No Kings Day: How Mass Protest Can Turn Liberal Dissent into Struggles for Liberation
In cities from Alaska to Puerto Rico, thousands marched against authoritarianism. The next step is helping those in the streets radicalize through struggle.
Across the country, millions of people hit the streets for the No Kings Day national day of protest—a bold, coordinated rejection of the rising tide of fascism in the United States. From Alaska to Florida, from rural towns to major cities, thousands mobilized to say: we will not be ruled by billionaires, bigots, or bullies.
This movement is growing because more and more people are seeing the signs of raising fascism:
Masked ICE abducting people and tearing families apart
Books being banned
Queer and trans kids targeted
Educators banned from teaching about systemic racism
Police emboldened to attack protesters
Climate collapse accelerated
The U.S. supplying the bombs and political support for the genocide of Palestinians
Here in Seattle, the movement showed up strong.
Thousands marched through Capitol Hill to defend our rights, our lives, and our future—chanting, singing, and linking arms.
Some people carried American flags and gave speeches about defending the Constitution. I know how that lands for many on the left.
The Constitution originally legalized slavery and has never guaranteed freedom for Black, Brown, poor, disabled, or immigrant communities. It doesn’t guarantee education, housing, or health care. It doesn’t protect us from police violence or corporate greed.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want fewer liberals in the streets—I want more.
So while we must be forthright in challenging liberal politicians and billionaires who uphold this system, we must be patient and gentle with liberal working people — our coworkers, neighbors, and fellow protesters. Because when people take action and run up against the limits of this system, they begin to see it for what it is. That’s how the civil rights movement grew into Black Power. That’s how moderate reformers became revolutionaries.
So yes, let’s challenge liberalism.
Let’s name capitalism.
Tell the truth about this system.
But don’t dismiss people. Engage them. Organize with them. Grow with them.
Challenge the comfortable myths your liberal co-workers still cling to—remind them that the United States has always wrapped genocide, slavery, segregation, displacement, and exploitation in flowery declarations of “liberty and justice for all.” But remember, many of today’s incrementalists will become tomorrow’s revolutionaries—unwilling to let fossil-fuel barons sacrifice our planet for profit or spend tax payer money to bomb schools in Gaza instead of building them at home. Our task as radicals, socialists, and freedom dreamers is not to scoff and scold them, but to lock arms, walk the road together, while continuing to argue that our true enemy isn’t one man in power; it’s the machinery of racial capitalism itself.
Even as radicals have a lot to teach their liberal co-workers, neighbors, and friends about how this system truly works, they also have a lot to learn from them. Many liberals have been on the front lines of school board meetings, climate actions, union drives, and fights against book bans, and radicals would do well to listen to their experiences to better understand the contradictions they’ve navigated and the organizing terrain they’ve already helped shape. And the truth is, many radicals were liberals first, even if they don’t care to remember that part. Their journeys through disappointment, compromise, and confrontation with power often contain hard-won insights about organizing under pressure, navigating institutions, and building coalitions. If we want a movement rooted in real solidarity, we must not only challenge their assumptions—but listen to their experiences, too.
What happened on No Kings Day is just the beginning of a new round of organizing that must work to turn marches into movements.
We must reject the fear and lies of the fascist and struggle for a new world we’ve never seen before. One without monarchs. One without billionaires. One without cages. One without genocide. One where truth is taught, love is free, and justice is real.
Let’s start building this movement. In the streets. In our classrooms. In our unions. In our communities.
I think it’s a misconception that leftists are these mean judgy people. We saw this during Bernie campaign too in 2020. The media exaggerated the presence of online Bernie bros when in reality, it was the centrist liberals who refused to engage with new ideas, hurled insults at the Left. I actually think it’s the opposite. It’s liberals who need to find more grace for leftists. It’s liberals who are typically elites unwilling to learn more and who regurgitate old McCarthyism talking points when confronted with leftism. That’s my experience canvassing and organizing for Zohran too. Liberals are often immovable because they are committed to the American Project in a way that Leftists are not.
I also would push back on this idea that “civil rights movement shifted from liberalism to Black power.” This was the media narrative, but that wasn’t the experience of SNCC workers for example who had leftist politics throughout their time in the org. Jim Forman was a Marxist when he joined. Outside of SNCC, there were people like Robert Williams. History of communist organizing in Alabama in the 30s. Of course Theoharis’ new book dispels the myth that King “became more radical.” He was always radical. A Phillip Randolph’s original idea of March on Washington was rooted in his socialism. Just as a few examples. Communism has a long been a part of the Black radical tradition.
Sure, we should always organize everyone, but it’s not the Left that is the problem. We’re already blamed by mainstream media and Liberals for Trumpism and elections.
Your point about “liberals on frontlines” is just a massive erasure and misunderstanding of who organizers are. It’s also just untrue. Leftists have shaped organizing culture and resistance in this country. Leftists are organizing in unions. In climate action groups. Social media/media erases this reality too because they’re not often on instagram with thousands of followers saying “look at me and this good thing I did.” Liberals are often fighting for different things than Leftists, and that’s ok if your vision for the world is more aligned with Liberalism but to claim that Leftists have something to learn from Liberals is propaganda.
Liberals don’t want to change systems of power, so they organize for reforms within those systems. They co-opt leftist demands and organizing work, and they repackage it as capitalist reform that electeds like. For example, when they fight against climate change, they fight for tiny reforms that make them feel good because they’re capitalists, and the climate fight is a fight against capitalism. Liberals like capitalism. I’d just be mindful of pushing media talking points that erase American Leftism.