Second nationwide ‘No Kings Day’ protest to occur Saturday

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(The Center Square) – In thousands of locations across the country and even some across the world, millions are expected to gather in protest of what they see as President Donald Trump’s "authoritarian" policies.

A similar protest was held on June 14 – Flag Day, Trump’s birthday and this year, a military parade in Washington, D.C., in honor of the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday (though many protesters viewed it as an excuse for the president to celebrate his own).

‘No Kings’ is a movement that has partnered with over 100 other left-leaning organizations, including the ACLU, Black Voters Matter, Greenpeace and others, to organize political protests in “defense of democracy” and against Trump’s “authoritarian overreach.” The group emphasizes non-violence and de-esclation in its communications and has touted its June rally as a model of these values, as millions gathered in the name of peaceful demonstration.

“In June, we did what many claimed was impossible: peacefully mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and declare with one voice: America has No Kings,” the group’s website reads.

The June event’s organizers reported that millions had attended and independent reporting from data journalist G. Elliott Morris provided an early estimate of between 4 and 6 million, rivaling the largest single-day protest in recent American history.

Participation on Saturday, Oct. 18, may exceed that of the June protest. In June, there were No Kings events at more than 2,100 locations; Saturday’s protest is set to take place in over 2,500 locations.

Saturday is “your opportunity to be involved in what could be the largest single day of protest in American history!” reads an email from a No Kings event organizer.

Despite the group's stated commitment to nonviolence, there were at least some arrests and incidents of violence during the No Kings June event, Fox News has reported. Of those, however, the most violent examples were of people targeting the protesters and not misbehavior on the protesters’ part.

In Los Angeles and Portland, law enforcement ended up using tear gas and other crowd-control munitions to break up an unofficial protest that did turn violent, as well as one outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

One of the most common issues protested at No Kings is the administration’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security has deployed ICE agents noncitizens who in the U.S. illegally; they’ve also conducted raids on some workplaces and have exercised law enforcement authority in some cases wearing plain clothes and masks, absent an ID.

“Having law enforcement that doesn't identify itself is anti-democratic,” one protester told The Center Square in June.

But participants have also protested the administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers and many will also likely protest the National Guard deployments in major cities as part of the administration’s crackdown on crime.

Trump has instigated many of these actions through executive orders. He has issued over 200 of them in less than 10 months in office, nearly as many as in his entire first term.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has characterized it as a “hate America” rally, which he thinks will feature members of Antifa, the “pro-Hamas crowd” and Marxists. Johnson and Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., have both suggested that Democrats are waiting until after the protest to make serious efforts to reopen the government.

No Kings issued a statement in response.

“Speaker Johnson is running out of excuses for keeping the government shut down. Instead of reopening the government, preserving affordable healthcare, or lowering costs for working families, he’s attacking millions of Americans who are peacefully coming together to say that America belongs to its people, not to kings,” the coalition wrote. “We’ll see everyone on October 18.”

Democrats in the U.S. Senate have voted 10 times this month against a Continuing Resolution to reopen the government.

At least some locations have adopted “patriotic” as their theme for Saturday and have encouraged participants to wear patriotic garb and emphasize what they support as much as what they oppose.

“The strongest messages say what we are FOR rather than what we are against,” reads one event email. “We have worked with Indivisible and local police to make these events joyful, family friendly, and peaceful.”