Today's No Kings Protests Are Set To Be The Largest In US History
The US public are letting Trump know that he is not a king
By André Costa | 18 October 2025
The streets of America are filling up again, but this time it is beyond anything seen before. From New York to New Mexico, millions are moving under one banner, one message, the USA has No Kings. The chant rolls through city centers, over bridges, across farmlands, and down highways that have turned into walking paths. The message telling the same story as the one US founding fathers, someone wants to be our king, and we have the freedom to tell them they are not.
Estimates suggest it is set to be the single largest protest in U.S. history, and organisers are convinced it will be. Over 2,600 events are scheduled today across all fifty states, the movement’s online map lights the USA up like a constellation, each dot representing a crowd that is already gathering in public squares, college campuses, and courthouse lawns. By mid-morning, the National Mall in Washington was impassable, with helicopters hovering above as a river of signs moves from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.
This is the culmination of months of organization, a moment that feels less like a protest and more like a civic awakening. The No Kings coalition, led by groups including the ACLU, Indivisible, and the AFL-CIO, describes today as a renewal of democracy itself. Their message is simple: there are no monarchs in America, no chosen rulers, only citizens.
The story of today begins on June 14, 2025. That day, millions marched under the same banner, timed deliberately to coincide with the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade, and, not coincidentally, the birthday of Donald Trump. Organizers called it a day of symbolic defiance, a refusal to let one man turn public power into personal rule.
In that first wave, an estimated four to six million people took to the streets in more than two thousand locations. Families walked together, chanting “No kings, no tyrants, no crowns,” It was the largest coordinated protest since the Women’s March, and it revealed a movement capable of national reach.
Across America today, the same rhythm repeats. In Washington, D.C., the streets around the Mall are packed before noon. In New York, marchers spill from Union Square down Broadway, filling entire avenues in both directions, as shown in a video by CNN’s Ana Navarro-Cárdenas on Threads. Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive has become a river of movement, the skyline vibrating with the sound of drums and chanting.
The scale is impossible to ignore, estimates suggest as many as eight million people are participating nationwide, surpassing every recorded protest in U.S. history. Yet the atmosphere is overwhelmingly peaceful. Police departments in dozens of cities are marching alongside the protesters, as seen in videos across social media.
Part of what makes No Kings distinct is its breadth, rather than being a single-issue movement, it brings together labor unions, civil rights advocates, environmental groups, teachers, veterans, clergy, and students under one idea, that power must serve the public good, not personal ambition. Almost like a protest version of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ one of the many things being protested against.
As with the June demonstrations, today has drawn attention from prominent figures across culture and politics. Robert De Niro’s message was that American's must stand up and be counted, Mark Ruffalo has endlessly posted in support of the protest over the last number of months, encouraging followers to join their nearest march. Alyssa Milano’s post reminded Americans that “Protest matters. Use your voice.”
On late-night television earlier this week, Jimmy Kimmel compared the protests to the American Revolution, saying there is “nothing more American than telling a would-be monarch to shove it,” while he also reminded citizens what signs “not to make.” On The View, Joy Behar and Ana Navarro defended the demonstrations as an act of patriotic dissent, with Navarro confirming she would attend the Miami march. Political leaders including Senators Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy publicly endorsed the gatherings, and governors in several states have expressed solidarity with participants.
The result is a rare alignment of celebrity influence, political will, and grassroots organization, a fusion that feels larger than any single figure.
Every major city is documenting the moment. The scale is utterly staggering.
In a country accustomed to division, the sight of millions marching under one message feels almost miraculous, there are no central stages, no official spokespeople, the movement is intentionally decentralized. Each city’s organizers have autonomy, each community its own tone, this fact working to defend against the Trump regime’s claims of these protests falling under the banner of insurgency.
The organizers call this the “Second Declaration.” They mean it figuratively, but the historical parallel is unmistakable, Nearly two and a half centuries after the original Declaration of Independence, Americans are once again standing to assert that power belongs to the governed.
At the core of today’s march is a reminder that democracy is not permanent. It must be renewed by action. The No Kings movement does not exist to worship protest; it exists to remind the country of itself. When millions fill the streets not for a candidate or a party but for a principle, that is democracy breathing.
Today is not the end of protest. It is a moment of national clarity. It says that power, when abused, will always be met by the people who created it.
And it says something even more profound: that America, despite everything, still remembers how to stand up.
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