Last weekend was shaping up to be a depressing one for the American left. Between the celebrations of Flag Day (which is also President Trump’s birthday) and Father’s Day, it seemed Democrats would have to spend all Saturday and Sunday bed-rotting to survive the “toxic” combination of patriotism and patriarchy.
But their hopes were restored by the efforts of a bevy of leftist protest organizations. Using the anti-ICE riots happening in Los Angeles and elsewhere as their inspiration, these wannabe tyrants initiated a series of so-called No Kings rallies across the country on Saturday. The obvious purpose of these rallies was to galvanize opposition to the Trump administration and its efforts to reestablish law and order.
If this all seems eerily familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it before. Americans should not be deceived by this latest clunky combination of astroturfing and gaslighting by ideologues desperate to return to power.
The Illusion of Populism
Trump’s reelection in November represented the triumph of his common-sense populist appeal in the face of massively organized resistance. To counter Trump, Democrats need to hide their centralized structure behind a façade of spontaneous grassroots activism. Yet the No Kings effort failed to deceive any but the most superficial observer, thanks in large part to Asra Nomani’s efforts with the Pearl Project.
In an op-ed published last Friday, Nomani detailed how Saturday’s protests were organized by close to 200 groups, “all of which are aligned with the Democratic Party and many of which claim tax-exempt ‘nonpartisan’ non-profit status,” with over $2 billion in annual revenue.
Under the moniker of “Indivisible Digital Asset Management,” this protest machine provided promotional materials for demonstration organizers along with an online “toolkit” for messaging and mobilizing support. While these materials seem to emphasize a nonviolent approach, an “orientation” slide deck provided by #ResistTrump, one of the partner organizations involved, reportedly included “political violence” on its continuum of protest, further confirming the left’s descent into radicalism.
In a second op-ed published on the day of the protests, Nomani revealed the “familiar hidden hand” of Democrat Party affiliates organizing them. This explains the considerable overlap between the map of No Kings events and the county-by-county 2024 electoral map; the majority of these protests took place in deep-blue enclaves where the organizers knew they could rely on local support while pretending to have truly national momentum.
Even the volunteers on the ground knew the fix was in. Nomani cited one who wished to remain anonymous as saying, “It feels less like a movement and more like a performance. We are told which graphics to share, what signs to print and even how to answer reporters. It is like the whole protest is a campaign rollout — but in protest clothes.”
In short, the No Kings protests are about as spontaneous and popular as Kamala Harris dropping in for a meal at Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh. As Nomani concluded, “These are the kings and queens of the Democratic political machine summoning their minions to take to the streets to feign a fake people’s revolution.”
A Hollow Message
You would think that with so many resources available and so little credibility left to lose, the No Kings organizers would have tried out some brand-new material. Alas, what we saw on the streets was more of the same tired and inaccuracy-ridden rhetoric that the left has inflicted on the country since Trump came down that escalator 10 years ago.
A brief look at the No Kings “brand folder” confirms the organizers’ lack of imagination. The one slogan that seems halfway current is, “If there’s money for a parade? Then there’s money for Medicaid!” (Apparently, the digital sign budget didn’t include money for proofreaders.) All the rest of the material is vague leftist claptrap: “This Is What Democracy Looks Like,” “Americans Against Oligarchy,” and “We the People.” The voters didn’t believe the Dems’ use of these canards last November, and they still don’t.
Apparently, the main thrust of this “new” movement is to invoke a false sense of patriotism through the slogan “No Kings.” This is an odd move given the left’s claims that America’s true founding was not with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but with the arrival of the first slaves in Virginia in 1619. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time these ideologues contradicted themselves in the pursuit of power.
Hypocrisy on Parade
But the most self-defeating aspect of this campaign is that it is so easy to show that the protesters’ guiding principle is utterly bunk. After all, if the definition of kingship in this context is executive branch overreach, then where were they all between 2021 and 2024?
They meekly bent the knee when the Biden White House imposed unscientific mask and vaccine mandates and allowed the educational establishment to damage an entire generation of students. They looked the other way when Biden’s DOJ targeted parents who complained at school board meetings, traditional Catholics, and the peaceful pro-life movement. And they applauded Democrats’ efforts to use bizarre interpretations of the law in an attempt to throw Biden’s chief political rival in prison.
I’ve asked several of my local No Kings supporters about this obvious double standard, but I have yet to receive a reasonable answer. Thus, I can only conclude that these folks are perfectly fine with a monarch (even one who is clearly mentally unfit) so long as he has a “D” after his name.
If the organizers of this current spate of demonstrations had any integrity, they would just call them “Orange Man Bad” protests and finally abandon any attempt at seeming principled. But they don’t, so once again it will be up to ordinary Americans to reject their tyrannical alternative to government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” by ignoring their caterwauling.
Robert Busek is a Catholic homeschooling father of six who has taught history and Western Civilization in both traditional and online classrooms for over twenty years. His essays have also been published in The American Conservative and The American Spectator. The views he expresses here are his own.
