They came, they saw, they costumed. An estimated seven million demonstrators took to the streets across nearly 3,000 US cities on Saturday for the second No Kings protests — up from over five million at the first No Kings protests in June, and the three-to-five million who attended the Hands Off rallies in April. And yes, many of our fellow Americans were donning costumes (including one very lucky unicorn in LA who scored a pic with Pedro Pascal), not so much to celebrate it being the month of Halloween, but more as a nod to the citizens of Portlandia who have been objecting to the unwarranted National Guard troops sent in by the president king last month. It’s a clever tactic, as one costume-clad protester noted over the weekend: “I think it’s really hard to call something a war zone when you look at something and it’s just a block party and people in Halloween costumes.” Exactly. CNN reported snapshots of the scenes in several major cities:
Chicago: In the epicenter of Trump’s immigration crackdown, thousands rallied with homemade signs and “Hands Off Chicago” posters, waving upside-down American flags along with a few Mexican and Pride flags. Protestors told CNN immigration raids, cuts to Medicaid and other policies were among the reasons for demonstrating Saturday.
Los Angeles: Demonstrators in inflatable costumes waving American flags dotted the streets of LA in a rebuttal to the president’s characterization of protests. “I think it’s really hard to call something a war zone when you look at something and it’s just a block party and people in Halloween costumes,” one protester told CNN.
Washington, DC: Current and former federal employees took to Pennsylvania Avenue on Day 18 of the government shutdown, rallying for calmer political rhetoric. One furloughed federal employee protesting Saturday told CNN she’s losing sleep over worries about her job and paying bills.
New York City: In an already hectic Times Square, crowds of protesters stretched for several blocks as demonstrations moved toward Lower Manhattan. One demonstrator told CNN she has been protesting since the 1960s, holding a sign reading: “We protest because we love America, and we want it back.”
Atlanta: In Georgia’s capital city, protesters rallied to honor the city’s deep-rooted civil rights legacy. Saturday’s demonstration set a powerful tone for the national day of protest; a peaceful but urgent call to protect democracy, reject hate and continue the legacy of those who marched before.
It’s so invigorating to see that not only are we rallying against this nonsense with more regularity than during the first term sentence, we’re also showing up in greater numbers each time. And we’re keeping it largely peaceful! (Although tear gas was used in LA and some arrests were made in Colorado.) While this iteration of No Kings protests didn’t have the added bonus of falling on the tyrant’s birthday, we have the satisfaction of knowing the rallies roiled Trump. He started off the weekend by lamely rebutting, “I’m not a king.” But by the day of, after watching seven million people unite to proclaim their profound objection to him, then Trump was singing a different tune. His baby fists got hold of the unholy match of social media and AI, which led to him posting an AI video of himself as both king and fighter jet pilot, “bombing” protestors in his hometown of NYC with… a brown liquid substance. I think my favorite bit is the people who’ve pointed out that the oxygen mask he wears in the video doesn’t cover his nose and mouth, which you could interpret as yet another example of the inadequacies of AI, or view it as AI slyly being on our side. Either works. And of course the official White House Twitter/X handle followed suit, posting an image of Trump and Just Dance Vance in crowns, with Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer in sombreros. No Kings, all the way. But also, how about No Kids as the elected administration in the White House?
Last item: Back in June, I gave a special shout out to my home city San Francisco for executing an excellent human banner on Ocean Beach that read “NO KING!” They did it again! Same city same beach, but even better. This time the human banner spelled “NO KINGS” on one line, with “YES ON 50” underneath it (referring to the proposition to redraw district maps), plus a three-person wide border framing the whole thing. 10s across the board!
I have never seen such a perfect image pic.twitter.com/dh12nZXPIN
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) October 20, 2025
Photos credit: Hollywood To You/Backgrid, TheNews2/Cover Images, Be Like Water Media/Backgrid, MediaPunch/Backgrid, Getty
My mother went and sent us a picture. We were so proud! (My health won’t let me, damn it)
Mine, either. 🙁
I am so encouraged to see the numbers trending up. I was worried people would be initially fired up and then become complacent or hopeless. I love this for us. Keep fighting, everyone. I know this is exhausting but it’s worth fighting these MAGA evil clowns.
