THE snow had barely melted from the Minnesota State Capitol steps, but on Saturday, 28 March 2026, the heat of a democracy asserting itself was unmistakable. More than 200,000 people flooded the lawns, streets, and overpasses of St. Paul in a demonstration that surpassed even the iconic Women’s March of 2017. Across the United States, in cities and hamlets from New York’s Times Square to a windswept square in Driggs, Idaho — population fewer than 2,000, where Trump took 66% of the vote in 2024 — millions took to the streets in what could be the largest single day of domestic political protest in American history.
This was the third wave of the ‘No Kings’ movement, a progressive coalition of activists, civic organisations, and ordinary Americans who have turned coordinated street action into the most sustained and visible engine of opposition to President Donald Trump since he returned to the White House in January 2025. More than 3,200 events were planned across all 50 states, with sister rallies erupting simultaneously in Rome, London, Paris, and cities across Latin America and Australia.
The White House, for its part, called the demonstrations “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions” — a phrase that only seemed to harden the resolve of a movement that has made defiant humour one of its signatures. In Los Angeles, a giant blimp depicting Trump as a diaper-clad infant bobbed over City Hall. In Washington DC, protesters carried an inflatable effigy of the president defacing the Constitution. In Seattle, demonstrators in insect costumes bore tactical vests reading ‘LICE’ — a spoof on the immigration enforcement agency ICE that drew laughs and chants in equal measure.
“What we provide is mockery to the king. It’s about taking authoritarianism and making fun of it, which they hate.”
Bill Jarcho, Seattle protester
MINNESOTA: A WOUND THAT BECAME A SYMBOL
The choice of Minnesota as the flagship protest site was not arbitrary. It was a reckoning with blood. In January 2026, Trump’s Operation Metro Surge — a mobilisation of roughly 3,000 federal immigration agents into the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area — degenerated into a series of deadly confrontations that shocked the nation and ignited a firestorm of legal and political consequences.
On 7 January, federal ICE agents fatally shot Renée Good, a mother of three, during a raid in Minneapolis. Less than three weeks later, on 24 January, ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse employed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, a man with no criminal record and a valid permit to carry. Pretti had been filming law enforcement with his phone and stood between an agent and a woman who had been pushed to the ground. He was surrounded by six agents, peppered with chemical spray, wrestled to the ground — and shot.
Bystander video reviewed by Reuters, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press appeared to show an agent removing a gun and stepping back a second before the fatal shots. No federal investigation of the killings had been opened by the time demonstrators arrived at the Capitol steps on Saturday. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a lawsuit as recently as Tuesday — just days before the march — over the federal government’s refusal to share evidence related to the killings.
A massive sign on the Capitol steps captured the fury of the moment: “We had whistles, they had guns. The revolution starts in Minneapolis.”
“Their bravery, their sacrifice and their names will not be forgotten.”
Bruce Springsteen, addressing 200,000 in St. Paul
THE BOSS, THE SENATOR, AND THE SOUL OF RESISTANCE
The St. Paul rally was a cultural and political spectacle. Rock icon Bruce Springsteen headlined the event, performing his recently written song “Streets of Minneapolis”, a raw tribute to Renée Good and Alex Pretti that he wrote in the immediate aftermath of their deaths. Before launching into the song, Springsteen addressed the crowd: “Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare and these invasions of American cities will not stand.”
Springsteen’s appearance came days before the launch of his ‘Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour’ — billed with a ‘No Kings’ theme — which kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis. Folk legend Joan Baez also performed. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont addressed the crowd with characteristic urgency, framing the demonstrations as a turning point in American civic life. In a pre-recorded video message, actor Robert De Niro urged the crowd: “Take a bow, but don’t take a break. Today, and everything that has gone before, is just a start — a rehearsal for the big show that’s coming.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2024, spoke at the rally in a moment that underscored how the No Kings movement has become both a grassroots and institutional force. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams stood on stage with protesters.
