Bulwark Takes - No Kings Rally Coverage

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Join JVL, Catherine Rampell, Andrew Egger, and many, many others from The Bulwark for live "No Kings" rally coverage.

Hello everyone. Happy No Kings Day. I am JVL from the bulwark and I'm here with my colleagues, Catherine Rempel and Andrew Eger. We are also joined for the moment by Bill Crystal. Bill, you just stay on the burner over there. Guys, we're going to be with you live for the next hour. We're going to be bringing you reports from all over the country. Our friends and colleagues have been out there taking video from from Arkansas to New Orleans to California to Washington, D.C. Just a lot of it. We got video coming in.

That's the villages down in Florida. A big day, kind of an important day. This is the third No Kings protest, and we are already seeing, you know, I guess it's sort of a moment. It's a moment to see whether or not there's momentum building. The first one came last June. It was to counter the Trump military parade. the turnout for that was about 5 million.

Then in October, we had a second parade, and it was a real step change. About 7 million people turned out nationally for that. The organizers this week said that they think this might be the biggest one yet. Tim Miller had Ezra Levin on the show, and he said that they were about 3,100 protests registered across the country, many of them happening outside of urban areas and in more rural areas. So we're going to see what is happening. Before we start going around the horn, Catherine and Andrew,

do you guys have any thoughts to set the table here? Andrew, you want to go ahead? Oh, yeah, sure. My main thought about all of this is it's coming at sort of a strange time. The No King's protests when they first got off the ground last year, they were coming amid this just sort of barrage of, you know, the Trump administration basically pushing against, sort of the pre-existing institutions of the law and the courts and various different things.

And basically in every different frontier you could think of and constantly justifying that by basically saying, we're the new elected government. We've got this mass mandate from the people. And, you know, you can go pound sand if you think we're just going to stop short of all of our aims and all of our goals. And in the context of that, these first two protests were extremely powerful because essentially what they were saying was, well, no, in fact. I mean, you might have won the presidency legitimately in 2024, but this idea that there's this gigantic, you know, mass popular mandate for you to do anything you might want to do is completely refuted by this giant,

you know, unprecedented in size resistance movement. And I think we're in kind of a slightly different era now. Obviously, you know, it is sort of, it is kind of dawned on everybody, just how unpopular this president and his administration have gotten, the sort of complete scatter shot, we're going to fight against every institution that might hold us back in every theater. That's not really their strategy so much anymore. They have kind of, you know, burrowed in a little bit and they're picking their battles a little bit more than they used to, perhaps because of a sort of donning realization of the thinness of their political support.

But the general, just sort of authoritarian impulse has not gone away. You know, anytime Donald Trump wants to wield power, he's choosing to wield power. he's choosing to wield power in just the same way that it was last year. So I think, you know, there have been some aims achieved, at least in terms of the message of these protests, but the ongoing importance of just a real show of force here is no less now than it was last year. Hey, in the comments, Denville, New Jersey, I see you. I was just there 30 minutes ago. All right, Catherine, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say, I generally agree with that analysis. I think the real question is, what is the ask now? or what is the next step? These protests have been very effective at showing people that they are not alone, that they are in the fight together, that they're not the only ones who are feeling like the world has gone crazy,

and that there is power in numbers. And so I think as a psychological boost, at the very least, this has been really important. And as a political show of force, it has been very important. The question is, what has been? what happens next? Is there a specific ask? It doesn't, you know, it's a giant movement,

so it's not like everybody's speaking with one voice, but, you know, is there a demand or a, maybe demand is not the right word, an expectation that Republicans may behave at all differently going into the midterms because there is this very visible, very salient anger, rage, disappointment, and patriotism, frankly, that's out there. And I don't know the answer to that.

You know, the behavior that we've seen just in the past few days from Republicans, like with Speaker Johnson, basically cowing to Donald Trump's whims on the DHS funding bill, just as if, for instance, you know, suggests that there's not a lot of change in the actual behavior of Republican politicians, despite all of the polling that suggests that Americans are unhappy with the Trump-stuarded agenda, and despite, again, this kind of show of force. So is this like, should we think of this as sort of like a rally in a way, going into the midterms, you know, supporting Democrats? I don't think, I think a lot of the participants out there would be uncomfortable as seeing themselves in that light. So, you know, the real question is like, what, what?

What's the next step? What is the incremental impact of these really impressive turnouts around the country? And I think we don't know. But, you know, I'm glad to see, of course, that people are participating in democracy and they're going out and they're making sure that their voices are heard. Yeah. I mean, well, I have some thoughts on what the ask is, and we'll get to that later, though. First, I want to bring in our colleague Bill Crystal, who is at, at,

of college just outside of Boston. And he was at a protest earlier, you know, in that same neighborhood just outside of Boston, not Tufts, not Tufts. Bill, tell me, how are things up in wherever it is that you are? I think J.V.L has never gotten over not being admitted to this college just outside Boston that I'm, that I went to a conference yesterday, which is why I'm up here for the weekend. I never even tried. I know. I did not even try. I knew that I was not Harvard.

It would have been Harvard. It was Harvard's loss. You know what I mean? If you had been a graduate, I think the whole staff. They've managed. For me, the college would have the college. They've managed quite well. No, I don't think so.

I would have it hold the college in higher refute if you were, if you had gone here. But you were too serious, a person probably. So I'm up here. So I went today out to the western suburbs for a little further west than Cambridge to Waltham. Some friends I wanted to see who lived near there. So we went with their friends. families, family and extended family and other friends to Waltham Common. You know, each town in Massachusetts and New England, they each have a common, and it's

a very, it's sort of very pretty. One of the amusing guys struck by this, so they have war memorials at these commons. And this one, the most prominent memorial I thought was this World War I and World War II, you don't know, obviously. It was a memorial to the people who served and who died fighting in the, as they put it on the memorial, the Spanish War veterans. And I took a minute of what was that, you know, and it was the three wars, or three engagements, I guess, three countries we engaged, three places we engaged between 1898 and 1902. On the back, they have the little, you know, inscription you can read more, and it's Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines.

