000 people.5
Washington, D.C.: Around 200,000 protesters gathered near the White House.
Oregon (Portland):6 Estimated 40,000 people.
Arizona (Phoenix): Organizers estimated 20,000 people at the State Capitol rally.7
Colorado (Denver): More than 10,000 people at the State Capitol.8
Georgia (Atlanta):9 An estimated 10,000 people.
Connecticut (Hartford):10 Approximately 9,000 to 10,000 people.11
Arkansas (Little Rock): Over 8,000 people.12
Hawaii (Honolulu): Crowds of up to 7,000 at the State Capitol.
Maine (Portland): Estimated 5,000-7,000 people.13
Alabama (Mobile):14 An estimated 2,000 people.
Alaska (Fairbanks): About 2,000 people.15
It’s important to note that these figures are often estimates provided by organizers or local media and may vary. Organizers stated they expected the nationwide turnout to surpass the similar demonstrations held in June.16
The accuracy of these estimates is unknown, but if we take them at face value for the sake of argument, what they show is that, nationwide, disparity in turnout between Democrat and Republican strongholds is not merely pronounced, it is overwhelming.
If the AI estimates are accurate, the turnout in Blue states vs Red states was roughly 8:1.
With the exception of Washington, DC, the Democrat margins of victory in states carried by Kamala Harris in last year’s election were not at all that pronounced.
Put simply, “No Kings” is exactly what Republicans have broadly claimed it to be: a Democrat political event. It confirms that Democrats are opposed to Donald Trump—a finding which is about as revelatory as proving conclusively that dihydrogen monoxide is wet.
Why Protest?
While it is easy to ascertain the composition of the “No Kings” events, apprehending their agenda is far more problematic.
The corporate media reporting is that Democrats protesters oppose President Trump’s policies and agenda.
Energized by a slew of actions taken by the administration since the summer protests, the group cited widespread immigration detentions carried out by often-masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the administration’s aggressive slashing of federal education resources and environmental protections, gerrymandering and other concerns.
What corporate media overlooks is that these actions by President Trump are also campaign promises explicitly stated in his 2024 election platform “Agenda 47”.
“No Kings” is quite literally protesting an elected President delivering on campaign promises.
While Democrats have excoriated President Trump for using the National Guard and federal law enforcement to crack down on crime in Washington DC, we do well to note the Supreme Court has sustained his authority to federalize the National Guard, and, given the propensity of judges to give violent criminals a pass (such as recently happened to the two who savagely beat Edward “Big Balls” Coristine back in August), one has to marvel at Democrats dogged refusal to confront the issue of crime in America’s cities. Any level of crime above that of “no crime” is too high a crime level in any city.
CNN reports that another cause for protest was healthcare—and in particular the ending of the enhanced premium subsidies that have sustained Obamacare in the past few years.
Left out of that reporting, however, is the reality that the GOP has proposed a one-year extension to those subsidies, only to have House Minority Leader derisively dismiss the idea as a “non-starter.”
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is pushing legislation to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expire on Jan. 1, through the end of 2026. The proposal has bipartisan support, and some political observers view it as a launching pad for securing a deal to reopen the government.
Jeffries, though, has other ideas, saying a one-year extension is “a non-starter.” He emphasized that President Trump and Republicans had adopted a permanent extension of tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest people earlier in the year. With that in mind, he’s demanding a similarly permanent extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies, which overwhelmingly help working class people.
The Democrats quite literally could have both ended the government shutdown and won a legitimate victory on Obamacare two weeks ago, and quite literally laughed it off.
“No Kings” proved that Democrats are as opposed to Agenda 47 as they were in November of last year, when they lost the election.
