In Cave Creek, Arizona, progressive activists held a happy hour and food drive in the days after the “No Kings” rallies. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, activists sponsored a Halloween-themed protest near the offices of local members of Congress. In Lexington, Kentucky, residents hosted an “introduction to grassroots organizing” course.
On Oct. 18, millions of Americans flowed into the streets to protest President Donald Trump’s policies at more than 2,700 “No Kings” rallies. But even though the turnout set records, a one-day event isn’t enough to bring dramatic political change, organizers agreed.
What’s required, they said, is quiet groundwork, the steady drumbeat of activism between protests in places like Arizona, Tennessee and Kentucky, and a consistently high level of public engagement across the country.
“What we need ‒ to sort of not be trite about it ‒ but to save democracy, is to have a level of activation and understanding that goes far beyond anything we’ve had before,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group. “It’s this civic moment that is unparalleled, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”
Critics mocked the mid-October day of rallies as pointless, downplayed the number of participants and said those who attended hate America.
“Who cares?” a White House spokeswoman replied when USA TODAY asked for comment on the protests.
The activists say their job now is to keep a lot of people caring and involved.
A third round of “No Kings” protests is already in the works, Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, which helped organize the rallies, told CBS News on Oct. 21. But more important than headline-grabbing crowds in major cities is building a network of activists engaged in their communities and civic life, Levin told USA TODAY.
“You’ve got to get people to start thinking of themselves as active participants in democracy,” he said. “What I believe is that if people remain simply as atomized individuals under threat by this regime, we will lose. And the only hope that we have is if folks find community and start organizing with each other.”
Protests brought out millions across the country
It is striking that millions of people have turned out for three separate large-scale protests in multiple cities since Trump’s second term began, said University of Connecticut Professor Jeremy Pressman, an expert on public activism.
“That’s pretty intense in terms of the big protests,” he said.
Public activism has played a major role in national politics in recent years, Pressman said. In 2010, the Tea Party movement swept conservative Republicans into control of the House two years into President Barack Obama’s first term. The Women’s March the weekend before Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 drew millions. That same year, months of protests at lawmakers’ district offices caused Republican members of Congress to retire and lose re-election at an incredible rate. And the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020 impacted that fall’s presidential election.
His research shows a higher baseline for consistent activism in 2025 than in 2017.
“It suggests that kind of foundation of the anti-Trump movement is a little stronger, a little deeper than (when) it started eight years ago,” Pressman said. “It does seem like the ball is rolling, there’s a little more momentum. That that baseline is there and then these big days really kind of draw on that and take it to new heights.”
Early estimates from organizers, which are expected to change in the coming weeks, found that about 7 million people attended the 2,700 Oct. 18 protests in large and small cities nationwide. If the estimate holds, it would put the day of action among the biggest demonstrations in recent U.S. history.
The Crowd Counting Consortium, which Pressman is part of, expects to have an independent crowd estimate available in the coming weeks. The consortium estimated the first “No Kings” protest in June drew about 5 million participants.
Small protests were intentional
This year’s protests differ from those in Trump’s first term because organizers now aim to generate lots of smaller protests in as many communities as possible, rather than mass protests in a few large cities.
Hundreds gathered during Bridgewater Communities for Civil Rights No Kings protest on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025 at Central Square.
The organizers want to build a wide bench of people willing and able to mobilize, Gilbert said.
“A part of the goal here is to arm people with what they need to continue to fight back as we see challenges to all of our rights,” she said. “That’s something that is going to require a massive percentage of the population, people from all different pillars of society, different types of constituencies. We need teachers and veterans and retired judges and lawyers and everyone standing up together, small business owners, saying the same thing.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean people need to station themselves on street corners every week, waving signs, she said. Instead, she hopes people who have never considered themselves activists will start contacting members of Congress and posting on social media about their concerns.
Such activism won’t draw national media attention, Gilbert and other leaders said, but it builds a web of people engaged in their community who are worried about what the Trump administration is doing.