So it's just kind of funny. I guess it must have something to do with when Wall Famcom. It was set up or something, you know what I mean? It's post-revolutionary war, maybe post-Civil War, but pre-World War I. So this is the war where they have, and it's right, there it is. Yeah, there I am at it. It's an handsome. memorial, somewhat in the news these days, was if Trump wanting to redo the Cuba thing,

I suppose. But anyway, that's a sidebar. So I would just say this. I was so struck at the first two I went to which were in McLean, how the spirit was so broad, big tent Democratic opposition. McLean is now 60-40 sort of Democratic, but it was certainly Bush, Romney, McCain, Republican territory. And I saw many, many people there, whom I knew from the, you know, vaguely or some people well, from the Reagan of Bush administrations, from McCain world, from W world. I mean, it was sort of, for me, it was kind of a lot of people coming up and saying, hey, you're here too, yeah, are you a Democrat yet? Are you still an independent? Or, you know, the usual conversations one has with one's former Republican and conservative friends.

And what do you think about so-and-so? Why did he go bad? And why is this person? This person's doing a good job, you know? It's like, that kind of thing. Here, Waltham, Western, West and Boston, the suburbs west of Boston, is more just straightforwardly liberal. you know, democratic. Wallfam is interesting because unlike Cambridge, where I am right now, it's more mixed. I mean, Brandeis is there, but it also has a fair working class and middle class, the number of resident, number of working class and middle class residents. It's a little less upscale than Newton and Weston in some of these places. And so it was a nice mix of people.

I was told by people who had been there before, I could see instantly in McLean from the, was a June to the October rallies, that there was a real increase in size and also real energy. I hadn't been here before, but the people who had said it was at least as big as the previous one, which was sort of impressive because it was 28 degrees at 1030 in the morning when the rally began here at World Am. They began them all early so people could then go into the Boston Common, which is the sort of big rally for this area, which will have more than 100,000 people, I should think. So high spirit, but I would say, you know, given that this is, as I say, Waltham and Boston, Cambridge area.

The mood didn't look that different from McLean. A lot of American flags, a lot of very few sort of conspicuously, I'm going to say lefty kind of, you know, banners and stuff. What are two free Palestine? But really mostly straightforward anti-Trump, anti-Kings, some of the cartoon characters or the inflatable, whatever they were that we saw in October, who had been repurposed, you know, came back out for their march appearance.

Good-natured thanking the couple of cops were keeping it high in things, and people went over and thanked them. They had a couple of bands, you know, little bands, kind of makeshift fans, watching around playing patriotic songs, God bless America at one point, and the Battle of the Republic. So I felt, as in earlier, I'm so impressed at the organizers, but also the participants, but you can't tell, really, I don't think it was just that they wanted to look centrist,

patriotic, you know, Main Street, mainstream, whatever you want to say that, I think they feel that way. I mean, the protesters feel that they're being patriotic in protesting. And for me, that was kind of once again this time moving. You know, on Catherine's point about what the asks are, I guess I was struck, ice remains big on the placards that I saw. I mean, that, you know, the fact that they backed off a little in Minneapolis, that's still no ice, no mass deportation, no brutality to our, you know, friends and neighbors from other countries. It was a very big theme, no war, now a big theme. I think as well Levin said, didn't he say, there's no ice, no war, no kings.

And then the no king's side, the democracy side, the 2026 and 28 elections, the sort of more straightforward, if you will, you know, pro-democracy agenda. I guess I would say that's the aspect you think. No more mass deportation, no unwarranted wars in Iran. or anywhere else, no further corruption and degradation of our democracy. That's a pretty manageable, I mean, let's say we can do all, we can do all these things, but it's a reasonable, a reasonable mainstream agenda. I guess I was sort of, I mean, I'm now generalizing.

It should be a low bar. It should be a low bar. From the 500 people who were there in Wall vans. There are 1,000 people, don't get me wrong. But I was struck again. I sort of expected this to look very different from Northern Virginia, and it looked pretty mainstream to me. Can I jump in on that just for one second, Bill, on the on the no war. First, I just want to just for, for viewers, the feed we're showing it right now is a live feed from

Philly. So you can you can tell because they're throwing batteries at each other. No, there is no pulling some Phillies. This is Philly Joe. They're beating up. They're beating up some, some, some Yankees fans and some Celtics, some guy wearing a Celtics jersey. Somebody came out to protest because of a cowboy's hat. And so I'm sorry, you know, Unity only goes so far. No, I mean, we're showing this one as a real kind of of like flex. I mean, if they're, if they're peaceful in Philly, you know, you can't even imagine how they are in other place. I just, I just wanted to piggyback off of what Bill was saying about the, the no war component of that, because that is, of course, the one giant difference between now, I mean,

the big political sea change between now and the last protests last year. I mean, Donald Trump was already underwater, was already, you know, his ship of state was, was leaking quite badly in terms of, you know, his political chances going into the midterms. And now he has started this, this war in Iran, you know, unilaterally and never consulted Congress. Obviously, it is, you know, it's sort of, it's a different sort of slant than the sorts of sort of domestic policy-focused stuff that No Kings has been so focused on in the past. But it is also completely in keeping with the primary message. I mean, he went to war by himself without consulting the legislature whose power it is constitutionally. And he seems intent on keeping us there as long as he

likes without ever going to Congress and consulting them. So I'm interested to see as we talk to some of our people who are out there in the field at a few of these different protests today, how much of that has been added to this or whether it's still, I mean, when I was driving through a couple protests earlier, on my way back for this live stream, I saw, I did not see a lot of war signs. It was a lot of ice stuff. It was that sort of, you know, the more top level, no king stuff. But I'm interested whether that holds true from the reporters we have out there as well. Yeah, this is something I'm So Bill, what was this like? The protest I was at, I saw, like,

one Iran sign, which really surprised me. I thought, you know, the feeling felt almost identical to October, despite the fact that there's now, like, a major, highly unpopular war, which surprised me. I thought, oh, there was a chance this would

turn into more of, like, an anti-war rally, but it, at least, you know, again, it's anecdota, but with mine, it didn't. And what did you see in Waltham? Yeah, I think a little more, no war up here. They're more used to being anti-war.