The speakers at the various events, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, never got beyond vapid soundbite speechifying, leaving the goal of the protest more muddled than ever.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson asked if residents in his city were ready to “defend this democracy,” “fight fascism” and “destroy authoritarianism” before leading the crowd in a chant of “No Kings.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker took the stage to speak, telling the crowd, in part: “We are here today to defend the principle that has defined America since its founding: The belief that tyranny in any form must be resisted by the people of conscience – especially here in Chicago. We will never surrender.”
“Throughout history, we have learned that tyranny doesn’t arrive with dramatic proclamations: Most times, it comes quietly, wrapped in the language of law and order, with fingers pointed at someone who doesn’t look like you, promising safety while demanding we sacrifice our neighbors,” he continued.
Missing from any of the speeches was advocacy for any reform of the nation’s immigration laws, or concrete proposals on how to preserve Obamacare or extend the enhanced premium subsidies. The preference by far was to reflexively rely on the now-standard ad hominems for Trump, calling him “fascist”, “authoritarian", and a “dictator.”
That fascist authoritarian dictators are not known for allowing the political opposition to hold even small rallies was an irony completely lost on speaker and audience alike.
No Rebellion, No Clue, No Point
The “No Kings” protests were peaceful. On that basis alone, we cannot lump them in with the Democrat Rebellion even in Chicago and Portland, where defiance of lawful federal authority has spilled over into actual violence.
Violence in an attempt to frustrate federal law enforcement is insurrection by definition and must be put down.
Rhetoric valorizing such violence and encouraging violent efforts to frustrate federal law enforcement is sedition and, as such, must be put down.
Peaceful protest, and peaceable assembly of any kind, is an expression of freedom guaranteed in this country by the First Amendment. We do not exaggerate to call these protests an expression of freedom.
Yet the protests still lacked a political point to be made, an agenda to be implemented, or even an issue to be highlighted.
Democrats are opposed to President Trump. We already knew that.
Democrats are opposed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. We already knew that.
Democrats are opposed to reforming Obamacare. We already knew that.
What are Democrats actually for? Yesterday, at least, they never said. Certainly Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Congressional Democrats have to date never actually said.
Democrats have been willing to rebel and to incite rebellion for the sake of opposing President Trump’s willingness to enforce immigration laws. Democrats have been willing to rebel and to incite rebellion for the sake of President Trump’s willingness to trim the federal bureaucracy.
“No Kings” yesterday proved to be a peaceable assembly equally lacking in clear agenda and purpose.
Happily, there was no new Democrat Rebellion yesterday.
Sadly, and especially for Democrats, there was no clue either, about anything.
The entire effort was as pointless as the rest of Democrats’ anti-Trump activities have been thus far.
I’ve read that Gorge Soros spent almost three million dollars on this No Kings event. Well, he wasted his money. He made no new converts, advanced no agenda, and pretty much just provided a festival for the usual malcontents and misinformed clueless.
The Grok chart you’ve posted estimated that Minneapolis had 100,000 protesters. No possible way! More like 4,000. Here’s why: first, the leftist media wrote that the turnout was “thousands”. Believe me, if they could have in any way stretched that description to “ten thousand”, or “tens of thousands”, or “100,000” they would have! Secondly, the main event was held in DT Minneapolis in a small, one-square-block park next to the Vikings’ football stadium. That area can only hold a few thousand people, packed in tightly. Sure enough, the photos in corporate media showed the “packed” area, without mentioning how small of a park it is. Third, the leftist media - knowing full well how small the crowd was in Minneapolis - wrote extensively on the other demonstrations in very small cities, giving the overall impression that for the state there was a large turnout. Bah. One of the demonstrations they covered was a few dozen - literally, maybe two dozen - people who protested near my neighborhood lake. I’ve seen bigger crowds there selling Girl Scout cookies.
I am very relieved that no violence was reported. My sense of this event is that it will be largely forgotten within weeks. I think the vast majority of Americans are just going about their lives, pleased that gas prices are low and we’re not fighting WW3.
Thank you for your accurate reporting, Peter!
Glad no violence✔️
Whiney collectivists and progressives.