We’re almost at 3.5%! 2% came out this time.
We had five million the first no kings, 7 million this go around. 12.5 million is 3.5%. We’re getting there!
As Trump’s policies hurt more people, the number will grow.
My favorite sign from the rally I attended in Tucker, GA (just outside Atlanta) was held by a man in an inflatable dinosaur costume. It said, “No Rex But T. Rex.” Still makes me laugh when I think about it! Everyone was in good spirits and the police were great to us demonstrators.
10/10 to that dinosaur.
The costumes are a wonderful addition, this regime is all about ‘toughness’ and anger and people showing up in costumes to say we don’t accept what you’re doing is perfect.
🎯 slogan!
The inflatable costumes are *chef’s kiss*! At our rally in the New River Valley in southwest VA, we had more than 1200 attend and march. The police and sheriff’s deputies were very helpful and polite. There were TWO Trump supporters on the corner across from the rally. No one harassed them, but I did see a small handful of people cross the street to talk to them occasionally — all very civil.
Back to the costumes! One of my favorite memories will always be a large number of the inflatables dancing the “cha cha slide!”
I think we had over 100,000 on the Boston Common.
Definitely, and the group of Boston Police standing where I was sitting (I found a giant rock they had positioned to block vehicles from driving into the crowd from Charles Street, were enjoying the party. No arrests. Lots of people in lobster costumes. Hundreds of doggies wearing signs. And some great signs. My favorite was a guy dressed as Gandalf the Grey with a sign saying “Fool of a Trump!” but I’m a LOTR geek.
There’s a MSNBC video floating around social media of the crowd that Grok erroneously claimed was a mislabed video from 2017 that all of the MAGAs are reposting as “proof” that Democrats lie about everything. And they all point out that it can’t be from Saturday because the trees are green. Grok later corrected its error but the damage is done and that wrong post has been reposted millions of times on various social media outlets. The video is really from Saturday. There were tens of thousands on the Common. And the trees are still green due to foliage peak always being late in eastern MA and global warming confusing the trees.
😮
I marched in Austin and it was great! Thousands came out even though it was 95 degrees. My favorite sign showed side by side pictures of Trump and Obama. Trump saying “Everyone wants to have sex with me”. Obama replied “Donald, that’s not what Fuck Trump means”!
Meanwhile, our illustrious governor Abbott deployed the National Guard to Austin for what he termed was an antifa-linked demonstration.😂
😍
I saw criticisms of how it was all performative—Who cares if it was for show? It’s a beautiful show, and it’s giving people something to believe in & to hold onto.
People are all we’ve got.
IMO – those criticisms come from the faction that were hoping for civil disobedience; both to prove the narrative that we are pro-Hamas, violent, terrorists etc. and also to give the administration a reason to plow ahead with the NG deployments.
The fact that not a single protester was detained or arrested is huge. So yes, performative, but damn what a performance!
Of course, it’s for show. To show Trump, our politicians, the press, the world and everyone else living in the US that we still have free speech.
Of *course* it’s for show – by definition, demonstrations are demonstrative.
We, the people, demonstrated to show our disagreement, disapproval of what Trump, his administration, Congress, SCOTUS, ICE are doing.
Exactly this.
🎯
I mean yeah it’s a show. I call it a rally rather than a protest because we’re not expressing a demand like “end the Vietnam war”. We didn’t march in Boston, but we gathered and sang, laughed, expressed passionate dissent. My theory is that the people who claim the protests don’t matter or “why didn’t you vote instead?” (Spoiler: WE DID) are folks who just can’t be bothered to show up and feel a bit guilty and even left out. If you don’t want to give up a couple hours on your Saturday, fine. Do you. But keep your negative comments to yourself. You don’t have to be a part of this ya know? I know I’m not asking you to but please just STFU about it.
