Even before Donald Trump militarized his crackdown on pro-immigrant protesters in Los Angeles, a massive, nationwide demonstration was in the works for Saturday, June 14.
The “No Kings” protests have been imagined as a peaceful uprising to counter President Trump throwing himself a military parade on his birthday (which is also Flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the Army). Trump is organizing spectacle befitting a tin-pot tyrant, including a procession of tanks, Howitzers, mobile rocket launchers and other war machines rolling through the streets of Washington, D.C., as military aircraft, including Apache helicopters, soar overhead.
Protest organizers have billed June 14 as a “nationwide day of defiance,” during which Americans across the country stand up to “reject authoritarianism” and reclaim patriotism in the name of democracy. “The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,” the protest website declares.
Trump has menaced demonstrators planning to show up at his military procession: “If any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” he said Tuesday. Anticipating such a reaction, protest organizers specifically decided not to target the Trump parade route; there is not even a No Kings event planned in D.C. They envision, instead, demonstrators “showing up everywhere [Trump] isn’t — to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.”
Turnout at the nationwide demonstrations is expected to surpass the April 5 “Hands Off” protests, which drew more than 3 million protesters to oppose the Trump government, then dominated by Elon Musk, who was imposing draconian cuts on federal services through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“We’ve been planning the No Kings day” for months, says Ezra Levin, a cofounder of the progressive grassroots giant Indivisible, which is a key partner in a protest coalition that includes grassroots groups like 50501, civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, and many labor and environmental groups. Outside of a few anchor events — a large event is planned in Philadelphia, for example — the No Kings protests are organized on a viral, distributed basis, with locals in each community calling the shots. By last week, the number of planned events had already surpassed the April total.
Now that Trump has ordered troops into the streets of Los Angeles — to crack down on Americans exercising their First Amendment rights by protesting actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the reasons to demonstrate just got a lot more concrete. With the “egregious overreach” in Los Angeles “inflaming tensions,” Levin says, “suddenly all the numbers started skyrocketing.”
The volatile situation in the Los Angeles area was provoked by ICE agents expanding arrests of community members at job sites, including at downtown garment factories and a Home Depot. Tensions were also inflamed by reports of ICE taking law-abiding individuals who showed up to mandatory check-ins with immigration officials into custody, and then locking them in the basement of a federal building.
Speaking Monday with Rolling Stone, Levin described 1,800 planned No Kings events, roughly 500 more than the total for April. These include protests across America — from Nome, Alaska, to San Juan, Puerto Rico (map: here) — as well as solidarity actions around the globe. “I can guarantee you there will be millions of people out on No Kings day,” he says.
The planning for the No Kings protest began when Trump started touting his “dictator-style birthday parade,” Levin recalls. “We didn’t want to cede the narrative to him; we didn’t want to allow him to portray himself as all-powerful.” The idea was to mass-mobilize Americans of all walks of life — in big cities and small towns and rural communities — as a counter-weight to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. (Trump’s birthday bash is wildly unpopular; a new poll finds the military parade is opposed by 3 out of 4 Americans, including a majority of Republicans.)
The federal escalation in Southern California is rocket fuel for the protest mission. “In the context of his escalation in L.A., it takes on greater import,” Levin says. “You need to have a visible demonstration that Americans are against authoritarian overreach.”
Organizers want to turn out protesters who are ideologically diverse and geographically dispersed. “It needs to be everywhere, so that the contrast of what Trump is doing is as clear as possible,” says Levin, a former congressional staffer. “This guy stands for himself and his cronies. And the American people aren’t going to stand for it.”
The L.A. protests have been combustible, marked by clashes between demonstrators and the city’s notoriously brutal cops and sheriff deputies, as well as with paramilitary forces from the Department of Homeland Security. The authorities have been launching tear gas attacks and firing less-lethal projectiles into crowds, and agitators have been filmed throwing rocks and debris at law enforcement.
Levin insists that No Kings will be a show of nonviolent resistance, adding that Trump’s ugly show of force — including deploying National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles over the governor’s objections — must be met with a combination of mass turnout and immaculate vibes. “When they crack down on peaceful protests, what you need is overwhelmingly large, peaceful protests. That’s the way you respond to the authoritarian playbook.”
“We need non-violence in the streets,” he continues. “The alternative is giving the authoritarian the excuse that he wants to crack down on yet more peaceful protesters outside of L.A.”
With emotions running hot, that puts a special burden on protest organizers — most of whom are self-appointed volunteers. No Kings organizers are providing trainings this week for local protest marshals — emphasizing public safety and de-escalation. “We need to have everybody in the right mindset,” Levin says, explaining that the protests are a “strategic play to demonstrate exactly how outside the norm this administration is.”
Events this large can take on a life of their own. “Some people are going to join in because they heard it was the cool place to be,” Levin says. “It’s incumbent on those who are more engaged to act as leaders and to operate under the umbrella of non-violence, because the alternative is playing directly into Trump’s hands.”
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