Several people, of course, in McLean, the typical, the people who recognized me were sort of the, as I say, good to see you again. Or, hey, how are the other ex-Republicans at the Bullwark and that kind of thing? People who recognize me up here were a little more like, I can't believe I'm here at a rally with Bill Kristol. I mean, frankly, I was in a rally in 2003 protesting you and all your friends who got us into that terrible war to Iraq. But I won't dwell on that because we're all united now, you know? It's a little different being up here in the Boston suburbs than in the Northern Virginia suburbs. But there's a fair amount of war stuff here, I would say. I don't, again, when we would have to get a lot more data, a lot more anecdotes, at least to see if this is consistent or whether it's regionally different or whether we just saw different, you know, the randomly different signs and so forth.

But war was pretty evident up here? Okay. Bill, I'm curious, was there a lot of Epstein-related content, like on the signs and chance and things like that? I mean, again, it's a little hard to, you know, how it does somebody, people milling around and all this. I didn't see that much. Okay. All right, Bill, thank you very much.

We're going to let you go. And, guys, we're going to bring in our colleague at the ballwork, Joe Perticoan, who is coming to us from Calorama, which is a fancy fence place in Washington, D.C. Joe, where were you this morning? So I sort of got a, like, a whole encompassing view of how it took over D.C. by accident. 8 a.m. I went out to Virginia to go

skate in a bowl. And then on the way out there, every single person, like every single overpass was covered with people and with signs. And I was like, well, that's weird. It's only like 8. 8.30 a.m. Same thing on the way back into the city. Then I, you know, the bridge

I normally take would be the Arlington Bridge to get home. But it was an ocean of people on the bridge behind it. Like you just couldn't see. police moving us under it. And I go around, I get into Georgetown, and I see a inflatable man who is just doing a Nazi salute on loop. And I go, what's going on here? There it is. Turns out it was Elon Musk, inflatable man. Or it could have just been the real Elon, who knows? And then I make it my way through. There's an additional protesting

in Calorama, which is right near where I live. And it was really, you know, a lot of people, and there were tons of people stretched up into Woodley Park. And so it really took over this whole chunk of the city and into Arlington, too, just seeing the people on the overpasses. So, you know, I think this looks to be a bit bigger than, well, we'll get the numbers at some point, but it looks to be bigger than the previous one in which they were all on Capitol Hill, which I was at. But it's closer more to the Lincoln Memorial and whatnot. Very interesting.

And so that's, that is interesting. I guess this is still Philly that we're seeing. We're just now getting closer up. So I'm sorry, Joe, this is, people in the comments are very confused as to how you started with us when you said you were going to do a bowl and people are like, what?

Joe was going out to smoke a bowl on Saturday morning. No. Very quickly clarified. I was going to skateboard. in an empty pool early in the morning, which is the way to do it. And you got to do that. There's one out in Virginia. So that's why I saw, I went and saw it, but I was able to, on my way back,

see like a whole view of how it was just consuming the city. And what was the traffic? Just on the war question, did you see a lot of like Iran signs, war signs? Yeah. It was very, very heavy on the anti-war stuff that's expected. Interesting. A lot of the pro-democracy stuff, you guys had mentioned before I came on, had asked if there was an Epstein focus, didn't see a lot of that. Obviously, there's going to be some of those in a crowd of like thousands, but it seemed to be really heavy on ice, war, and then the democracy component.

So it really fits with, you know, the things that Bill mentioned he saw. Very nice. All right. Catherine, Andrew, anything before we let Joe go? I'm making myself sick to my stomach trying to read these individual signs as we're doing this village's shot We need to do this

A fruiter tape version You let it all just wash over you All right Joe, thank you very much Appreciate it And we're going to bring in Our newest bulwark colleague Jasmine Green So you

Unless you're a triad reader You may not know Jasmine But I introduced her This week She is our latest Edition to the Bullwark She's amazing. And Jasmine Green is down on the hill, right?

Jasmine, are you on the mall? I'm on the mall, yeah, right in front of the Capitol building, which is just here. So how is it? How big are the crowds down there? I would say it's several hundred people here. I think it's less than I expected. The events in D.C. are a bit bifurcated today because there's the rally, the No King's Rally here on the mall.

But there's also a march. to Fort McNair, the military housing, where Stephen Miller, the architect of the immigration crackdown is staying. So I'm not sure if the march is going to be drawing numbers from here in the mall, but it's still a healthy amount of people here with signs and costumes and a lot of energy. And then the speaker event is starting now as well with local activists and speakers. What is the age distribution like down in the mall? Is it a lot of retirees and grandmothers or more young?

young people, what do you say? I would say the crowd is definitely older, which is expected. But there are a lot of young people here too. I think they're a good amount of millennials, even some Gen Z people like myself. I see babies as well, children. So I would say the age distribution is more diverse than I expected. Andrew Kaplan? Yeah, what's the best sign you saw so far?

