The Wild Reed: No Kings 4.0

Sunday, October 18, 2026

No Kings 4.0

Yesterday I participated in one of “No Kings”/“Get Out and Vote Early” rallies that took place across the country. As I’ve done previously, I attended the rally held outside Carondelet Village in St. Paul, MN. Many CSJ Sisters, fellow Consociates, and friends were at this particular gathering.

This was the fourth “No Kings” protest organized by the Democratic Party-aligned Indivisible coalition. This alignment is important to acknowledge as it effectively defangs any actual protest aspect of the “No Kings” movement, as many have noted.

Take, for example, the following from an anonymous online commentator:

One general strike in one city is worth more than every “No Kings” protest ever collectively. That’s because the “No Kings” protests are a sham designed to funnel people from the red capitalist party to the blue capitalist party. They lack class perspective and do not challenge the real kings who are the billionaires that own, control, and fund both parties.

Then there’s Keira Havens’ excellent October 15 article over at Current Affairs. Following is an excerpt.

On March 28, 2026 – two months after Trump’s gestapo forces murdered Alex Pretti and Renée Good – nearly 9 million people took to the streets to declare “No Kings” for the third time. The progressive organization behind the protest, Indivisible, declared it the largest single-day demonstration in American history.

But six months later, with November midterms fast approaching, ICE continues to kidnap immigrants from their homes and Trump is not an inch closer to being convicted and removed from office. A fourth No Kings event is just days away and some organizers have begun to question what exactly the group is demanding.

Indivisible was founded in the wake of Trump’s first election by husband and wife Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, both former congressional staffers. In December 2016, alongside a group of colleagues, the couple published a 26-page digital guide to resistance on Google Docs (the Indivisible Guide). The handbook quickly went viral and thousands of local Indivisible chapters began to spring up across the country, demanding Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. Democratic leadership was not amused, citing the need to stay focused on policy rather than accountability. Nancy Pelosi said the party should cultivate the image of being the “‘no drama’ Democrats.”

Ten years later, the Democrats are still reluctant to impeach Donald Trump and hold him accountable for his crimes and unconstitutional actions. Indivisible, known for its most-prominent visual, a logo of a crossed-out crown above the words “NO KINGS,” seems to have joined them in this.

Despite its origins as a movement dedicated to helping citizens pressure elected officials into resisting the Trump agenda, Indivisible National has not endorsed Trump's impeachment, telling a local chapter via email that it is “not an endorsed priority” for the No Kings! Coalition. In Montana, the organization went further, requesting that the same chapter not use the “No Kings!” logo or branding for their impeachment-focused event—and threatening to remove them from statewide communications after they didn't comply. That dispute followed another undemocratic intervention in the state's politics: a campaign by Indivisible National to convince Alani Bankhead, the Montana Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, to withdraw from the race. (Levin and Greenberg did not respond to Current Affairs’ request for comment, or an interview.) These incidents raise questions about the direction of one of the country’s largest anti-Trump organizing networks. Is the country’s leading resistance group still focused on “resistance,” or has its strategy become increasingly concerned with preserving the Democratic Party's electoral prospects?

[. . .] As Indivisible has gained resources and membership, they appear to have transformed from an agent of effective change to a part of the establishment. The Democratic establishment routinely chooses “safe” candidates over unabashedly progressive ones. In this cycle, those candidates have lost. Repeatedly. In multiple states. Again and again.

[. . .] In the six months since No Kings 3, the leaders of the national Indivisible organization have subverted democratic outcomes and diverted the righteous anger of the American people away from Congress. In doing so, they are signaling that they are comfortable allowing this autocratic regime to remain in power. The establishment they support says it outright, with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries stating that impeachment is not a priority and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) saying that she wants to “move on” and help Trump “save face.”

They are out of touch. The American people want accountability. Fifty-five percent of Americans, to include 80-plus percent of Democrats and 60-plus percent of independents, support impeachment. In fact, a majority of Americans have wanted impeachment since April of 2025.

Congress refuses to listen, and Indivisible seems content to let Congress pat constituents on the head and tell them to let the adults handle this. Our leaders are not leading, and so citizens must pave the way.

– Keira Havens
Excerpted from “No Kings.
No Demands. What Happened?”
Current Affairs
October 15, 2026

I agree with everything said above. And I’ve also made a point of attending every “No Kings” rally – usually with a two-sided sign that invites people to consider dumping the duopoly and voting Green. In doing so, I hopefully made people think about options beyond the liberal talking points – options that, in the words of Fights Back! founder Chase Linko-Looper, are “bold enough to touch the systems that crown kings in the first place.”

Yesterday, I carried a sign that read: “I Stand 4 Love,” and in my mind (and heart) I was expressing and advocating for the “politics of love” that author and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson talks about.

Here’s what Christopher Schoenherr writes about Williamson’s “politics of love”:

In Williamson’s work, love is not an emotion. It is a way of seeing. A way of organizing society. A way of deciding what matters. A way of deciding who matters. And ultimately, a way of deciding what civilization is for.

When Williamson talks about love, she is not talking about being nice. She is not talking about avoiding conflict. She is not talking about positive thinking. She is not talking about pretending evil does not exist. In fact, one of the most striking things about her work is how directly she confronts suffering. She writes about poverty, war, racism, corruption, child neglect, environmental destruction, corporate greed, democratic decline.

The politics of love is not an escape from reality. It is an attempt to look at reality more honestly.

What she is really asking is a deceptively simple question: What would society look like if human flourishing were the goal? Not profit. Not power. Not partisan victory. Not endless economic growth for its own sake. Human flourishing.

The question sounds almost embarrassingly obvious. Yet once you start asking it, everything changes.