| KEY FACTS: NO KINGS MARCH — 28 MARCH 2026 ▸ 3,200+ events held across all 50 US states ▸ Flagship rally: St Paul, Minnesota — est. 200,000 attendees ▸ Third wave of nationwide protests since Trump’s second term began ▸ Previous waves: June 2025, October 2025 — millions participated ▸ Two-thirds of RSVPs from outside major urban centres ▸ Rallies also held in Rome, London, Paris, Latin America and Australia ▸ White House dubbed protests ‘Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions’ ▸ Trump approval ratings at lowest level since second term began |
COAST TO COAST: A MOVEMENT WITHOUT A MONOCULTURE
The genius — and the challenge — of the No Kings movement is precisely that it is not a party. It is not led by a single organisation, a single leader, or a single demand. It is a broad and sometimes cacophonous coalition animated by a shared conviction: that what is happening in Washington under Donald Trump’s second term is not normal governance, but authoritarian creep.
In Los Angeles, tear gas was deployed near a federal detention centre downtown, where protests turned confrontational. Two people were arrested for assaulting federal officers, and the Department of Homeland Security said two officers were struck by cement blocks near the Roybal Federal Building. Classic salsa music played as demonstrators in inflatable animal costumes danced through streets flanking City Hall — a scene that seemed to embody the movement’s insistence on turning political rage into joyful defiance.
In New York, marchers spilled south from Midtown into Times Square, waving anti-ICE, anti-war and anti-Trump signs. In Washington DC, streams of protesters crossed the Memorial Bridge from Arlington into the National Mall, beating drums and ringing cowbells, chanting ‘No justice, no peace, no ICE in our streets.’ Outside a high-rise assisted-living centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, elderly people in wheelchairs held signs that read ‘Resist tyranny’, ‘Honk if you want democracy’, and ‘Dump Trump.’
In Austin, a small ice sculpture inscribed with ‘ICE MELTS IN TEXAS’ was left to dissolve in the sun. In Boston, protesters erected a memorial honouring children killed in a recent US missile strike in Iran. In Dallas, there were clashes between No Kings marchers and a counterprotest contingent led by Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, with police making several arrests after minor scuffles.
Crucially, organisers reported that two-thirds of all RSVPs came from outside major urban centres — from conservative-leaning states including Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Louisiana, as well as the swing suburbs of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. This geographic breadth is perhaps the most analytically significant development in the movement’s evolution.
“America has had hard times before. We’ve had bad laws and bad politicians, and we’ve always been able to get ourselves out by sticking together.”
Protest speaker, Los Angeles
IRAN, ICE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRIEVANCE
The multiplicity of grievances on display on Saturday reflected the extent to which the Trump administration has managed to simultaneously alienate multiple constituencies in its first 14 months of its second term. The protests coalesced around three dominant themes: the US war in Iran, the immigration enforcement crackdown and its lethal consequences in Minnesota, and what demonstrators describe as a systematic erosion of democratic guardrails.
On Iran: Trump launched military action against Iran with stated goals that have shifted repeatedly, but have consistently centred on eliminating the country’s ballistic missile arsenal and ensuring it never acquires nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted on Friday that US objectives in Iran could be achieved without ground troops — but the president has not categorically ruled out boots on the ground. In Boston and St. Louis, anti-war banners stretched across streets demanding an end to what protesters called an “illegal, immoral, reckless and feckless endless war”.
On immigration: The Trump administration’s highly visible enforcement operations — particularly the airport deployments of ICE officers and the expansion of Operation Metro Surge — have become a galvanising issue. At the St. Paul rally, demonstrators carried photographs of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Mario del Obaldia, who attended in Minnesota, told reporters he had lived in the United States for 71 years, having arrived from Panama as a four-year-old. ‘It seems silly that people have to wander around with papers, with their documents saying what they are,’ he said. ‘It just seems not quite American.’
On democratic norms: The broader protest is animated by what No Kings organisers describe as Trump’s ‘authoritarian power grabs’ — his administration’s battles with federal courts, its deployment of federal law enforcement in cities, proposed changes to voting laws, environmental rollbacks, and the concentration of executive power. Some protesters aimed their criticism directly at Congress, chanting ‘do your job’ and carrying signs mocking lawmakers as too timid to stand up to the White House.
