While the major media focused on crowd size and potential violence that never materialized, the “No Kings” protests this weekend had another message: millions of Americans reject the entire framework of the national security state.
Protesters I talked to expressed opposition to more than just the president and Trumpism, but the entire national security apparatus, including the FBI, ICE, homeland security, the National Guard and the military. Unlike the protests during Trump’s first term, this one doesn’t see a savior in the FBI or even the Democratic Party, instead putting their faith in ordinary people like themselves. Seven million-plus Americans gathered with homemade signs and costumes rejecting the relentless threat mongering about some domestic terrorism “enemy from within.”
I interviewed dozens of protesters at the demonstration around the leafy capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, and the major theme that came across was their utter mockery of the government’s warnings about Antifa and domestic terrorists in general.
“It’s a boogeyman,” one protester said of Antifa, reflecting the general consensus.
“This is all fantasy,” another protester said.
In light of Trump’s official designation of Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” when I asked protesters about Antifa, I expected nervous throat clearing and self-censorship. Instead, people just laughed. Many even embraced the term, saying that if Antifa means anti-fascism, then they’re Antifa.
Even the silly costumes, as many explained to me, were a rejection of the fear people felt that the federal government was trying to spread about anything from Antifa to immigration.
“What, are they gonna arrest the unicorn?” one protester joked. “There’s some frogs, there’s some lobsters…that’s kind of what we were going for — whimsical fun.”
Whimsical is a good word for the menagerie of critters in attendance. Most common were frogs, a nod to the costumed frog protester in Portland, Oregon who became a cause célèbre when an ICE officer carefully sprayed tear gas into his costume’s air intake opening. Video of the incident quickly went viral, becoming a symbol of the wanton cruelty of ICE and a shorthand for the national security state’s ridiculous fear of seemingly everything. Gassing a frog? Really?
ICE is frog-marching immigrants and protesters around, sot he protesters responded with a frog march of their own to show how absurd it all is.
Far from the paranoia and fear that I thought Trump’s designation of Antifa as terrorists would engender, I saw protesters of all ages, from teenagers to the elderly, embrace the word. My personal favorites were a sign worn by a woman identifying herself as “Auntie-fa” and a man wearing a sign that read: “I am Antifa, come get me.”
“We’re Antifa bees,” one demonstrator, part of a group of women dressed as bees, told me. “Most people don’t even know what that means,” she said before another bee interjected: “We don’t even know what it means!”
It’s a fair point. What exactly is Antifa? For all the rhetoric about the threat to public safety, the federal government hasn’t offered a clear definition.
I attended the original No Kings protest in April (you can read my dispatch here) and not only was this larger, but the vibe was much different. Gone were the NATO flags and mass-produced signs decrying the DOGE cuts to federal agencies.
Particularly striking this time was seeing people who weren’t Republicans were pissed off at the federal government, especially those belonging to the national security apparatus.
“What happened to states rights?” a protester said of the National Guard deployments to states whose governors don’t want them. “We never needed it before … we definitely don’t need the military deployed now.”
“We didn’t ask for it,” another protester said of the Guard deployments. “You can’t really make real change except for at the state level.”
For as long as I could remember, states rights as a concept seemed little more than code for enforcing anti-abortion policies, discrimination and the like. That may be changing.
Even local law enforcement didn’t seem to buy the hype about the domestic terror threat posed by Antifa. Capitol and state police were standing around chatting amongst themselves, checking their phones. The only national security state overkill I saw was an MRAP-type vehicle parked in front of the capitol building. I didn’t see any federal personnel anywhere.
The increasingly nonpartisan skepticism of the feds isn’t just anecdote: poll after poll this year shows cratering approval especially among Democrats for institutions like ICE, the FBI, CIA, the police and even the military. The glib take would be that they just hate these agencies because Trump is in office; but during his first term, Democratic approval for agencies like the FBI soared. Remember Robert Mueller (or Daddy Mueller as many liberals called him?)
Mueller Time has long since passed. Gone is the liberal undercurrent that the FBI or uniformed military was going to save the country from Trump. Today they’re seen as tools of repression and enemies of free speech.
The protest did have one thing in common with the one in April: frustration with the Democratic Party.
“They’re completely ineffective,” one woman said, laughing.
“It’s a joke,” another added.
“Their leadership needs to go,” said another.
Here too, their sentiments reflect polling that hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. The Democratic Party’s approval rating is at its lowest in recorded history, with a majority of Democrats wanting its entire leadership to be replaced.
The Party is out of touch, beautifully depicted in an un-ironic “No Crown. #NoKings!” declaration on X by Nancy Pelosi, the 20-term incumbent who’s been in Congress since before I existed.
No Kings wasn’t just a protest against Donald Trump, as the mainstream media have lazily cast it. It was a demonstration against the national security neurosis he is trying (and failing) to excite. Not out of some partisan reflex to just support the Democrats and oppose Trump.
Americans in large part just do not believe that there’s an “enemy within.” And they’re right.
In my last post I said that if America has a king, it is the national security state (which laid the groundwork for what Trump is doing long before he entered politics). What I didn’t realize was how many Americans would refuse to bend the knee to that king as well. Good on them.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
I love it when you go out to protests and give first person coverage. That used be what reporters did.
Great perspective, Ken. The national security apparatus is the king we need to overthrow.✌️