What's Wrong With the 'No Kings' Protests?

Millions of protesters rallied at thousands of “No Kings” events across the United States and even abroad this past weekend to oppose President Donald Trump’s leadership and what organizers described as his authoritarian overreach.

The overall point of the protests was to speak out against the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic norms, civil liberties, and constitutional checks on the executive branch.

The protests — which were largely peaceful — featured demonstrators holding signs and people giving speeches centered on the idea that “America has no kings.” They decried Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement practices and his political pressure on various institutions such as education, entertainment, the military, and others.

This past weekend marked the third such worldwide demonstration since President Trump took office for his second term.

To put it simply, the protests are an effort on the part of the left to portray Trump as a would-be monarch seeking to impose his authoritarianism on the American public.

There is much truth to this.

The Trump administration has been trying to strongarm states into allowing him to deploy National Guard troops in major cities across the US — even though crime rates have been dropping over recent years. The White House has targeted foreign students simply for expressing their views on the Israel/Palestinian conflict in a nonviolent manner.

Even further, this president signed multiple executive orders targeting law firms that crossed him before, during, and after his first term in office. Using the power of government, he managed to coerce at least some of these firms into supporting his pet causes by threatening to take action against them that could devastate them financially.

This is all happening within his first year of his second term.

Trump, like his predecessors, certainly has an authoritarian streak — which brings me to the actual problem.

The “No Kings” organizers frame their movement as a stand against presidential authoritarianism and the notion that a president would try to rule as a monarch. But where were these people over the past five years?

Under Biden the White House exerted government power against anyone who questioned the state-approved narrative regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines, and mandates. The former president was a major proponent of lockdown orders that destroyed countless small businesses. Democratic and Republican governors imposed orders that saw people arrested in the streets, parks, and beaches simply for existing outside.

Even further, the application of these lockdown orders was clearly biased. Hundreds of thousands of Black Lives Matter supporters were allowed to protest in the streets despite prior claims that such events were “super-spreaders.”

Yet, churches could not conduct their services. Conservatives were prohibited from holding events. It appeared the coronavirus was only dangerous when it involved anyone except those on the left.

What about Biden’s efforts to get people fired from their jobs if they did not want to take the vaccine or be subject to constant testing for COVID? If it hadn’t been for the Supreme Court, which stepped in and halted these policies, how many more Americans would have lost their jobs over an issue that the public could have handled on its own?

Of course, we would be remiss to forget how federal agencies, under the Biden White House, pressured social media companies to crack down on those who spoke out against the government-approved narrative on the coronavirus. They also targeted those who expressed skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 election. Biden himself lashed out at Facebook and other platforms, accusing them of “killing people” by challenging the government line.

Where were the “No Kings” people back then?

That’s the problem — none of these people actually oppose monarchy. If they were honest, their actual slogan would be “Not THIS King.”

These people are fine with presidents who weaponize government to promote a leftist agenda. If these people could have crowned Biden or Obama king, they certainly would have.

The sad truth is that everyone loves a king as long as he is on their team. If Biden had done what Trump is currently doing, folks on the left would be cheering it like a bases-loaded tiebreaking homerun in the World Series.

This is also true of the reverse. Those on the right are cheering behavior they would loudly condemn if a Democratic politicians did it.

The only way we get out of this is for enough people on both sides of the spectrum to realize that all authoritarianism is bad. This is the first step. Then, we have to get to a point to where we wake up to the fact that both major parties want to use government to exert their will on the rest of us. This will be the only time when America can truly and honestly say it wants “No Kings.”