THE WORLD WATCHES, AND JOINS
The No Kings protests have acquired a global dimension that underscores their resonance beyond America’s borders. In Rome, thousands marched with defiant chants targeting Premier Giorgia Meloni’s conservative government, whose judiciary referendum had badly failed earlier in the week. In London, banners read ‘Stop the Far Right’ and ‘Stand Up to Racism.’ In Paris, several hundred people — mostly Americans resident in France, joined by French labour unions and human rights groups — gathered at the Bastille, chanting opposition to what they called Trump’s ‘illegal, immoral, reckless and feckless endless wars.’
In countries with constitutional monarchies, organisers branded the parallel protests ‘No Tyrants’, rather than ‘No Kings’, to avoid offending local sensibilities. The irony of Americans marching to protest a monarch metaphor while nations with actual monarchs adapted the slogan to suit their own contexts was not lost on commentators across the Atlantic.
“They want us to be afraid that there’s nothing we can do to stop them. But you know what? They are wrong — dead wrong.”
Donna Lieberman, New York Civil Liberties Union
WHAT IT MEANS: AN AFRICAN MIRROR ANALYSIS
From a Global South vantage point, the No Kings movement carries a significance that transcends American domestic politics. The United States has, for decades, positioned itself as the world’s democratic lodestar — the model against which governance failures elsewhere were measured, often by Washington itself. The spectacle of millions of Americans marching under banners warning against monarchy and tyranny forces a reckoning with what the United States has become in its second Trump term, and what that means for the rest of the world.
For African nations that have historically operated under the shadow of American conditionalities — democracy benchmarks, human rights reviews, aid with strings attached — the sight of American cities convulsed by their own democracy crisis is both sobering and clarifying. The superpower that told Africa to hold free and fair elections, to protect its press, to restrain its security forces, is now watching its own federal agents shoot dead citizens monitoring immigration raids with mobile phones. The irony is not academic — it is, for many African diplomats, quietly useful.
The No Kings protests also underscore the fragility of democratic consolidation even in societies with deep institutional traditions. The United States has a Bill of Rights, an independent judiciary, a free press, and a competitive multi-party system. Yet the movement now in the streets is warning, in earnest, about kingly rule. For African states navigating their own democratic backslidings — from the Sahel’s military coups to contested elections across East and Southern Africa — the American example is a reminder that the erosion of democratic norms does not always arrive in a tank. Sometimes it comes in a suit, with a press secretary and a social media account.
The call by No Kings co-founder Ezra Levin for a nationwide economic protest on 1 May — asking Americans to skip work, school, and shopping — signals that the movement is evolving from periodic street mobilisation into something more sustained and strategically calibrated. Whether it translates into electoral consequences in November remains the central question.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote that the protests were drawing ‘record turnout’ — a ‘very strong sign of what’s coming in November.’ Polling this week placed Trump’s approval ratings at their lowest since his return to power. The movement has momentum. What it lacks, as yet, is a candidate, a platform, or a unified political programme.
That gap between protest energy and electoral translation is precisely where movements of this scale have historically faltered. It is the gap that the No Kings organisers know they must close — and the gap that the Trump administration is counting on remaining open.
“The arrogant would-be king is absolutely scared to death about losing his power, and will do everything he can to hold on to it. We will face greater challenges down the road.”
Robert De Niro, in video message to St. Paul rally
THE BOTTOM LINE
Saturday’s No Kings marches were the largest yet — geographically broader, demographically more diverse, and emotionally more charged than either of the two previous waves in June and October 2025. They were fuelled not by a single outrage but by an accumulating catalogue of grievance: two citizens killed by federal agents on Minnesota streets, a war in Iran pursued without clear legal authority or popular mandate, immigration raids that have terrified communities from coast to coast, and a White House that dismisses mass civic protest as therapy.
What the marchers on Saturday were telling the world — from the St. Paul Capitol to a rainy Embarcadero in San Francisco to the Bastille in Paris — is that the democratic immune system is not yet defeated. The body politic is fighting. Whether it is fighting hard enough, and smart enough, to matter — that verdict awaits November.
