How Many More People Wanted To Be at #NoKingsDay?
Not everyone gets to exercise their right to free speech
I woke up early, and anxious, on Saturday morning. What if anti-protestors hijacked our peaceful movement? What if bad actors tried to instigate confrontations or even deliberately incite violence? What if clashes broke out between peaceful protestors and angry MAGA folks who genuinely believe we are “dangerous” or “hate America”?
Coffee won’t solve anything but at least I had plenty of time to walk to an independent coffee shop. (Don’t forget to #ShopLocal and #BoycottStarbucks.)
Like many independent coffeehouses, this particular one is a converted historic home in an older part of town. It is canopied by some of the oldest trees in the city. Has fall always been this exquisitely painfully beautiful? Or is it just the terrifying collapse of democracy that makes the contrast so stark? The reds and oranges are incandescent this year, the saturated leaves glow with an almost atomic energy.
Still groggy, I ambled up the steps to the wraparound porch and waited in line for a bagel and americano, hopefully the breakfast of nervous champions for equality and freedom. A minute later, I almost burst into tears.
“Deja mi familia EN PAZ!” The barista had made a pretty handwritten campaign-style button and pinned it to her sweater. “#NoKingsDay” it read on the bottom. She dotted the i’s and j with hearts.
“Hi, do you know what you’d like?” She asked with an easy smile and natural kindness.
“I love your sign!” I blurted out. It wasn’t a sign, but I was blubbering. Someone personally affected by MAGA’s anti-immigration persecution had to work on this historic day, just five blocks south of our local #NoKings march. But she still found a way to participate. And suddenly I remembered that while protesting can be your civic duty and moral obligation, it can also be a privilege. And as we know, privilege isn’t universal or equitable.
Not everyone gets to exercise their constitutional right to free speech. Some people most affected by MAGA/Trump/Project 2025 policies are the least free to protest them.
No one should have to summon bravery to speak or write in another language in “the land of the free.” No one should be scared for their family’s safety but this young woman is still positive, optimistic.
We chatted for a bit and she told me that in her whole life she had never experienced and felt so much unity. She said that even as horrible as things are right now she is grateful for that, and inspired by it.
We must remember that for every single one of the almost seven million of us that marched in more than 2,700 events, at least one more person wanted to march too but couldn’t. Whether for economic, safety, or health restrictions and obstacles, I’m certain at least another seven million people or more wanted to be with us on Saturday. I think we could’ve been 20 million strong.
We must celebrate our historically high turnout at the October 18th, 2025 No Kings marches across the U.S. and the solidarity marches around the world. But let’s not forget they would be even bigger if everyone we’re fighting for could also physically turn out to advocate against catastrophic budget cuts, racially motivated kidnappings, and police/ICE brutality.
Not Everyone Can Afford to Take the Day Off
In this economy, we have to remember that our neighbors working minimum and low-wage jobs are the most likely to be hurt by MAGA’s reverse-Robinhood economic policies that concentrate wealth for the already elite. By slashing programs that benefit our fellow Americans struggling with unemployement, poverty, various disabilities, housing, and healthcare, the MAGA administration can afford to lavish the 1% with even more tax cuts.1
In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, almost 40 million or 12% of Americans are struggling under the federal poverty level2, 7.5 million are unemployed3, and almost 7 million are working poor.4 In 2023, more than 8 million Americans were “multiple jobholders.”5
How many of them would rather be marching with their community than working a job (or jobs) that isn’t paying all of their bills?
Not Everyone Can Afford Childcare
Not all parents who do have Saturdays off can afford an extra day of childcare, even if they do think their local demonstration will be safe. In 38 states, childcare costs more per year than college, ranging from 9.4 to 21% of a family’s annual income.6
Imagine how many more parents wish they could’ve come out on Saturday, wish they could’ve demonstrated for a better future for their children, free of school shootings and full of affordable school lunches and staffed by well-compensated teachers who don’t need second jobs to survive.
Protesting Isn’t Equally Safe for All Protestors
Using your voice and your presence, in community with your fellow demonstrators isn’t virtue signaling, it’s community building. Marching together simultaneously creates camaraderie in desperately scary times and it visually disproves MAGA narratives and false claims of radicalized violence.
