No Kings rallies are recruiting grounds, not final battles
I’ve seen a lot of people say that the No Kings Protest really didn’t move the needle, and they don’t see what the point is.
And they’re right to say marches alone rarely change policy. I’ll say it plainly: rallies do not reopen a shuttered government. They do not flip a single vote in Congress overnight. They are not a shortcut to ending authoritarian moves.
But that is exactly why they matter. Protests are the recruiting ground, not the final battle. They convert passive resentment into active participation. They teach people how to organize permits, marshals, speakers, and media. They build local networks that can register voters, staff campaigns, pressure elected officials, and sustain boycotts or strikes if things get worse. That’s the slow, boring work that actually shifts power.
If you think the arc of democratic defense bends on a single march, you misunderstand how movements work. If you think the last step looks like a march, you’re missing all the other steps. The last step – the one that would seriously force an authoritarian pivot – only becomes thinkable after years of escalating civic engagement, institution-building, and yes, anger that ran out of legal and electoral channels. I am not going to map out those steps. I will not sketch plans to overthrow anything. That is illegal and reckless, and I would NEVER do such a thing.
So I accept the critique: showing up is insufficient. But I also accept the other truth: showing up is necessary.
Each protest is recruitment and rehearsal. Each one widens the pipeline from outrage to action. The people who show up today learn how to do the harder, less photogenic labor tomorrow. And the more who flow into that pipeline, the harder it becomes for an authoritarian push to succeed without encountering organized resistance.
Call the marches symbolic. Fine. Symbols are also scaffolding. If those scaffolds swell into durable institutions, then meaningful pressure follows. If they evaporate, so does the chance to stop something far worse. Which is why I keep showing up and asking how we make the next step less likely to be a last resort.