Millions of Americans flooded city streets Saturday for No Kings Day, the third wave of mass demonstrations against what organizers describe as an unprecedented consolidation of power under President Donald Trump.
In Washington, D.C., the day began at Memorial Circle below Arlington National Cemetery, where thousands carrying signs and playing music gathered before crossing Arlington Memorial Bridge into the district. Metro exit gates clogged as crowds streamed out in waves. By late morning, a dense crowd had packed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Hundreds more moved toward the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol by late afternoon for a separate Remove the Regime rally, where speakers including former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn called on Congress to impeach the president. Dunn, who was on duty during the January 6, 2021 riot, is currently running for Congress in Maryland.
National organizers anticipated more than 3,000 demonstrations in every congressional district across the country, with coordinated marches on six continents. Logan Keith, a No Kings Day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501, confirmed the scope of Saturday’s effort. The previous No Kings demonstration, held last October, drew millions of Americans into the streets. Saturday’s turnout was expected to match or exceed it.
The flagship event took place in St. Paul, Minnesota, where tens of thousands gathered around the state Capitol. Streets were gridlocked, buses packed, and parking disappeared more than a mile out as crowds carrying homemade signs with messages like “No War” and “1776” converged on the Capitol grounds. Scheduled headliners included Bruce Springsteen, who planned to perform his new song “Streets of Minneapolis,” along with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers, Jane Fonda, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The choice of Minnesota as the national flagship site was not arbitrary. In January, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, during a federal enforcement operation in Minneapolis. Less than three weeks later, Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, also 37 and also a U.S. citizen. Both deaths occurred amid a surge of federal agents into the Minneapolis area under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement push. Neither case has produced federal charges against the officers involved.
In Durham, North Carolina, several thousand demonstrators flooded downtown streets, waving American and Ukrainian flags alongside a Soviet-era banner with Trump’s face printed on it. Similar scenes played out in cities across the country.
The protests reflect a sustained opposition movement that has grown more organized with each cycle. No Kings Day is no longer a spontaneous reaction. It has structure, a national communications apparatus, and a strategy of placing demonstrations in every congressional district, a pressure tactic designed to confront elected officials regardless of their geography or political safety.
For students at Dartmouth and across the Ivy League, the marches represent something closer to home than a cable news spectacle. Federal funding freezes, threats to university autonomy, and immigration enforcement actions affecting international students and undocumented community members have made the abstract feel immediate. Student organizers from multiple campuses traveled to participate in regional demonstrations Saturday.
The No Kings movement draws its name from a specific critique: that the executive branch under Trump has accumulated powers it was never meant to hold, bypassing Congress, defying court orders, and using federal agencies as instruments of political enforcement. Organizers frame the demonstrations not as partisan politics but as a constitutional alarm.
Whether that framing reaches members of Congress is the more complicated question. Saturday’s Remove the Regime rally at the National Mall was explicit in its demand: impeachment. Speakers pointed directly at the legislative branch and called for action. In a divided Congress, that demand faces steep structural odds.
What the day demonstrated clearly is that the opposition has not dissipated. Months after the October rallies, and with new grievances layered on top of old ones, people showed up in the millions again. The movement is pressing the argument that democratic accountability requires more than electoral cycles. It requires showing up, repeatedly, until something moves.