That performance is there for all those who are on the fence or questioning, or for those that are deep in a bubble and don’t believe much of the other side exists. It’s an obvious show of where people stand, since propaganda tries to make us seem like there are a crazy few, with the rest in support of trump. It’s as close as we can get to “raise your hand to vote no” which would be a simple visual, where the “votes” are not fraud.
I live on the Western Slope in Colorado — we had 7000 people — that is 10% of the population of a solid red county. We had FOUR counter protest vehicles.
My favorite sign was actually on a dog that simply read “No one is eating the dogs.”
This is my Resisting Bitch Face was a close second.
The turnout in big cities and blue areas was impressive, but what brought a tear to my eye were the small but mighty protests in the rural towns of deeply red states. The photo of a solitary lady in her wheelchair and oxygen tank in front of her care home holding a small No Kings sign wrecked me.
We were at the one in Old Town Scottsdale, just one of many protests in AZ. Large, peaceful crowd w amazing signs, great energy, and a bigger turnout than April and June. We are waiting for Rep. Adelita Grijalva to be sworn in for full representation for our state. Johnson had multiple weak excuses for why she hasn’t on Sunday news talk shows. We subscribe to WSJ and NYT and are disappointed at their lack of and/or muted coverage. AP and Reuters both feature front-page coverage. Trump’s fighter-plane post is both infuriating and heartbreaking; it’s so demeaning.
I used to live in AZ. I’ve started posting “swear Grijalva in” on Johnson’s social media.
I attended locally in Albuquerque…it was very full and a great atmosphere, etc…but was just as depressed yesterday as ever. Nothing has changed , the sociopath in charge is starting new wars daily now that he finally realized he isnt getting any peace prizes and then spends time posting against Dems i.e half of the country is supposed to be running. Now he has hired one of the lawyers who filed many of the lawsuits to “stop the steal “ as they prepare to decline results from midterms next year…if they even allow elections to happen.
Stay strong. One march will not change things, but if nothing else it proved that there are people EVERYWHERE in this country that reject what is happening. What comes next is turning the sentiment into action – even small actions can make a difference. Ignore the orange blob in the Oval Office – focus on what you can do. Refuse to shop at stores that support him, donate to a local food bank (SNAP benefits end Nov 1 for a lot of people), find a local candidate that will defend the ACA and volunteer for their campaign, etc. This won’t end overnight – the MAGA movement is a decade or more in the making, it will take years to turn this around.
The protest I went to felt more like a party. I crocheted about thirty tacos and bought bubble party favors to give out. People were excited to receive them. Someone was handing out water and snacks. I didn’t encounter any counter protesters and we received mostly positive feedback with the beeping car horns. I would say there were only a half dozen negative ones. I loved all the costumes that people wore. I think we all got cues from Portland on the best way to protest.
I loved how well done all the protests were across the country and the world.
Our turnout was large with a lot of costumes (which I loved). It did have the spirit of a party – a serious message but delivered joyfully. One of my favorite signs said “trump is the worst president since trump”.
I left with more hope for humanity than when I came.
I marched in Manhattan, down Broadway. I really think it was more than 100K people, and there were a lot more young people, teenagers, and children than I had seen at the previous No Kings and Hands Off marches. My friend and I walked from 47th to 15th Street, and the end was still no where in sight. The signs and costumes were amazing. I love it that people are using these protests as an outlet for creativity as well as anxiety. These marches are truly therapeutic.
The aerial views of all the marches were great. I especially loved the one of the NY march. It seemed to go on forever!
There were some images of teenage boys hanging off the scaffolding in NYC just shouting and protesting their asses off. It got me so emotional. I’ve been to so many protests since his last term and that’s the first time I’ve seen a huge group of young men like that.
I was at the march in Portland, Oregon. It was supposed to rain, but even the weather cooperated for a beautiful sunny day. The initial estimate was 40,000 people but it looked more like 60-80 thousand. The Hands Off march in the spring was 40,000, and there were twice as many for No Kings. It was a wonderful day.
❤️
LOL, Kismet, that “brown liquid substance” was 💩! Trump was literally sh-tting on America, in the video.