many of us see it for the first time no kings People may have been surprised by how many people gathered at the June protests. Organizers said their goal was simple: to bring people to the streets and remind people that dissent still exists. In an age where people want to be kings, our collective voice is the very first step in protesting.
Now, the movement is pivoting from a news-making spectacle to a political strategy, uniting newcomers to mutual aid projects and building what one organizer calls long-term “protest muscle.”
Related: Rep. Seth Moulton gets booed at Norkings rally in Boston, pro-trans rivals cheer
“We started by just putting signs on the sidewalks,” said Hunter Dunn, the group’s media coordinator. defender during a long discussion. “Now we go to the detention centers and demand the release of people.”
Dunn explained that the movement is moving from a one-day display of large audiences to sustained, organized pressure on institutions it sees as pillars of the dictatorship.
Dunn said the early rallies were valuable for increasing visibility and solidarity. But organizers soon realized that isolated demonstrations had their limits. The second wave of action focused on concrete targets, detention centers, boycotts, and union movements, and went beyond a single day to create impact.
“The main difference is what happens next week or next month,” Dunn said. “It’s not about what No Kings did that day, it’s about what the connections people made that day will do afterwards.” The goal now is to turn the large number of participants into long-term commitments, with volunteers joining legal defense teams, community networks and labor coalitions that will keep the pressure on during the mediagenic moment.
Dunn describes the long Nor Kings game as a relay race, akin to a mass demonstration passing the baton to the local groups running the day-to-day operations. “We’re not sprinting,” he said. “It’s not even a marathon. It’s a relay race.”
Visible events attract people, and small, steady efforts keep people engaged. Over time, Dunn says these efforts could build a durable infrastructure of resistance.
What really struck Dan was that No Kings attracted participants of all ages and backgrounds. “We have grandmothers, pregnant women, children, all kinds of people,” he said. “Young activists often lead and coordinate, while older participants contribute numbers and organizational memory. This combination is one of the movement’s strengths.”
Related: Former Pentagon official warns Trump’s anti-trans policies threaten democracy before ‘No Kings’ rally
Dunn said a core tactic is to encourage defections from organizations that enforce controversial policies. “When civil servants and security personnel refuse to comply, enforcement costs rise and cracks in the system are exposed,” he explained. “That is why No Kings is focused on detention centers, building connections with legal defense networks, and holding these facilities in check through surveillance, legal challenges, and systemic failure.”
While some critics dismiss the mass protests as performative, Dunn disagrees. The real measure of success, he said, is not the march itself, but the networks formed afterward, the volunteers, donors and organizers who continue to participate. “People miss it,” he said. “They focus on the symptoms, not the relationship afterwards.”
Dunn hinted that large-scale mobilizations could return in the new year, but said the priority now was the low-level work of recruiting, training and connecting people to maintain public pressure. “This group’s success will be measured not by headlines but by its ability to maintain an infrastructure of resistance,” he noted.
“We are starting to build up our strength to protest,” Dunn added. “Shattering the pillars of the regime and creating a mass mobilization means something beyond the day it happened.”
Whether that perseverance leads to lasting change is a question that No Kings is still trying to answer, and so do everyone else in this growing movement.
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
