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Kuttner on TAP

What next after No Kings Day II?

Last Saturday brought out about seven million Americans in joyous protest. How to turn protest to power?

It’s the question everyone is asking. I participated in a Zoom Tuesday evening with leaders of No Kings to discuss what to do next. “Participated” is an exaggeration, since there were about 42,000 people on the call. But that’s a good sign. You can watch it here.

The hopeful news is that Americans in all parts of the country demonstrated energy, resolve, and solidarity. About 300 partner organizations participated, overcoming the chronic fragmentation and rivalry that has plagued progressive movements. As leaders kept saying on the call, this was the largest peaceful protest in American history, and even larger protests are planned.

But how to deploy seven million activated Americans into an effective force to constrain Trump?

If you compare this protest movement with successful protests in American history, you immediately appreciate that the strategic goals of No Kings are more diffuse because the circumstances are entirely different.

The first great march on Washington, the one in 1941 that its mastermind A. Philip Randolph called off at the last moment, had two highly focused goals. Black workers needed to get jobs in racist war production plants, and FDR needed to appoint a Fair Employment Practice Commission as enforcer. When Roosevelt finally agreed, Randolph canceled the march just a week before its planned date of July 1.

The next great march on Washington, the one led by Martin Luther King Jr. for “Jobs and Freedom,” in August 1963, demanded progress on civil rights. President Kennedy politely received the protesters at the White House, but he didn’t have the votes. But after Kennedy’s murder, LBJ did. And the great Selma-to-Montgomery marches of March 1965 demanded and got Johnson to use federal power to clear the way for the marchers and then successfully pushed LBJ to get the 1965 Voting Rights Act through Congress.

The great anti-war protests also had one focused goal: to end the Vietnam War. They helped to push LBJ out of office. Then, after Nixon became president, historians confirm that the giant citizen protests of October and November 1969 dissuaded Nixon from a further escalation that even included tactical nuclear weapons.

No Kings, by contrast, is trying to restrain a mad would-be dictator. The earlier protests succeeded in part because Roosevelt, Johnson, and Nixon were all sensitive to public opinion. Trump is contemptuous of it.

Of the ideas floated at the Tuesday meeting, some made strategic sense. Ezra Levin, co-director of Indivisible, one of the No Kings partners, invoked the pressure on Disney and the successful reinstatement of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel as a model for more consumer boycotts. Consumer pressure on corporations in turn can put corporate pressure on Trump. Seven million activated Americans is a lot of consumers.

Lisa Gilbert, speaking for Public Citizen, called for people to put more pressure on Republicans to end the government shutdown and on Democrats to hang tough. Fine, but it’s not quite clear how this will produce legislative progress.

Another idea was for the millions of participants to serve as a rapid response force, especially when it comes to containing ICE. The more Americans making life more difficult for ICE, the better. The good thing about the large turnout is that it signals the administration that they can’t arrest seven million people. However, the No Kings participants were made up of diverse citizen activists, only some of whom are willing to commit quasi civil disobedience.

All that said, No Kings is a terrific recruitment force—for everything from local actions against National Guard and ICE incursions, to coordination with courageous governors and mayors, to engagement in this year’s and next year’s elections.

A widely quoted statistic is the finding of social scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan in their 2011 research study “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict” that 3.5 percent of the population is a kind of tipping point. When that many people are involved, they can slow or reverse the slide to dictatorship.

That’s about 12 million Americans. Organizers of No Kings say that they will aim for something like that turnout for the next march.

These marches also do the service of making Trump and the Republicans say and do dumb things. They make clear who the real patriots are.

In the meantime, Trump’s appointees keep embarrassing everyone, the economy is softer than it looks, and Trump’s foreign policy is a shambles. Three world leaders, who are strategic tyrants but not mad kings, are making a fool of him—Putin, Xi, and Netanyahu.

So while No Kings by itself is not a panacea, it is a very important part of a growing citizen movement to contain Trump and save American democracy.

– ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Bluesky