“No Kings isn’t the end all be all of protesting. It’s actually exactly the opposite,” said Hunter Dunn, spokesperson for the group 50501, a political and social anti-Trump organization. “It’s about education. It’s about recruitment. It’s about bringing people together, bringing communities together and allowing them to make those connections that carry on over the next days, weeks, months, years, as long as it takes.”
Days when large numbers of people turn out in town can connect people in the local community, but the steady drumbeat of local activism is just as important, said Billie Murray, an expert in civic engagement and the rhetoric of protest movements and associate professor at Villanova University.
It is “certainly important to (have) a steady sort of message of ‘there is resistance, there is solidarity, there is pushback,'” she said. “These people are showing that they’re not apathetic, they’re not defeated, and they care about the people in their communities.”
People demonstrate at the No Kings protest at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, where several thousand rallied in the nationwide campaign against President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies.
National efforts to continue
In an Oct. 21 “No Kings” follow-up meeting attended virtually by nearly 40,000 people, organizers said they have created an infrastructure to keep people more easily involved through regular calls to action.
This week the newly named “No Kings Alliance” is asking people to call their senators and tell them to restore the cuts to health care made by Trump’s summertime budget bill. Congressional Democrats have refused to allow the federal government, now shuttered for three weeks, to reopen until those cuts are restored.
The alliance also wants people to share their health care stories and personal experiences about the “No Kings” rallies on social media and at local events.
Oct 18, 2025; Augusta, Georgia, USA; People gather for a rally at the Riverwalk during the No Kings 2.0 protest through downtown. Over a thousand people turned out to voice opposition to President Donald Trump. Katie Goodale – Augusta Chronicle/USA TODAY NETWORK
Political consultant Jiggy Geronimo said on the call that the movement has to grow to be successful. Geronimo, who runs a progressive consulting firm, urged activists to amplify stories of how people are pushing back on Trump by sharing articles, photos and videos.
“If we want people to join our movement, they need to see other people taking action,” she said. “They need to feel like everybody’s doing this. Their social feed needs to be flooded with content showcasing the resistance, so that they look out on their feed and they say, ‘wait, there is this mass movement against fascism happening, I better join that too. Everybody I know is doing it.'”
Criticism from the right
Elected Republicans have largely dismissed the rallies’ impact.
“I think it’s a joke. I looked at the people, they’re not representative of this country,” Trump told reporters over the weekend.
On his Real America’s Voice show War Room, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon called progressive activists “desperate” to match the MAGA movement and mocked the advanced age of many of the protesters.
“It was the old-age home let out. It was like walkers. These people have no punch. So who cares if they are in the streets?” Bannon said. “Go in the streets next weekend. Get them up every weekend, get their exercise, get their walking shoes on, and take all the drugs on MSNBC….It’s all crap. Who cares?”
But Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned Republicans not to dismiss the power of public opposition.
“Unquestionably, we should take political peril seriously,” Cruz told Bloomberg Television on Oct. 20, adding, “There is a lot of energy. There is a lot of anger on the left. And elections can be dangerous when one side is mobilized, is angry.”
He said some voters happy with Trump and what is happening might sit out the 2026 election, while “angry, energized voters show up to vote.”
3.5% is no ‘magic number,’ but still a goal for activists
With every protest, flag waving on street corners, voter registration drive and postcard party, organizers say they are inching toward a special number of civically active Americans.
When 3.5% of the population of a country is actively involved in peacefully protesting a government, that government is likely to fall from power, according to one theory of nonviolent civil resistance.
“It’s not like an ironclad rule, but it is a very strong tendency,” said Pressman.
Activation can mean campaign work or talking to local or national officials, Pressman said, as well as willingness to participate in boycotts and strikes to influence political and corporate behavior.
Levin warned that even if a single day of protests reach the 3.5% number, that isn’t the end.
“That’s not like some magic number. You hit it, and it’s like, ‘okay, you won the game. Everybody go home. We’ve declared the victor,'” he said.
Instead, people should be prepared to engage for the long haul, Levin said.
“The No Kings era is here and its defined by widespread mass defiance,” he said.
Sarah D. Wire, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, can be reached at swire@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What’s next for anti-Trump pushback after ‘No Kings’?
