“The problem is U.S. presidents, not kings.
The problem is the U.S. empire, not Trump.
The United States needs drastic, revolutionary change,
not daytime protests designed to be
as inoffensive as possible.”
– Caitlin Johnstone
The third “No Kings” protest takes place nationwide tomorrow. Here in Minnesota, the "flagship" march and rally of “No Kings 3.0” takes place on the grounds of the State Capitol building in St. Paul. Special guests include
Bruce Springsteen,
Jane Fonda,
Joan Baez, and Sen.
Bernie Sanders. Organizers are hoping that over 100,000 people show up. I’m still deciding whether I'll attend the rally at the Capitol or the one at Fairview and Randolph Aves in St. Paul as I did last October for “
No Kings 2.0”
To be honest, I continue to feel ambivalent about the “No Kings” movement, and for the same reasons that I shared
last October. Added to these is the fact that the movement, one organized by the
Indivisible coalition, is refusing to address the war on Iran, even as it cites a multitude of other reasons for the protest, including ongoing
ICE raids across the country.
“Given how much Trump’s attack on Iran is rapidly escalating and the stakes involved, it seems now would be a good time for No Kings and Indivisible to marshal their tremendous resources and hold an actual antiwar march with clear demands, not more partisan pep rallies,” tweeted media critic Adam Johnson. “The U.S. is not under any threat of a ‘king’ nor do I have any sense of what this even means,” he added. “It is however in the midst of an imperial murder spree and the largest opposition movement in the county, such as it is, should probably center this fact at some point.”
Journalist
Caitlin Johnstone shares a similar perspective in her most recent piece, one that I share in its entirety below.
_________________
The Problem Isn’t “Kings,”
the Problem Is U.S. Presidents
By Caitlin Johnstone
March 24, 2026
There’s another giant “No Kings” protest scheduled for this weekend, and right now all I can think about is how disgusting it is that this is the closest thing to a mass-scale antiwar protest in the United States right now.
The problem with the “No Kings” protests is right there in the title. They’re saying “We don’t want a king, we want a president!” But Donald Trump is not a king. He is a president. And that’s the real problem: U.S. presidents are extremely evil men who do extremely evil things.
Donald Trump is a U.S. president who is doing U.S. president things. U.S. presidents consistently murder people with unforgivable acts of mass military violence, mistreat immigrants and marginalized communities, and promote tyranny for the benefit of corrupting special interests in defense of the U.S. empire and the capitalist status quo. That’s what their job is. If they weren’t willing to do these things, they wouldn’t get the job.
Trump is not some freakish aberration; he is the product of the same American political status quo as his predecessors. He became president the same way they did, and the powers he now wields were given to his office via mundane executive, legislative and judicial decisions and precedents before he was ever elected.
But because the “No Kings” protests are organized by liberal defenders of that same political status quo, the demonstrations cannot address any of this. The whole thing is designed to be as large and inclusive as possible while also ensuring that it doesn’t disrupt the established order in any meaningful way. They make no real demands. They coordinate the demonstrations with police and government officials. Protesters show up for a few hours with their brunch signs and their orange guy shirts, and then they go home without inconveniencing anybody.
They are not protesting against the U.S. empire. They just want a more polite, photogenic empire.
They are not protesting the corrupt oligarchic political system which gave rise to Donald Trump. They just want the corrupt oligarchic political system to give rise to presidents who make them feel less uncomfortable.
The problem is U.S. presidents, not kings. The problem is the U.S. empire, not Trump. The United States needs drastic, revolutionary change, not daytime protests designed to be as inoffensive as possible. As long as Americans are protesting against fictional monarchies and easily replaceable oligarchic puppets instead of resisting the actual imperial machine, the abuses are going to continue.
The war in Iran is the most obviously evil American war in generations. People should be flooding the streets in every major U.S. city. Washington DC should be on fire. Soldiers should be deserting en masse. Instead we’re seeing these stupid fluffy lib theater conventions where people get together to do nothing.
Americans of conscience should be feeling deeply embarrassed right now.
_________________
As with my participation in “
No Kings 1.0” and “
No Kings 2.0,” I’ll be carrying at tomorrow’s “No Kings 3.0” a two-sided sign, about which I
wrote the following last June:
My message seeks to acknowledge and convey a deeper awareness of what’s being protested. Yes, Donald Trump has clear authoritarian tendencies and is taking actions that are undermining and dismantling the democratic and humanitarian institutions of the U.S. This needs to be highlighted, resisted, and stopped. For the vast majority of people, this will be their message tomorrow. I support this message. Yet at the same time, many of us don’t see Trump himself as the sole or even primary problem; we see him as a symptom – an undeniably extreme and terrible one – of a deeper reality which for decades has undermined and made a mockery of democracy in this country.
I’m referring to the corrupting influence of corporate money, of special profit-obsessed interests. I’m talking about the corporate capture of our political system; the rise and devastating influence of a corporate aristocracy, an oligarchy to which both major parties bow.
Although such subservience benefits these parties’ coffers, it has proven profoundly detrimental to the well-being of their constituents, the environment, and democracy.
In choosing to appease their corporate donors at the expense of the needs of the people, both parties can be said to be oligarchic; both parties comprise a corporatist/oligarchic duopoly, the policies of which created the economic conditions of profound inequality that make the authoritarian populism of Trump so appealing to so many.
The oligarchy we’re up against is every bit as anti-democratic and thus un-American as any king. Indeed, it’s sadly accurate to say that in the U.S. “money rules,” that “money is king.”
“King” Trump could keel over tomorrow, but the kingship of the oligarchy would remain. It’s this “money is king” reality that I’ll be highlighting and protesting at the “No Kings” rally.
Related Off-site Links:
“No Kings”: March 28 Rallies Could Be Biggest Day of Protest in U.S. History – Democracy Now! (March 27, 2026).
“No Kings” Protest Refusal to Address the War on Iran Reflects the Failure of the U.S. Antiwar Movement – Michael Arria (Mondoweiss, March 26, 2025).
It’s Not Trump. It’s America – Lydia Polgreen (New York Times, March 25, 2026).
The “No Kings” Scam: The Oligarchs Are Funding Their Own “Resistance”
“No Kings” Rallies Count, But We Need Bigger and More Sustained Civil Resistance – Peyton Fleming (Common Dreams, October 21, 2025).
The “No Kings” Day Project Must Evolve From Protest to Civil Disobedience – Phil Wilson (Common Dreams, October 23, 2025).
UPDATE: No Kings in America, Real Resistance in Rome – How Liberal Democrats and AIPAC Allies Hijacked the Movement While Italy Actually Fights Empire and Genocide – Michael Leonardi (CounterPunch, April 3, 2026).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “Trump Did Not Change the Office of the Presidency. He Exposed It”
• “Performative Resistance Alone Won’t Change Anything”
• “We Intend to Defend Our Democracy”: The “No Kings” Protests of Oct. 18, 2025
• Authoritarianism With a Blue Sticker
• Thoughts on the Eve of “No Kings Day” 2.0
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Bruce Fanger on Jesus’s Theology of No Kings
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