Oh, actually, I quite like the sign that a woman had that it just said no Kings Rally, but she had her four-year-old, grandchild like scribble in the middle and it was it was so interesting it was like um kind of yeah I thought it was so cool I was like this could be in the MoMA or something like Jackson Pollock yeah I was like this is a piece of art and that kid to be very proud of themselves that's funny I uh I didn't say so you said a lot of old people um I was really touched at the the rally I was at before we came on um oh the feet now we're getting is Minnesota. So this is where the outlook game Minnesota. That's a pretty

healthy looking crowd. The old, I mean, the number of old folks who were in sort of role with rolling walkers in 30 degree weather. Like I just thought, God bless you guys. Like, you know, these are people who are showing up not for themselves, but for their grandchildren. And it was, it was pretty inspiring and touching. I don't know. I totally agree. I spoke to a younger woman's probably in her late 20s, early 30s, who, when I was asking her, what makes her for hopeful while she's out here, she teared up at that exact sentiment that when she was at the previous protest she went to, it made her feel so hard to see people who might have difficulty with mobility still coming out in their wheelchairs and their canes.

And so, yeah. Yeah, it was really, really touching. So did you see any? So, and I, the war stuff, would you say? say like sort of equal distribution with like war ice Epstein or was it the overall flavor still just very democracy first? I think there's a range of issues. That's why people came out here today. I mean, I see a lot of signs about Iran War. I see a lot of signs about Epstein. Just talking to people. There's folks who came out here because they have like personal connections to what's going on

in the country. Someone I spoke to their grandson is a graduate student in organic chemistry. And the program, the funding for his program has been pulled by the administration. And she said that's why she's here. Someone else I spoke to said that he, his brother lives in Minneapolis and lives in the same neighborhood where Alex Freddie was killed. And that is what inspired him to come out here today. So I think there's a lot. I mean, it's reflective of the chaos of the administration, just how many reasons people

are out here today to shoulder disdain for what's going on. All right, Andrew. I was going to say, what else can you tell us about the demographics? Like you talked about the age. like mostly white people? Is it a mix of people? You know, as far as you can tell by race and ethnicity, are you hearing different languages spoken? Like, what can you tell us about the mix of people who came out where you are? Yes, I'll say in this way, you can see more of the crowd. I would say it's definitely whiter and older. I have not seen any, I've not heard any different

languages spoken. I think it's definitely a wider and older crowd, which is, to be expected, I think at the No Kings protest. Interesting. Can I ask real quick about, Jasmine, I don't know if you've actually been listening in on any of the programming there at the mall or if that's gotten going yet at all, whether you have anything about the message that's been from the official side of things? Yes, so this is the remove the regime events of the No King's protests. And the reason why everyone has gathered here today, or at least the main reason, is because they want to see President Donald Trump impeached.

and that is a lot of the sentiment and the programming that's from the main stage, which is behind me just in front of the Capitol building. And has it been primarily like activists and stuff? Are there any electeds who have showed up for this? I didn't scan the list ahead of time for the mall thing. I don't even think they had a list. I also tried to see which speakers would be out of today. No elected officials yet.

I mean, they've all left for their Easter break, so I don't think any will show up, maybe. but mostly local activists who've been speaking. All right, Jasmine, very much appreciate it. Glad to have you with your bulwark debut. Congratulations, my friend. Glad to be here. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And we're going to bring in Jim Swift, who is in the Queen City, Cincinnati.

Hey, guys, can you hear me okay? Yeah. Yeah. So what are you, great turnout here in downtown Cincinnati. No Kings marches all over the greater tri-state region, but the biggest one started here downtown at City Hall, where we heard from Timothy Snyder, the Yale professor in historian on authoritarianism.

I got to walk alongside him, but I wasn't able to get video, unfortunately, but he did get some video of the speech. I'd say a couple thousand people here, at least at this rally downtown. I'm standing in the middle of, well, not the middle of the intersection. We are on Walnut Street,

home of EW. Scripps News Company. And we've marched behind the day was stopped. And we are following a police motorcade of sorts on kind of a march route through downtown. Boston Red Sox are in town against the Reds today. So it really is a high visibility event. And a lot of surprised baseball fans from out of town are wondering this is a regular occurrence.

And in Cincinnati, it often is. It's a very active city. What is it? Were you there in October, Jim? No, I was not. This is actually my first No King's process event, family contacts both times. But I had friends and next door neighbors who have gone. And they're hoping that this one's going to be the biggest. But indivisible 50501 very well organized, very well staffed with volunteers, all Rocky Talkied and orange and yellow vested out. There are medics here. There are no sign of counter protesters.

I heard you guys are talking about what kind of demographics are. Similar, it's older, and whiter. But no foreign languages, but, you know, it's kind of like a July 4th parade. As I was parking my car, I saw a guy giving away American flags for kids. Maybe not all the signs are PG-13, but I'd say it's mostly respectful for a no real counter-protests to speak out. We have got a lot of chance going on. that's what kind of just post-GG13 and it's something's bad.

Very boisterous. And some people, I said, you're not saying Stein. Lots of bullwark readers out and about. We spotted the band bat. And lots of, lots of bullwark fans here in the Kinsa. That's very nice to hear.

So, Jim, one of the questions I have is, are you seeing like any organizing going on? At the protest I was at, there was a table where they were looking get people to a registered to vote. So they were doing voter registration. There were also people organizing because there's a plan to build an ice facility up in North Jersey. And so get people to organize against that. And then the other thing was organizing on sort of helping the immigrant community. So sign up to help get food, people who needed, et cetera, that sort of

They were like some organizational asks that I was seeing. That feels well with you. Yeah, that's true of Cincinnati here. One of the first organizers I saw with someone going around making sure everyone was properly registered to vote. I saw some postal workers' union folks here talking with shirts about making sure you respect to the integrity of mail-in voting, as well as people who are organizing to help immigrant communities offering training and free whistle. should ice come to this region. If it does, it probably will go about an hour or so north and here in Springfield.