But when the overwhelming majority of public protest is white protestors, we take fewer impact munitions to the face, attacked less with chemical weapons, and endure fewer mass arrests.7
According to the Thurgood Marshall Institute: “ … an estimated 93% of racial justice demonstrations in the summer of 2020 involved no violence, property destruction, or road blockades. However, police responses to protests varied widely, ranging from no presence at all to mass arrests, indiscriminate use of projectiles and chemical weapons (e.g., rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray), and driving police vehicles into crowds of protestors. Those types of police responses served as yet another example of the very police violence that protestors were calling to end.”8
When a radicalized violent mob of white insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and assaulted police officers with a variety of weapons, they weren’t shouting Blue Lives Matter or Back the Blue anymore. But they were pardoned by the current president.9 Including rioters with criminal records for domestic violence, rape, manslaughter, production of child pornography, child sexual abuse, and drug trafficking.10
During this era’s protests, many Black people took to social media, advising each other to stay home, to stay safe, and to let white people step up and take the risks on the front lines.11
Those Most Threatened by MAGA Anti-immigration Violence Are Unlikely to Participate
MAGA’s priority of arresting, kidnapping, detaining, and disappearing as many people as possible who appear to be of Latino or Hispanic origin is brutally inhumane.
“A quarter of Latino immigrants reported avoiding protests, demonstrations, or rallies specifically because of deportations announced by President Trump and the current political environment in the United States. Not surprisingly, 30% of undocumented respondents were more likely to avoid protesting due to fear of deportation.”12
We can safely assume that number is significantly higher than just those who knew about, and felt safe enough or had the time and access to fill out a survey.
Some Folks Are Physically Unable to Attend Marches
Our friends and neighbors with a variety of disabilities or illnesses or both might find themselves hospital or homebound.
Unfortunately, 42% of Americans have 2 or more chronic conditions, and 12% have at least five.13
“As many as 1.9 million people are completely homebound in the United States; another 5.5 million people have difficulty leaving their homes without the assistance of others.”14
That doesn’t mean they weren’t there with us in spirit. And we can find ways to carry their messages and deep convictions with us as well.
If your white skin or American accent or job security or current health and mobility enable you to show up and cheer, show up and cheer as bigly as you can, as often as you can.
Remember that the Constitution protects the equal rights of everyone within the U.S., not just American citizens. Citizenship is not a prerequisite for constitutionally protected equal rights like freedom of speech, assembly, or freedom from illegal search and seizure. The Bill of Rights, and the entire Constitution, protect everyone within the jurisdiction of the U.S., regardless of citizenship or immigration status.15
We’re all in this together, friends. May each demonstration get bigger, more whimsical, and more powerful. And may each march motivate every demonstrator to get more involved.
Want to keep that same and energy and hope and goodwill going? Click here to find effective ways to channel your motivation, outrage, compassion, and advocacy. We need to invest our momentum into local events, petitions, and volunteer opportunities. Register for the October 21st “What’s Next?” virtual event hosted by No Kings to learn more about what you can do in your area.
Faced with authoritarianism, let’s stay peaceful, stay silly, and stay strong together. Never underestimate how many of us believe in freedom and peace enough to fight for it.
Let me know in the comments which inflatable animal you want to march as next time.
🐸 🦄 🦖
And release the full and un-redacted Epstein files.
https://democrats-budget.house.gov/resources/fact-sheet/trumps-big-ugly-law-steals-poor-give-ultra-rich
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/working-poor/2022/
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/working-poor/2022/
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/12/how-much-child-care-costs-in-every-us-state.html
https://tminstituteldf.org/police-and-protests-the-inequity-of-police-responses-to-racial-justices-demonstrations/
https://tminstituteldf.org/police-and-protests-the-inequity-of-police-responses-to-racial-justices-demonstrations/
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5276336/donald-trump-jan-6-rape-assault-pardons-rioters
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5276336/donald-trump-jan-6-rape-assault-pardons-rioters
https://www.theroot.com/why-tiktok-is-urging-black-folks-to-sit-yo-black-a-do-1851772281
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/racial-profiling-by-ice-will-have-a-marked-impact-on-latino-communities/#:~:text=There%20are%2C%20of%20course%2C%20some,due%20to%20fear%20of%20deportation.
https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2024/23_0267.htm#:~:text=throughout%20the%20US.-,Introduction,at%20least%205%20(5).
“https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8614075/#:~:text=As%20many%20as%201.9%20million,often%20quite%20limited%20%5B2%5D.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript