Demonstrators march down the streets of Manhattan during a No Kings Day protest today. Protesters gathered in major cities and small towns across the US, rallying against presidential actions that they see as authoritarian. Photo / Adam Gray, The New York Times
They were teachers and lawyers, military veterans and fired government employees.
Children and grandmothers, students and retirees.
Arriving in droves across the United States in major cities and small towns, they appeared in costumes, blared music, brandished signs, hoisted American flags and cheered at the honks of passing cars.
The vibe in most places was irreverent but peaceful and family friendly.
The purpose, however, was focused.
Each crowd, everywhere, shared the same mantra: No kings.
Collectively, the day-long mass demonstration against the Trump Administration today NZT held in thousands of locations, condemned a President that the protesters view as acting like a monarch.
Many had attended a similar event in June, but the months since had seen US President Donald Trump make a dizzying array of changes in quick succession.
This time, the crowds included a new round of protesters.
They were those who said they were outraged over: immigration raids; the deployment of federal troops in cities; government layoffs; steep budget cuts; the chipping away of voting rights; the rollback of vaccine requirements; the reversal on treaties with tribes; and the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill.
Many were also united in saying the Administration needed to show basic humanity.
“We can argue and debate policies and ways that we can solve problems,” said Chris Scharman, a lawyer who attended a rally in Salt Lake City.
“But we shouldn’t be debating the value of people.”
In major metropolitan areas, like Washington, DC, the crowds were huge.
A rally in Atlanta that drew thousands at one point covered three city blocks. A protest in San Francisco poured across five. One rally in Chicago stretched over 22.
Officials in New York said that more than 100,000 people demonstrated across all five boroughs of the city.
One of the largest turnouts was in Times Square, where the streets were awash in a carnival-like atmosphere with flashy, flippant signs, one that announced: “I Pledge Allegiance to No King”.
Protesters sported the inflatable frog ensemble that activists in Portland, Oregon, began wearing to poke fun at the White House’s attempt to portray activists as anarchists or domestic terrorists.
“No more Trump!” the crowd chanted as they waved American flags.
“We’ve got to speak up for our rights, especially if we’re lucky enough to be citizens,” said Bianca Diaz, whose 6-year-old daughter, Luna, came dressed as an axolotl, a kind of salamander.
“I wanted her to witness this,” Diaz said.
Known as No Kings Day, a follow-up to a demonstration in June, the events were scheduled at roughly 2600 sites across all 50 states.
They were organised by national and local groups and well-known progressive coalitions including Indivisible, 50501 and MoveOn.
The rallies came even as Trump’s approval ratings at the polls have not changed significantly.
Republican leaders denounced the protests, blaming them for prolonging the government shutdown and calling the event the “hate America rally”.
Trump’s political team trolled protesters on social media with AI-generated images of the President wearing a crown.
When asked if the President had a comment on the demonstrations, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, gave a brief response in an email. “Who cares?” she said.
Diaz, 39, was one of those who did.
She said she heard about the demonstration on TikTok and knew immediately that she would attend.
A claims adjuster employed by the federal government, she has not been paid since the shutdown but said she supported the position of Democratic politicians who were pushing to keep healthcare costs down.
A mass protest, she said, could be encouraging to leaders pursuing that goal.
“Protesting is the only way to get our voices out,” said Libby Smith, 17, who attended a rally in Pittsburgh.
She said her plans to join the military after high school were deflated when Pete Hegseth, the Defence Secretary, fired a string of women leaders and said he wanted women out of combat roles.
Some 650km southwest in Richmond, Kentucky, where Trump has handily won the past three general elections, protesters lined the footpaths outside the local courthouse.
A few drivers in passing cars jeered and shouted pro-Trump declarations, but others appeared to honk in support.
“This is what democracy looks like!” protesters chanted, led by a woman in a megaphone. “No kings, no kings, no kings in America!”
Protesters in Portland, where city and state leaders were fighting the President in court over his plans to deploy the National Guard there to address what he said was violence that was out of control, took part in three separate marches that eventually coalesced into one.
“We are out today to show people that this is not a war zone,” said Shawnathan Thibodeaux, 37, a middle school history teacher who attended with his wife and 4-year-old son.
“The ultimate goal of describing this city that way is terrifying. We are peaceful and silly and still Portland.”
Around the country, strangers met and swapped their long lists of grievances with one another: the government shutdown; the tariffs; Trump’s attacks on higher education; the pressure he has placed on the Justice Department to prosecute political enemies; the erosion of women’s rights; and the disbanding of diversity programmes.
Although some rallies saw small groups of counter-protesters and a police presence, the mood at most was upbeat and festive.
At a demonstration in Washington, children and families were prominent.
In San Francisco, a crowd surrounded by farmers market vendors chanted, “Keep calm, keep marching!”
At Grant Park in Chicago, thousands of attendees roared in applause as speakers took to the stage, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who urged demonstrators to reject the idea of a government with unlimited power.
Marilyn Ricken, 80, was in the crowd, having arrived with three friends, two of whom relied on walkers to move around.
Ricken, a retired insurance agent, had been at the No Kings rally in June but said today’s event came with a deeper sense of urgency.
“This is how change happens,” she said as nearby protesters signed their names at the bottom of a large replica of the US Constitution.
In a show of solidarity, protesters around the world held demonstrations outside US embassies, consulates or at town squares, including in Prague, Vienna, and Malmo, Sweden in Europe.
In Paris, protesters raised placards denouncing Trump. In Germany, rallies were planned in four different cities, including one outside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
In countries with long-established monarchies, like Britain and Spain, protesters gathered under the slogan “No Tyrants”.
In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, many carried colourful signs rebuking the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
The forcefulness of Trump’s second term may have galvanised protesters, said Jeremy Pressman, a political science professor who co-directs the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project of the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut.
“The intensity of the action is going to feed into the intensity of the counter-action or counter-protest,” he said.
Many protesters said they were heartened by meeting peers.
“You feel like your voice isn’t that loud,” said Michael Flanagan, 46, a medical administrator who attended a rally in Memphis, Tennessee, where the National Guard was recently deployed. “But I’ve never seen this level of enthusiasm.”
In Manhattan, two siblings, Joyce Pavento, 75, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, and Diane Hanson, 78, of Narragansett, Rhode Island, were similarly encouraged, to a degree. They had felt compelled to travel to New York City for the protest.
Pavento said she enjoyed the camaraderie of like-minded people but wondered if their participation made any difference in the end.
Yet despite pessimism and fears, the sisters agreed they couldn’t tolerate staying home.
“What choice do we have?” Pavento asked.
“This is all we’ve got,” Hanson said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Corina Knoll
Photographs by: Adam Gray, Jamie Kelter Davis, Desiree Rios, Eric Lee
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