As a military parade rolls through Washington, DC, on Saturday – President Donald Trump’s birthday – millions of Americans are expected to protest in what organizers predict will be the strongest display of opposition to Trump’s administration since he took office in January.
More than 2,000 protests across all 50 states are planned through the No Kings movement, which organizers say seeks to reject “authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy.”
The mobilization is a direct response to Trump’s military parade in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the US Army – which coincides with his 79th birthday.
In recent days, all eyes have been on Los Angeles, where Trump has deployed the National Guard and Marines, in response to massive protests decrying immigration sweeps – an extraordinary move protest organizers say has only served to mobilize participants to speak out against authoritarianism.
Demonstrators have since been protesting controversial raids and deportations in cities across the nation, including New York, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas and Washington, DC, while the administration has doubled down on its display of military force against its own citizens.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has suggested the order used to federalize the National Guard to Los Angeles could make way for a similar response to protests in other states. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the state’s National Guard this week ahead of planned protests, including a No Kings event in San Antonio on Saturday.
In Missouri, Gov. Mike Kehoe activated his state’s National Guard on Thursday “as a precautionary measure in reaction to recent instances of civil unrest across the country.”
“We respect, and will defend, the right to peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence or lawlessness in our state,” the Republican governor said in a statement.
Following the Hands Off! and 50501 protests this spring, Saturday’s demonstrations won’t be the first nationwide rejection of Trump’s policies. But organizers expect them to be the largest.
“Even conservative estimates say that 3.5 million people turned out for the Hands Off mobilization in April. That’s already 1% of the population of the US,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, the organization backing the No Kings movement,
No Kings is on track to exceed that by millions more. This is historic.”
