No Kings Protests Just About Trump Hatred

The No Kings protesters held their gathering over the weekend. According to Abdul—who I assume got the number from state police, though I don’t know that for sure—there were between 3,000 and 5,000 people at the protest in Indianapolis. If we take that estimate at face value, and I did see the aerial shots and video clips, there were clearly a lot of people there. If that estimate is accurate, it was larger than the one last summer but probably smaller than the one last fall. My main question after seeing clips of the speakers, interviews with participants, and quotes from various publications is this: what exactly do these people stand for? A protest or large gathering is usually meant to promote change. So what is the change they want? What do they stand for that will resonate with the public? Or are the No Kings protests simply an echo chamber that doesn’t bring in undecided voters or people who could be persuaded at the ballot box? When we held our property tax rally, we had many people tell us it was their first political event. Some said they didn’t like Republicans or Democrats, but they believed property taxes were out of control. Our message was simple and clear: people shouldn’t be taxed out of their homes. We wanted to make it more affordable for people to live in their homes and remain stable members of their communities. The goal was very clear, and we brought new people into the process. So my question for the No Kings rally participants is what exactly they’re trying to accomplish. If someone protested government overreach during the Biden administration—for example when he attempted vaccine mandates or student loan cancellation through executive action—and they are now protesting executive overreach under Trump, then I respect that consistency. Because I agree there is too much power in the executive branch. I believed that under Biden. I believed it under Trump’s first term. I believed it under Obama and Bush. If the No Kings protests were truly about executive overreach in general, I might even attend one myself. But from what I’ve seen, many of the people involved didn’t say anything when Biden was exercising similar executive authority. That makes it feel less like a principled protest about executive power and more like an anti-Trump protest. And when that happens, it dilutes the credibility of the argument. For example, I saw a quote from someone named Ean Parson in the Capital Chronicle. He described himself as an independent and said he disliked the two-party system and wanted more options. At first, that caught my attention because I also dislike the rigid two-party structure. I’m a Republican, but I call out Republicans when they deserve it. But then Parson said he was protesting because of what he called “unprecedented times.” And that’s where I start to lose the thread. Presidential overreach isn’t unprecedented. It has been happening for decades. He also made claims about Trump being involved in crimes against children and referenced the Epstein files. But there’s no evidence that Trump committed such crimes. Being mentioned in Epstein’s files doesn’t automatically imply wrongdoing. Epstein interacted with many high-profile figures in politics, business, and entertainment. When arguments are based on claims that don’t hold up, the message loses credibility. The same thing happens when comparisons are made between modern America and Nazi Germany. Those comparisons are extreme and inaccurate. They diminish the historical reality of what actually happened during that era. When rhetoric reaches that level, people stop listening. That’s the core problem with protests like this. When the message becomes exaggerated or disconnected from verifiable facts, it loses the ability to persuade people in the middle. And persuasion is what actually creates political change.