There probably will be less in Cincinnati proper. But we also saw Democratic candidates are having something afterwards. I saw they're handing out his bills, as well as local and divisible groups, encouraging people to sign up and get active. But I think the campaigns are kind of maintaining the distance to keep this sort of which is probably I'm surprised there are no counter protesters that you're seeing. I would have guessed that Ohio has enough red voters, you know, potentially Trumpy voters. They're probably in the suburb.

Yeah, they're probably in the suburbs, Catherine. I mean, the city of Cincinnati is deeply blue. It's not disabled to know Republicans here, but they would be probably out in places like Milford, Eastgate, where some of our readers have been sending pictures to me that are my friends. But that's, you know, on the kind of the outer ring suburb of Cincinnati is probably with a counter purpose or so. But those are smaller demonstrations because this is the big one. All right. Well, thank you a lot, Jim. Appreciate it. We're going to let you go. And I wanted to take a couple questions from the audience here. Here's one from Queen Leslie 82. Can the left

recapture and own patriotism in the future. So I am interested what you and and Catherine think about this. I mean, I think the answer is no. But maybe that's just wrong. I mean, one of the things that I, again, we're all hostage for our own experiences. But the No King's events I've been at are like almost weirdly patriotic.

Like everything, there's no dark JVL of like, man, fuck it, this is who we are. America sucks. It is full on. Like, we've been projecting Kings since 1776. We're better than this. America's going to win. Fuck. Yeah. I mean, it's like super sunshiny.

And that's lovely in many ways. But what do you guys think? Are there prospects for this to become like an actual, like as if it is received by normies as a paper? patriotic movement? Let me, I'll take a stab. I mean, to me, the question, it depends on what you mean by the left, to a certain extent, right? I mean, there's always going to be, you know, a political faction that is sort of agitating for sort of more and more and faster and faster social political change.

That is obviously has a vested interest in focusing on the downsides, focusing on the stuff that is, that's wrong with the status quo. The weird thing about this current political moment is, because you have had Donald Trump and the MAGA movement sweep in so fast and basically just try to move so fast and break everything and reorient everything according to, according to, you know, their own political whims and, you know, they're just making themselves and their friends rich and punishing their enemies is you've had this weird opportunity for a sort of like small sea, like conservative anti-Trump sort of coalition to form. And that's not the only thing that's happening. in never Trump politics. I don't even know if it's like the majority of the current, you know,

body of the Democratic Party. It'll be interested to see how this movement gets channeled into, you know, for instance, the presidential primaries on the Democratic side going in 2028. But it's, I think it's overrepresented at these no kings things. I mean, like you, it is almost a, again, like sort of small, see, conservative impulse basically saying like the way that our institutions were constituted before Trump came in and took a wrecking ball to them, it did, they didn't necessarily, they weren't necessarily perfect. You know, they weren't, you know, we weren't in a utopia before. But these institutions mattered. They were worth protecting. You know, there was a lot about American constitutional democracy, you know, within the bounds of the rule of law that was good

and that hopefully will still be good once Donald Trump is done trying to attack it. And this is, I mean, part of what we're seeing out here in all of this is that this is a genuine force in sort of currently constituted anti-Republican politics. It's a sort of thing that even though, you know, I don't know, the readerships of Jacobin and current affairs might might not be like so wowed by it. The, you know, the party leaders of the Democratic Party candidates who are trying to get going in Democratic Party politics right now. You know, there's a, there's a feeling out there that's worth channeling. And I also think that the sort of split screen between, you know, some of these events that have rallies, they have speakers, they have tables, they have people who are trying to channel all of this energy in one way or another. And, you know, when I was out there for No Kings 2, I went to three or four of these.

And it was, it was sometimes they seemed like the crowd was really into them. Sometimes they were like, all right, they're talking over there. We're just kind of here to be together and to march and just to show ourselves out in force. So there is that big nascent energy out there. I do not know to what extent, you know, the powers that be in the Democratic Party or in the left or whatever, we'll take that to heart and try to channel it into electoral outcomes. but I do think that they would be foolish to just ignore this sort of mass mobilization, again, in this strange, kind of conservative.

People are going to be mad at me in the comments. We keep continuing to call it conservative. But trying to preserve what was good about certain parts of the pre-Trump status quo. It's interesting that you frame it that way. Because I remember last year, like when Doge was first bringing in its wrecking ball, chainsaw, whatever metaphor you want to use, Democrats seem sort of like, trapped in this rhetorical space of, at least, maybe I'll put it this way, Republicans had tried to frame it as a binary choice. Either you were for whatever Doge was doing, which was destroying

things, or you were for the status quo, right? And so that's how, like, Elon Musk and a lot of, others, like in the MAGA movement, were trying to frame what they were doing. That, you know, there was something so fundamentally broken with government. and with our institutions that you needed someone to just come in and just like burn it all down. And Republicans were getting back into, excuse me, Democrats were getting back into this corner of like, if you, you know, if you say like you shouldn't be burning it all down, it sounds like you're saying everything is working as it's supposed to. Everything is working well. And I think that the general public kind of fell into that framing to some extent. I mean, there was certainly a lot of media

coverage that implicitly had that as the binary choice. But the general public has started to see, like, oh, maybe there was some value to the things that are being destroyed. And maybe there is like a version of a reform that's short of burning it all down and purging all of the scientists and purging all of the civil servants and, you know, tearing down all of the data sets and websites and whatever else. And so I think on the, I mean, This is a slightly different question from the question of patriotism per se, but it's related, right? It's about to what extent do we try to rescue our existing institutions from these attacks of the MAGA movement or others who are sort of like almost more nihilistic about how government should be run or should not be run for that matter. So I don't know. I think it's interesting to see like how the public views of things have changed.

