People rally in Houston for a June 14, 2025 “No Kings” protest against US President Donald Trump’s policies.
(Photo by Brett Wilkins/Common Dreams)
“On October 18 and everyday, we’ll show the world what democracy looks like,” said one union leader. “No thrones! No clowns with crowns! No kings, just working people united in power to defend our democracy.”
Oct 16, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)
Amid President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and accelerating attacks on US democracy, millions of Americans in every state and beyond are preparing to take to the streets Saturday for a second wave of No Kings rallies.
In what organizers and participants say might be the “largest protest in US history” in a single day, No Kings demonstrations are set to take place in more than 2,500 communities across the nation, from its biggest cities to small towns like Burns, Oregon—population 2,700—and Bryson City, North Carolina, with 1,500 residents.
RECOMMENDED…
As Trump Escalates Attacks on Dissent, Oct. 18 ‘No Kings’ Protests Set to Be Even Bigger Than June
GOP Leaders Smear Upcoming ‘No Kings’ Marches as ‘Hate America Rallies’ by ‘Terrorists’
The first round of No Kings rallies, held on June 14, drew an estimated 4-6 million participants to over 2,100 demonstrations. Organizers say that the October 18 protest could be even bigger, as Americans are more alarmed than ever by the assault on democracy by Trump and Republicans.
“What we’re seeing is truly unprecedented,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told Common Dreams. “What we’re seeing from this administration is authoritarian slip. We are seeing them attack judges, attack nonprofits, trying to attack the media, stifle First Amendment protected speech, and arrest sitting members of Congress for doing their oversight of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].”
“The list, unfortunately, is very long and what we want is what we’ve seen in other countries that have successfully resisted authoritarianism—to hold on to our democracy and to create and protect the checks that we have against that kind of executive overreach,” she added. “It’s a lofty goal, but it starts with us exercising our right to peacefully protest.”
https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:vunhim5ios6uyjradxi6b4b2/app.bsky.feed.post/3m3365irbs225?id=41219892759777266&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fno-kings-october-18-2025&colorMode=system
As Republicans including US House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.)—who called Saturday’s pro-democracy demonstrations “hate America” rallies—attempt to smear the No Kings movement, organizer Sarah Parker of 50501 and Voices of Florida said during a Thursday press conference that “we have a saying in the South: A hit dog will holler, and I’m hearing a lot of noise from Washington, DC right now.”
“And with that said, on October 18 millions of people just like me… are going to take the streets peacefully and say there will be no kings in America,” she continued.
“These are everyday Americans coming together to organize,” Parker said. “These are faith leaders, teachers, veterans, small business owners who are being impacted by extremely dubious tariffs. These are people that are seeing their friends and family members be kidnapped off the streets. These are everyday Americans that are struggling to put groceries into their fridge, and these are Millennials and Gen Zers who were promised a beautiful and free America.”
“They are rising to this moment because they feel… it is their obligation to joyfully and peacefully push back against authoritarianism like the generations that came before us,” she added.
Jamie Contreras, the executive vice president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 32BJ who is also a US Navy veteran and former undocumented immigrant, told the press conference that “America belongs to the people—working people—not to billionaires or a few politicians who think they can rule like kings.”
Addressing the Trump administration’s designation of leftist protesters as “terrorists” and its ominous threat to take the “same approach” to them as to the alleged drug traffickers it is extrajudicially assassinating on the high seas, Contreras said that “the real threat to this country isn’t peaceful protesters, it’s politicians shutting down our government to protect billionaires and corporate greed.”
“What’s ironic to me is, you call peaceful protesters terrorists, but then the [January 6 insurrectionists] patriots,” he added. “That’s so ironic and so far from the truth.”
The federal government shut down at the beginning of the month, and as Democrats and Republicans continued to spar over the GOP’s healthcare cuts, Johnson warned this week that it could be the longest shutdown ever.
Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg told the press conference: “Republicans are blaming and smearing millions of Americans who are peacefully protesting because they have run out of excuses for their own failures. Republicans understand that Americans are blaming them for the shutdown, Americans are blaming them for out-of-control healthcare prices, and a rising affordability crisis.”
Greenberg continued:
They are blaming them for the fear and chaos gripping the country. They are panicking and they are flailing and they are searching for anything, literally anything, to distract from their governing failures. And in their desperation they have decided to go with smearing millions of Americans who are coming out to peacefully, directly assert our rights. It is both ridiculous and outrageous. It is ridiculous because it is transparently false, it is outrageous because it is an attack on the First Amendment and on all of our right to free speech.
Parker said Republicans “are refusing to accept the fact that the American people are pissed, by the millions. They are refusing to accept the fact that their actions are harming our beloved country. They are refusing to look in the mirror and accept the fact that they are destroying America.”
https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:5y5mgzgs2kx63mqc5gcz2n3v/app.bsky.feed.post/3m34f5zo3d22z?id=037643008159259805&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fno-kings-october-18-2025&colorMode=system
ACLU chief political and advocacy officer Deidre Schifeling said during the press conference that “President Trump and his allies are abusing their power and attempting to scare their own citizens away from exercising our rights and freedoms.”
“What we have seen so far is as troubling as it is illegal,” Schifeling continued. “The Trump administration has directed ICE to kidnap people including journalists and students off the street, ripping them from their families and deporting them without due process.”
“Their allies are attempting to undermine fair elections at President Trump’s direction by redistricting voting maps and further gerrymandering states,” she noted. “And they are attempting to limit our First Amendment rights and use the federal government to attack political rivals, stifle dissent, and undermine checks and balances on presidential power.”
“The Trump administration has even deployed armed agents and troops into American cities, including my home of Washington, DC, turning our streets into militarized zones and threatening to do so again to quash Saturday’s protests,” she said.
“You have to ask: Why are they so afraid of their own citizens?” Schifeling said. “Well, they know that their agenda of selling fear, division, misinformation, lawbreaking, and violence is deeply unpopular. Millions of Americans will peacefully protest on Saturday to tell the Trump administration that we are a country of equals, we are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process, and of democracy.”
“We will not be silenced,” she added. “If we stop exercising our rights, our First Amendment freedom of speech out of fear, we forfeit our power in advance. The best way to protect our freedom is to act free.”
https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:iu4j537hox5huj4bwnwgub4z/app.bsky.feed.post/3m3bq6xs7ui2h?id=4456267393447473&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fno-kings-october-18-2025&colorMode=system
Gilbert told Common Dreams: “I think we can turn this around. I think we wouldn’t be doing this if we couldn’t. We are still in a democracy today, we’re having this free and fair conversation right now, you and I… and we have a set of protections we can exercise and we need to remind people what democracy is supposed to look like.”
As Contreras said, “When working people stand together, no king, no billionaires, no politicians can stop us.”
“On October 18 and everyday, we’ll show the world what democracy looks like,” he added. “No thrones! No clowns with crowns! No kings, just working people united in power to defend our democracy.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
