With over 2,700 individual demonstrations confirmed and an estimated 7.1 million participants, Saturday’s “No Kings” protests look to be the largest day of protest in United States history. While the White House’s initial response to the massive display of discontent was mockery, President Donald Trump’s increasingly threatening stance suggests Republicans plan to seize the moment to clamp down on civil liberties.
“I think it’s a joke,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday. “I looked at the people. They are not representative of this country.”
While calling the demonstrations “very small, very ineffective,” the president said his administration would investigate billionaire philanthropist George Soros for funding the events. In an interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo earlier Sunday, Trump issued a threat. “Don’t forget, I can use the Insurrection Act. Fifty percent of the presidents almost have used that. And that’s unquestioned power.”
His claim was false: The Insurrection Act has been invoked by only 15 presidents, typically in response to civil unrest. On Truth Social Sunday, Trump posted a video showing an endless series of campaign posters promoting himself as president in perpetuity.
Trump’s over-the-top trolling, including his brazen lying, is meant to disguise the anti-democratic propaganda as harmless jest. “I’m not a king,” Trump told reporters days earlier, before adding, with a smile, that “if I were, we’d be doing things a whole lot faster.”
Ahead of the No Kings demonstrations, which last swept the country in June, the U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division warned that the protests were “attempts to gaslight the public and destabilize our government.” In a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a staunch Trump ally and self-described constitutional conservative, defended his earlier labeling of the protests as a “hate-America rally,” adding: “It’s not about the people. It’s about the message. It’s about the ideology.” He warned: “They want to dismantle capitalism. They want to erase our founding principles.”
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Fox News personalities, meanwhile, dismissed participants as “paid protesters.”
“I’ve got to be honest, the Trump rallies look bigger than what we are seeing,” Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary turned Fox News host, said on Saturday. “Not sure there’s a huge anti-Trump appetite here across the country.”
“I think in particular this No Kings protests, regardless of who it’s backed by, is not in opposition to a king. It’s actually advocating for a leftist king. That’s what they want, they want someone like Joe Biden,” Fox News contributor Kaylee McGhee White said on Saturday.
Was “No Kings” a dangerous left-wing uprising? A joke? A nothingburger?
Conservative political identity in the age of Trump cannot reconcile the president’s increasingly imperial posture with the democratic traditions they claim to defend. The reaction from his party and his media allies confirms that they don’t just tolerate the performance of absolute monarchy. They promote it.
Conservative political identity in the age of Trump cannot reconcile the president’s increasingly imperial posture with the democratic traditions they claim to defend. The reaction from his party and his media allies confirms that they don’t just tolerate the performance of absolute monarchy. They promote it.
Trump has mused publicly about suspending term limits. He routinely uses federal agencies to punish enemies and reward allies. He has publicly ordered military and federal law enforcement deployments into U.S. cities. He praises foreign strongmen and speaks of the country’s military power in possessive terms: My generals, my soldiers, my judges. He has openly floated using the Department of Justice to prosecute critics.
As MoveOn Executive Director Katie Bethell put it, “The millions of people protesting are centered around a fierce love for our country. A country that we believe is worth fighting for.”
That’s a tough message to counter if you claim to love the Constitution, too. Perhaps that’s why many, instead, decided to embrace the charge that Trump is indeed acting unconstitutionally.
On Truth Social, Vice President JD Vance shared a doctored video of Trump placing a crown on his head as Democratic leaders bowed. The official White House account reshared the clip, along with images of Democratic lawmakers like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in digitally edited sombreros. The Department of Transportation’s official social media account posted a cartoon image of the two Democratic congressional leaders as Disney princesses.
Trump shared an AI-generated video of himself flying a jet with the words “King Trump” written on its side. While wearing a golden crown, he dumps excrement over the crowds of protestors marching below, all to the sound of Kenny Loggins’ iconic “Danger Zone” from the “Top Gun” soundtrack. The video, created by a meme account whose profile image features a Pepe the Frog-Trump hybrid, specifically targeted Democratic Party content creator Harry Sisson.
“Can a reporter please ask Trump why he posted an AI video of himself dropping poop on me from a fighter jet?” Sisson posted on X early Sunday.
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“I’ll ask him for you Harry,” Vance replied. The vice president also reposted a now-viral image of Democratic leaders kneeling before a crowned Trump with the caption: “You hate him because he can’t be controlled.”
In that sense, the right’s response to No Kings wasn’t just politically telling. It was conceptually damning. If a protest warns that someone is behaving like a king, and the accused responds by laughing, wearing a crown and declaring “You’re just mad I’m winning” — you have your answer.
He may not be a king by law. But in posture, and in the eyes of his defenders, Donald Trump already wears the crown. So he wants to define criticism as disloyalty. Mike Johnson wants to define protest as hate. Fox News wants to define mass mobilization as marginal. And yet none of it is working.
Millions showed up — more than ever before. And they’ll keep showing up.
The important questions now aren’t whether Trump will continue to act like a king. They are whether the right can continue to pretend he isn’t — and if the press will let Republicans claim they haven’t seen Trump’s absurd reaction before he abuses his power to exact revenge.