in part because, as you point out, Andrew, you know, there has been so much rapid destruction and change. And it's not just about destroying stuff. It's also about, like, sending in, you know, masked armed agents into cities and snatching people off the street. It's not just about, like, destroying the existing administrative state. There's a lot of actual expansion of the administrative state in some ways. So, you know, I don't know exactly how Democrats are going to ultimately respond to that. There is still a strain or, you know, a very strong force within the Democratic Party that is also in the sort of burn it all down camp. And again, it's a distinct question from patriotism, but it is related. And, you know, there's like this, the system is rigged against you. The system doesn't work as it is. And we just need to tear it all down and build something new from. scratch, as opposed to like sort of a more institutionalist strain within the Democratic Party as well. That's maybe a little bit more moderate, maybe more small-se conservative, as you put it. So I don't know. I don't know exactly how that's going to shake itself out in the coming couple of years, particularly as we lead into the next presidential election. But I think you're

going to see those warring factions within the Democratic Party continue to fight head to head. And it's partly about the vision for what does a post-Trump America look like. Does it look like what we had pre-Trump? And if so, to what ways does it depart from that? And what are the things about America, the American project, that are worth keeping or worth improving upon? And I think that's still a really active question. So I let Flash come with me. and my oldest kid who has wanted to go to both of the previous protests,

and I wouldn't let him, and I finally wore down. I was like, fine, you can come with me. We're going to be there for like 30 minutes. That's it. And he asked me what the difference was vibe-wise between no kings and the Trump rallies, the Trump movements. And I've been to both. You know, back in 2016, I was out there covering the presidential campaign.

I was at a lot of Trump rallies. And this sort of struck me as interesting and maybe illuminating a little bit. At the Trump rallies, what you saw was a lot of like real idol worship. Like Trump the man can fix it. This guy is the savior. This is a strong man. You also saw a lot of belief that America was fundamentally rotten. and that this is, you know, like America, it's all bad.

We've got to drain the swamp. These things are broken. This DEI is bad. These immigrants are bad, all that stuff. And then the third thing you thought was that there was a lot of us, them. A lot of like those people are the enemies of the real people. We are the authentic Volk and those people over there are not. And the difference with the No Kings, No Kings really,

does, well, I'll get it this in a minute. The No Kings really does stay away from deifying any person. I mean, isn't like AOC can save us. I don't think I saw a single sign anywhere, you know, like Bernie's my guy or Joe Biden or Kamel. Like, it's a very ecumenical. People tend to see this, they see as the enemy, they see Trump as a guy who is hoodwinked Americans. And so like, you know, Americans are good. They've just been misled by this bad person. And a lot of belief that actually America is great and everything is awesome in America. And what we're seeing now is an aberration.

And what we are seeing is a deviation from the norm. And we've got to return to that norm. And I thought that was sort of interesting in reflection of the two worlds. Another big difference? No merch at no game. you're in a Trump rally. There are people everywhere making money selling T-shirts and pins and keychains

and wigs and whatnot. And there's nobody walking around selling American flags or anything like that. In fact, the opposite. At our protest, there was a huge supply of inflatable costumes. There was like anybody who wants to borrow a costume, walk around in it for a half hour,

go ahead, knock yourself out. Just please return it when you're done. So anyway, I don't know. Do you guys have any thoughts? So, Andrew, you went to a bunch of the Trump rallies back in the day, didn't you? Yeah, yeah. I've been to so many of them. I think you're basically correct. I mean, like, there's ways in which,

obviously there are a lot of ways in which it's sort of healthier at a human level, right? This, this, vibe that you describe at the no-kings thing versus the vibe that you saw at the Trump thing. The other, one other difference that is, that is, you know, people on like, quote-unquote our side should probably contemplate is the, the one good thing, quote-unquote good thing in terms of achieving its aims for the Trump rallies is that it's, the ask is immediate and it's political and it's pre-chewed and it's right there, right? I mean, you're at a Trump rally because you think that Donald Trump is the only guy who can save this stuff. And so the ask is obvious. It's go vote for him the next time you get the opportunity or go vote for the candidates who will support him, the candidates that

are his friends that he has specifically blessed or give him money or give them money. You know, I mean, and part of what we're seeing here in this sort of like negative space rally of the no Kings thing is it's due. the opposite of that, you know, oppose Donald Trump. And there is this kind of admirable ecumenism that you're talking about, where it's pulling a lot of different kinds of people who probably feel a lot of different kinds of ways about a lot of different kinds of things other than this. And that's really important. I'm not downplaying that at all. It is really important in this moment when they are so powerful to be able to summon this sort of mass dissent out in the streets to

basically just say, you do not have this popular mandate, you do not speak for the American people, writ large just because you won one election and you can't sweep aside all of the normal rules and laws just because you think, you know, anything else would be to frustrate democracy. So that is important. But like you were saying before, Catherine, I mean, the idea of how you channel this energy, this massive latent energy into actual political power into actual political energy is not nearly so clear because it's not pre-chewed. It's not just, you know, here's the one guy who's going to come out on stage and we are all going to rally around him as our big population. figurehead. It's not clear what person you could even put in front of these crowds who would

elicit even just sort of mass approval, let alone mass adulation. And that's fine. No kings. They're not about putting any one guy up on stage and having them, you know, be like the avatar of the popular will. That's not liberalism. That's not what this stuff is all about. But it is messier. It is trickier to figure out how to harness it. And there is a lot of work to do going forward in that front. We're looking at Dallas on the feed right now. Go ahead, Catherine. Oh, I was just going to say it. I mean, Democrats are in the minority. So the question is, who are the, when we're asking about, like, what is the ask? Who are the people who could actually do something to push back against the king or to try to, you know, channel the demands of the people who are out protesting today, whether it's about ICE or it's about war or Epstein or anything else? And the answer is members of Donald Trump's party, right? They, are in the majority. They hold the marginal key votes that matter for reigning in his various authoritarian impulses. And the question is, how do they interpret what's going on across the country

today? And I don't know the answer to that. I mean, clearly they are seeing some of the same images that we are. They're probably going to get some of the same impressive crowd size numbers that we will hear as well. But what do they do with that information? And that's, and that's, I don't know. So, you know, to some extent, it does matter, obviously, what the people who are out there and politicians on the left, Democrats, et cetera, what they do, how they orient themselves. But the actual people who hold the levers of power or the levers that could control some of the power that is being deployed by the president are the Republican politicians who are in the legislature. And I don't know how they're interpreting all of this. I'm curious, J.V.L, if you have thoughts on, if you could read the minds of the Mike Johnson's of the world or others. Like, what do you think their interpretation of events like today's are? Hold that thought. We'll come back to it.

