This past week, left-wing advocacy groups organized nationwide protests under the banner “No Kings,” opposing President Donald Trump.
Let’s be real: These protests aren’t about what the name implies.
The protests were not about monarchy.
A monarch hasn’t ruled the United States since 1776, and none of these groups organizing the No Kings rallies are protesting the nations that have a monarch. It shouldn’t be lost that protests tolerated and celebrated in this country would be stifled by a genuinely totalitarian regime.
And though many protested Elon Musk, the protests weren’t really about billionaires or special interests having too much power.
If they were, they would have also taken issue with their financial backers. Indivisible and other groups behind these protests are funded by left-wing billionaires, including George Soros (and his family), Hansjorg Wyss, Reid Hoffman, and big-money donors like the Tides Foundation. Meanwhile, government union leaders—from the likes of the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers—are responsible for organizing these events. These powerful special interests hold a great deal of influence in D.C. and state capitals, but protestors said nary a word about them.
The protesters weren’t even calling for Congress to act to limit executive authority.
Indeed, if the No Kings crowd supported reducing unilateral executive power and restoring checks and balances, we’d have a lot of common ground to work together.
But the groups behind these protests don’t want to limit executive power—they just want to control it themselves. Indeed, these entities cheered when former President Joe Biden issued executive orders that aligned with their agenda or when he claimed the Supreme Court couldn’t stop him. They stood by former President Barack Obama on all his unilateral actions, even when he bragged about using his pen and his phone in defiance of Congress.
These same No Kings protesters celebrated the pandemic-era lockdowns and emergency power grabs of governors like Gavin Newsom, Tom Wolf, Andrew Cuomo, and Gretchen Whitmer (not to mention Anthony Fauci) and fought reforms to limit executive power.
They’ve gone so far as to demonize and threaten justices who blocked executive power grabs…at least when the power grabs were done by Democratic executives.
That isn’t to say Donald Trump hasn’t misused executive power—and had his own orders challenged in court. But for the most part, the No Kings protests aren’t about limiting executive power, such as ensuring Congress approves any tariffs, but simply opposing anything advanced by Trump or congressional Republicans.
Even the left-leaning New York Times concedes that the protesters are taking on a whole array of progressive priorities, including “calls for more explicit support for racial justice, Palestinian freedom and socialist politics.”
In fact, in almost every way, the protesters are calling for a larger and more powerful federal government. They oppose any reduction in federal spending; any measure to return power to states, parents, or workers; and any effort to limit the influence and privileges of government union leaders.
Let’s imagine that the No Kings protesters actually care about protecting the rights of American citizens from a tyrannical government. What would they support?
That, of course, starts with the rule of law. That is the principle that our government must follow the law—not the arbitrary decisions of politicians and unelected bureaucrats. If a law is misguided, then change the law; don’t ignore it. This principle applies to prosecuting crime, respecting judicial decisions, and—yes—enforcing our immigration laws.
A related principle is that we must limit executive power and restore checks and balances. This means that the congressional branch of government, not the executive, writes the laws and controls the purse strings. Executive orders—whether from the president or governors—cannot substitute for law.
Thirdly, a No Kings agenda would support giving more authority back to the states rather than the expansive bureaucracy of Washington, D.C. This would include eliminating the U.S. Department of Education—which has brought rules and mandates but not better academic performance—and returning control over our schools to the states.
Equally important is returning more power to the people themselves. We should be fostering independence rather than dependence on the federal government. Reforms like work requirements for healthy adults receiving welfare benefits are—or should be—commonsense for those concerned about government overreach.
There is great irony in protestors ostensibly objecting to government tyranny, calling for a bigger and more powerful federal government. Instead, those who fear repression by an all-powerful monarch should join with liberty-minded reformers in limiting unilateral governance.