On October 18, 2025, cities across the United States are bracing for the second round of the “No Kings” protests—a movement that has rapidly grown into one of the most significant displays of public dissent in recent American history. As organizers and participants prepare to take to the streets in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and beyond, the nation’s political leaders are responding in ways that reveal deep divisions not only over the protest’s aims, but over the very health and direction of American democracy.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the upcoming demonstrations. Speaking to reporters on the morning of October 15, as Congress wrestled with the ongoing government shutdown, Johnson didn’t mince words. “I encourage you to watch—we call it the ‘Hate America Rally’—that’ll happen Saturday,” he said, as reported by PoliticusUSA and C-SPAN. “Let’s see who shows up for that. I bet ya see pro-Hamas supporters, I bet you you see Antifa-types, I bet ya see the Marxists in full display. The people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”
Johnson’s comments weren’t just a passing jab. They reflect a broader strategy by Republican leadership to discredit the “No Kings” protests before they even begin. According to PoliticusUSA, the scale and momentum of these rallies have rattled the GOP’s upper echelons. The first “No Kings” protest, held on June 14, 2025, drew an estimated five million people—making it one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history. For context, three of the six largest protests ever recorded in America have taken place during Donald Trump’s presidency, and two of those have occurred in the less than ten months since his second term began.
So what’s at stake? For critics of former President Trump—who remains a central figure in the current political landscape—the “No Kings” movement is about far more than partisan bickering. Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and a frequent Trump critic, described the protests as a stand against what he calls Trump’s “authoritarian agenda” and “cruel deportations,” among other grievances. In a video promoting the rallies, Reich went so far as to say, “the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein continues to haunt” the president—an allusion to persistent controversies and scandals that have dogged Trump’s tenure.
Republican leaders, however, paint a very different picture. Johnson, for one, has sought to draw a sharp contrast between his party’s priorities and those of their opponents. “The comparison between the Democratic and Republican party leadership could not be more stark right now,” he said. “On the one hand, Trump is ending foreign conflicts, cracking down on illegal immigration, and reducing taxes; on the other, Democrats have only ‘accomplished’ a government shutdown.” His message is clear: Republicans, in his view, are defending the “foundational truths” of the republic, while the protesters—and by extension, their Democratic supporters—are undermining them.
This rhetorical battle is more than just political theater. Underneath the slogans and soundbites lies a real anxiety about the potential impact of mass mobilization. Erica Chenoweth, a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, has conducted research showing that no regime can withstand a challenge from 3.5% of its population. In practical terms, that threshold—if reached or exceeded by a protest movement—signals a genuine threat to the status quo. As PoliticusUSA notes, House Republicans are well aware of this dynamic: a protest of such scale could be a harbinger of a “wave election,” fundamentally reshaping the nation’s political landscape.
For many Americans, the stakes feel existential. The “No Kings” slogan is itself a pointed rejection of what organizers see as creeping authoritarianism—a warning against the consolidation of power in the hands of one individual, no matter how popular or polarizing. The imagery of “kings” is not accidental; it’s a historical callback to the nation’s founding rebellion against monarchy and unchecked executive authority. By invoking it, protesters hope to tap into a deep well of American political tradition, even as they challenge the current administration’s direction.
The Republican response, meanwhile, is rooted in a different set of anxieties. By labeling the protests as a “Hate America Rally” and suggesting that the crowds will be filled with “communists and terrorist supporters,” Speaker Johnson and his allies are seeking to delegitimize the movement before it can gain further traction. This strategy isn’t new—American politics has long featured efforts by those in power to paint dissent as dangerous or unpatriotic. But the intensity of the rhetoric this time around suggests a heightened sense of vulnerability among the GOP leadership.
Of course, not everyone on the right is convinced by Johnson’s framing. Some conservative commentators have cautioned against dismissing the protests out of hand, warning that doing so could backfire by energizing the opposition and alienating moderate voters. Others see the rallies as a predictable, if noisy, feature of democratic politics—evidence, perhaps, that the system is working as intended, even if it’s uncomfortable for those in power.
On the left, there’s a palpable sense of urgency. Organizers and supporters of the “No Kings” protests argue that the stakes are too high for complacency. They point to a range of grievances—from immigration policy to foreign affairs to lingering scandals—as evidence that the current administration poses a unique threat to American democracy. For them, mass mobilization is not just a right but an obligation.
As the nation heads into the weekend, all eyes will be on the turnout. Will the second “No Kings” protest match or exceed the five million participants seen in June? Will the movement’s momentum translate into lasting political change, or will it be blunted by efforts to discredit its motives and methods? And, perhaps most importantly, what does this moment say about the health of American democracy in 2025?
One thing is certain: the battle lines have been drawn, not just between left and right, but between competing visions of what it means to be an engaged citizen. As Speaker Johnson put it, “the facts are gonna win the day.” But as history has shown, in politics, the meaning of those facts is often hotly contested—and sometimes, it’s the people in the streets who get the final word.