So we're going to bring in Ansley, Ansley Skipper, who is with us from Shytown, Chicago. Ansley, how are you? Are they just getting started there? Yeah, we just got started. We did a land acknowledgement, some safety tips for folks, and some music has started behind me on the stage. People are like streaming in. I've got the lake is kind of on one side of me, and then people are coming in from the city, from the L, just constantly streaming in. And I heard you said that the mood was sunshiny this time. I think that's really accurate. It's literally sunshiny here, but the mood here is very optimistic, especially as compared to October when the city was really underage. assault. I think this time having kind of come out from that a little bit. People are still angry, but they're also hopeful. So do you have a sense of what the crowd looks like in terms of

demographics and size? Were you in Chicago for the last one, Anzley, or where were you? I was, yeah. Yeah, that was huge. And I do think it is Operation Midway Blitz was going on and the city really was the target of the administration at the time. So this is so far feeling maybe a little smaller, but it's hard to tell because people are still coming in and the march is sort of the second half of the event here. And so a lot of folks will join for that portion that aren't here at the stage for the programming. Gotcha. And a lot of war stuff, people focused on the war, or is that still, is that background the way it's been some of the other place? No, I've seen lots of anti-war signs pamphlets being handed out. You know, a lot of generic, no kings.

people with specific issues on their signs. War is definitely one of Epstein files everywhere. Also just seeing a lot of joy and peace and hope kind of related signs. Descent is patriotic. So kind of a grab bag and definitely a grab bag of people too. We were on the train coming down from the north side and just all kinds of different people from all different neighborhoods. Even though there are a lot of people going to those and then coming downtown as well.

So it's really a cross section of the whole Chicago land area, I would say. Fascinating. Catherine, Andrew, what do you got for her? Are you seeing counter-protesters? No, I haven't. A lot of police officers stationed on the outside, just keep this event safe. But really no counter-protesters,

no trouble so far. I really didn't see much of that in October here either. So, you know, obviously keep an eye on that. And it's harder to tell because of how spread out the event is. It's taking up a pretty big chunk of Grant Park right now, but so far, so good. Yeah, I was, I was struck Ansley, but what you said a minute ago about just sort of the having come out the other side from the stepped up ice operations in Chicago at the end of last

year. And I was noticing that, too, when Jim was talking about the sort of feeling of whether they were going to, whether there were going to be similar operations in Springfield, right? I mean, that was, which was just north of him, which is, I think maybe something that has kind of, not to go up on a tangent, but maybe something that has gone a little unnoticed is that there was a lot of fear a month or two ago, basically about whether or not that was going to be the next Springfield, Ohio, was going to be the next Minneapolis or the next Chicago, because the temporary protected status for a lot of the Haitian migrants who were there, who were such a flashpoint during the 2024 election had expired because the Trump administration had cut them off early, essentially. So the question was whether they were going to go in and force and scoop them all up and try to do another mass deportation there to kind of follow. through on 2024. And that never happened. That would have been right after Minneapolis. And it appears to appears at least for now that they have sort of gotten cold feet on on on on, you know, doing another big kind of shock and awe mass deportation. We're going to descend on a city and make this happen, a sport of thing. So that was kind of interesting to hear that with with Jim in

Chicago earlier. And it's interesting as well to hear that, you know, I mean, is there any sort of sort of, I don't know, Ansley, like like triumph would be the wrong word. But like how do you describe sort of the energy of having lived through that and come out the other side of it, like you're talking about there. Yeah, I think maybe it's relief. I don't know that it's feeling like we've won anything. And then there's still memorials up. Like in my neighborhood,

there were signs that were put up when people were taken, kind of marking the spot. Those are still up. There's still ice out signs. There's still a focus on the fact that, you know, they haven't stopped. They've gotten smarter. But I do think there's a sense of relief that people aren't terrified

to go outside anymore. coincidentally, the weather's also getting better. You know, it's this time when it turns the corner in Chicago, and I think rural events have somewhat coincided with that, you know, evin flow of things. But, yeah, I think people feel relieved and are not giving up and not, you know, they still care, they're still staying informed, still going out to the ice facility that's in the Chicago suburbs, but there is definitely a sense that we've come out

the other side of the worst part of it. Well, that's very nice. All right, Anzley, thank you from Chicago. Appreciate you. And we'll see you later on. So I just want to say one of the things. So when we thought about asks in the beginning, part of the ask is really just size and scale, right? I mean, this is they have talked about, well, we need to 3.5%, which I forget the genesis of the, well, if you can get 3.5% of the population on the street, no regime can tolerate it.

This feels a little bit like one of those, you know, these are my 15 keys to the election stats. It feels a little arbitrary. Little arbitrary, like 3.7%, 3.3%. I need to hit my 10,000 steps per day or whatever, yes. If you get 3.5% in the streets, you immediately score 10 victory points, which can be applied to the next election. Yeah, or you unlock the secret level with the bonus coins or something. I don't know. That said, like, mass does have its own quality.

and the step increase from the June to October, no King's protests was very meaningful. I think people felt like, oh, there's momentum. Like this is, you know, the first protest. Nobody was quite sure what to expect. It was larger than, I think, people generally anticipated. And then the second one, okay, well, can we build on this momentum? And in fact, it was a reasonably large growth.

