Millions of Americans rallied in more than 2,000 towns and cities on Saturday under the banner “No Kings,” staging one of the largest single-day protests of Donald Trump’s second term as the president oversaw a $25-$45 million military parade in Washington marking the Army’s 250th anniversary and his 79th birthday. Organisers said the aim was to “make everywhere else the story,” and early estimates put national turnout above five million.
Demonstrations ranged from 100,000 marchers on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway to a few hundred in rural Michigan, largely peaceful but punctuated by clashes in Los Angeles after police declared an unlawful assembly and by a shooting that wounded a Salt Lake City protester. The ACLU, Indivisible and 50501 stressed non-violence, with coalition spokesman Hunter Dunn calling it “more effective than force”.
High-profile figures amplified the message. In New York, Oscar-winner Mark Ruffalo told a drenched Bryant Park crowd, “Together, we’re the Avengers now—no one’s coming to save us”. Kerry Washington posted photos of herself under a sign reading “The only monarch I like is a butterfly,” captioning, “#NoKings, just some QUEENS… fighting for democracy”. Jimmy Kimmel, Glenn Close and Ayo Edebiri joined marches from Los Angeles to Boston, underscoring a surge of Hollywood engagement.
The White House dismissed the protests as “a complete and utter failure with minuscule attendance,” while Communications Director Steven Cheung accused liberals of siding with “criminals and illegals” instead of honouring the military. Conservative legal scholar John Yoo argued in an op-ed that Trump is on firm constitutional ground deploying troops if unrest spreads, citing the Insurrection Act and historic Supreme Court rulings.
Protest leaders countered that the real threat to order stems from what they call the president’s “authoritarian excesses,” pointing to last week’s National Guard deployment in Los Angeles and the politically motivated assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker that forced cancellations there. Despite scattered violence, most rallies mixed brass bands, Indigenous dancers and home-made placards declaring “We fought a king in 1775—why not 2025?”—a tableau organisers say shows democracy’s resilience under pressure.
