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The obvious success of Saturday’s No Kings rallies has overwhelmed a whole lot of nitpicking, most of which comes in the form of right-wing bitter grapes [ [link removed] ], but some of which is meant to be constructive [ [link removed] ].
In both cases, the nits tend to come in this form: What do these protesters hope to achieve? What is their ask? Most historically significant American protests are organized around cognizable policy demands: equal rights under law, an end to war or nuclear proliferation, criminal-justice reform. What does “No Kings” even mean?
There’s a simple response to this critique: Donald Trump is in fact governing as though he were a king or dictator, well outside the bounds of the Constitution, and the “demand” is for the people and institutions with the power to check him to do their jobs or face consequences. Companies will be boycotted; members of Congress and governors will be voted out of office; judges can eventually be removed.
Nevertheless the critique is aimed squarely at long-standing Democratic Party anxieties.
Ask just about anyone who works in the party about the mounting opposition to Trump, and they will volunteer similar qualms: Democrats have to be for something, not just against someone—even if he is a vile tyrant.
This is a principal reason why, when Republicans came to Democrats demanding votes to fund the executive branch, Democrats conditioned their support not on reining in Trump, but on increasing health-care spending.
In fairness to Democrats, the tenuous connection between Trump’s lawlessness and kitchen-table issues has firmed up in recent weeks. As Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) noted Tuesday [ [link removed] ], “This is not about money. There is enough money to bail out Argentina with $20 billion. There is enough money to purchase a brand new aircraft for $173 million for the Homeland Security secretary. There is enough money to renovate the White House ballroom. What there isn’t enough money for under this Republican government is you.”
But the two concepts will never be coterminous. Trump and the GOP could cough up health-care subsidies tomorrow, and it would do nothing to drain the No Kings movement of urgency. If Democrats were to win the 2026 election on a conventional “Contract with America”-style policy laundry list, in a moment of acute democratic backsliding, they would be whistling past the graveyard.
What they need, on top of any policy appeals, is to develop a No Kings agenda.
TRANCHE WARFARE
The point of such an undertaking wouldn’t be to appease the good-faith carpers and bad-faith trolls. It wouldn’t even really be to satisfy Democrats’ own obsession with agendaism (though it would scratch the itch to be “for something,” including certain kitchen-table issues). The animating idea is to foster synergy with the biggest protest movement in American history.
If Democrats want to harness No Kings energy, if candidates running primary campaigns want No Kings voters to take a close look at them, they should be able to speak clearly about the unfolding crisis. They should have near-term ideas about how to check Trump while he’s in power, and longer-term ones about how to rebuild, deliver accountability, and protect the country from a future brush with fascism after he’s gone.
Here’s what that might look like...

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