So far, what we're getting, again, it's hard to do. this because everything is anecdotal. None of these protests that we've seen look like step changes from October, right? Nobody, nobody is coming to this and saying, yeah, I was here last time, and holy shit, there's three times as many people here. So I think that is actually a potential weakness. I mean, if we did, I think it was seven million people at the October. No King's protests. Somebody can in fact check me on that. I think it was $7.7.5 million. If this ticks backwards to like $5 million, or God forbid $4 million, especially at a time when things have just gotten much worse for Trump, like, I mean, just objectively, things are worse for Trump. The economy is

worse. The war is worse. His approval rating is worse. That would be interesting and it would mean something. And I don't know what it would mean. We don't want to over. overinterpret it, but it would mean something. And so we shouldn't be Pollyanna about that. Sorry, I need to get going. That is fine. So you should. I will plug, I will plug why I'm going, which is that I co-host a show on MS now on Saturdays and Sunday nights from 6 to 9 p.m. So I have to get going to work on the show and do my hair and makeup and all that stuff. And we'll be talking more, obviously, about the day's events and hopefully we'll have some numbers and stuff. Fantastic. Everybody go watch. Go watch Catherine on MS. All right. Thanks, guys.

Let's go chatting with you. JBL, can I ask you kind of a glib question? Yeah, go ahead. If the president starts a war in Iran and gas jumps up like an extra buck 50 a gallon overnight, does that increase turnout at a protest because people are angry about it? Or does that decrease turnout because people don't want to get in their car and drive in? I mean, by everything we think we think we understand about politics, it means that it should increase the protest turnout.

And again, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. Don't want to be a Debbie Downer. But it does strike me that if this isn't, if this goes backwards, that's a little bit of a warning sign. And it would make me nervous. On the other hand, the election turn, I mean, the election numbers everywhere we see them are the election numbers. Like, you know, as an electoral matter, the ground is shifting underneath Republicans running into the midterms, and, like, that's just reality. That's happening. And you see it in all the Republican retirements, right? We had, we had more, there was, wasn't there another retirement yesterday?

Somebody pulled out at the last minute. Some House committee chairman, like, pulled his filing, I think, Andrew. And so I, you know, that's, that's different. Yeah, but my, my basic sense of this, I understand why it's really like narratively powerful and people would like to see, well, if we just double this every time, you know, we could have every American in the streets, you know, by August. And maybe the scales would finally fall from Republican's eyes. And maybe, you know, we'd have such a mass movement that, you know, his cabinet would forsake him. And we'd see the 25th Amendment. And like all those things would be great. And in the same world, it would happen. Sam Graves, by the way. Thank you. Our colleague says Representative Sam Graves, who's the Transportation Committee chair. Yes, yes. Like, when you chair a very valuable committee and you suddenly like, hey, I think now I'm going to retire and spend more time with my family, that's a bad sign. It's like seeing the birds, like you're relying on the beach and all of a sudden all the birds start flying inland. It's not good. It's not a good sign.

So like that kind of, you know, again, stepwise growth in perpetuity would be amazing. But like as far as the way that I see these protests is it is just a constant sort of drumbeat of a reminder, again, about the falseness, the falseness of the president's narrative of a broad popular mandate. And the fact that, I mean, you just have to keep saying it. You have to keep going out there. He's out there every day spreading his propaganda, basically saying the American people are with me. You hear him. I said at the top that it seems like maybe some of their aims have gotten a little bit narrower. They are no longer taking the fight to every single field because they know that they're courting a lot of blowback and they're starting to kind of cringe away from that. And that's all good. But when you talk about the president himself specifically and you hear him speak about the question of where the American people are, I mean, it is so obvious that he is floating further and further into the clouds of everybody loves me.

there's nobody in America who isn't, you know, touched in the head or a total radical, you know, Antifa, Firebomb, leftist, or paid, who isn't with Trump. I mean, like, he talks about, you know, Stephen Miller likes to talk about 80-20 issues that favor MAGA. And Donald Trump at an event this past week, he's like, I don't think they're 80-20 issues. I think it's like 991 is kind of how he sees basically the concept. And so he's going to keep pumping that out there. his base is going to keep parroting that and amplifying that. And look, just we got to be out here selling the counter narrative.

And if it caps at $8 million or if it caps at $5 million, if it caps at $10 million, you know, more is better than fewer. It's a bigger, it's a louder signal the more you get. But just, I mean, it's not going to, I am not prepared to, like, if we get numbers that say it's $4 million or $5 million today to like start getting punchy about that to say, oh no, you. You know, we've peaked as an anti-Trump movement. I mean, I don't think that's true.

I think that everything that we are seeing is that his popularity is lower and lower, that his unpopularity, which is really what this is about, is ticking higher and higher. You know, there are a lot fewer unsure, is a lot fewer, well, you know, there's a little good and a little bad type guys out there. And there's nothing that you can do to counter the sort of mass support propaganda better than just massive, massive, massive, massive, massive turnout for this sort of thing. So I think it's, again, we don't have final numbers and we won't have final numbers, and who knows whether the final numbers are exact anyway ever.

It's so hard to count these sorts of things, and they're so distributed. Yeah, but I think big show of force is the bottom line here, as it has been, whether or not we ever hit any sort of magical threshold of support that would unlock new powers for our anti-regime movement. Yeah. All very well said. Thanks for being with us, everybody. If you are still yet to head out to your protest,

go do it. Go stand up. Go be counted. Go support the people who are standing up with you. And everybody else, hit like, hit subscribe. Follow us. Be part of the Bulwark community. And we will be back at you with more content like any minute,

because that's all we do. Good luck, America.