No Kings Was America’s Largest Protest Since 1970

A lot of people last week were wondering why Congressional Republicans were talking so much about the upcoming No Kings protests, given that they were partially the subjects of them. Anyone familiar with the Streisand effect understands why it was a bad idea for the GOP to tell everyone about this opportunity to gather across America with your neighbors and tell Republicans why they suck, but I think the fact that it wound up being America’s largest single day of political protest ever proves that Republicans weren’t worried about overhyping the protests. They accepted their popularity ahead of time and sought to do what they always do, and tried to get out ahead of it and create a narrative around so-called anti-America protests that were filled with the American flag and chants of USA!

No Kings organizers say that seven million people showed up across the nation on Saturday to protest. The data scientist G. Elliott Morris’ Strength in Numbers partnered with independent Atlanta-based science newsroom The Xylon to count the number of people who showed up across the country in big cities and small rural towns, and their median estimate is that 5.2 million participated, with an upper bound of 8.2 million people. With roughly 330 million people in America, that means somewhere between 1.5 percent and 2.4 percent of the population protested on Saturday. That’s a lot. Only the Earth Day protests in 1970 were larger, and those were not the same kind of political protest as No Kings, as those had far more people and powers planning it. This was the largest American protest of its kind. Ever.

I can already hear the George Soros accusations mounting from the most predictable people on earth, so let’s just do the math again like I did last week for the first No Kings protests. I think $100 to a fake protester for a full day of fake protesting is a fair rate, especially on a football weekend. So that means that George Soros spent at minimum $500 million on the June No Kings protests, and anywhere between $520 million and $820 million minimum on Saturday’s. His net worth is about $14 billion, so now he’s down to $13 billion or less. Assuming that’s all liquid (which it isn’t), he can only afford about 15 more No Kings protests at the upper bound until he’s completely broke. Anyone pushing this childish narrative is just demonstrating how they, like the president and the greater Fox News cinematic universe, understand very little about math and the difference between liquidity and paper wealth. These protests were organic, the numbers are simply too large to conclude anything else.

This regime is unpopular, and it is getting less popular every day. Take whatever respected pollster you want. Gallup. Pew. Nate Silver. G. Elliot Morris. Even the abundance bros. Hell, we have polls of non-MAGA Republicans souring on Trump because of his idiotic economic agenda. The trendlines are all sloping down and to the right. There are countless examples of how Trump’s base of support is currently somewhere in the very low 40s at best, with the margin of error slipping further into the high 30s every month. It’s one thing to see it in the data—but it’s an entire other experience to tap into your human instincts out among other humans standing up and saying this is wrong. No Kings proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that people are so upset over Trump’s rank authoritarianism that roughly two percent of the population is willing to give up a football Saturday to express it, and many found it cathartic. You are not alone. We are all in this together.

The protests were peaceful too, further dismaying the GOPers in Congress sweatily trying to command a narrative far bigger than their small figures. The New York Police Department said there were “more than 100,000 people across all five boroughs peacefully exercising their first amendment rights and the NYPD made zero protest-related arrests.” The images coming from No Kings on Saturday are not the black bloc antifa boogeymen the right wants to project into America’s minds, but of an endless stream of normies, dad jeans, wine moms and grandmas. As one astute poster noted, “everyone in this crowd is signed up for Kohl’s rewards points.”

“This is what democracy looks like.”

“This is what America looks like.”

NYC

[image or embed]

— Steven  Beschloss (@stevenbeschloss.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 3:01 PM

And these didn’t just take place in blue states; this was a true nationwide protest. As another poster noted along with this screenshot, “If you know Florida geography, the fact that there’s even a No Kings protest scheduled for places like Palatka, Starke, or Bartow, and parts of the Big Bend that are more forest and swamp than populated areas is a big friggin deal.”

Sportswriter Holly Anderson said, “I have a couple friends who are teachers in rural Missouri, checked the map this morning and there were four events planned within an hour of their house.” You could have thrown a dart at any red state or district on Saturday and found a No Kings protest within driving distance.

The scene at No Kings in Raleigh, where protesters have been met with a near-constant stream of supportive honks for the last two hours.

[image or embed]

— Brandon Kingdollar (@kingdollar.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 11:42 AM

Nashville TN agrees!!!

[image or embed]

— John Michael Kelly (@groovy-old-guy.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 3:49 PM

The inflatable frogs, now the symbol of the resistance in a heartwarming reclamation story from the Pepe obsessed crypto bros, were out en masse too. This is such a powerful symbol of resistance because it both conveys a message of silliness and peacefulness while threatening federal agents with the potential to become famous for assaulting an inflatable dinosaur on camera. These silly suits defang fascist propaganda in a way that no Very Serious reasoned debate ever could. This is what’s supposedly trying to overthrow the government? Really??

#nokings

Portland frog brigade

[image or embed]

— Frettie Fingers (@frettie.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 2:40 PM

Children showed up to protest too, bringing heartwarming signs like this one telling Trump to leave their friends alone.

No kid should ever have to protest or advocate for their friends’ basic humanity.

But they’re standing up at No Kings anyway.

[image or embed]

— Kat Abughazaleh (@katmabu.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 10:24 AM

And other devastating insults like this that I am still going to be guffawing about 30 years from now.

Trump is very unpopular. The story we are told about the 2024 election and the country shifting right is simply not true; that was a vote of no confidence in the Democrats more than it was a vote in favor of Trump. Do not let the broader rightward shift in major media convince you otherwise. If anything, they are following Trump’s trend of being less popular and influential today than they were yesterday (CBS News is about to speedrun this dynamic with Bari Weiss who is already struggling with managing people who don’t think as shallowly as she does).

The more media defines life in terms of Trump’s priorities, the less relevance they have in the real world where two percent of the population is protesting. Grandmas are out here saying abolish ICE, while the New York Times is describing live fire over the LA freeway during No Kings protests as “Vance Flexes the Marines’ Might.” Shrapnel hit cars on the freeway, yet the Times is making sure to put a fanciful rhetorical flourish on an act that could have got people killed. We are watching relics of a past era dying in front of our eyes everywhere you look these days, and that includes Trump’s regime and his enablers in media. There are No Kings in this country, and the dichotomy between the weakness of the Republicans and the strength of the protests makes me believe that will remain true beyond this turbulent and historic period in American history.