October 20, 2025
Views from the “No Kings” Protests
By Nic Wong
We asked six student writers—in Indiana, Alaska, Alabama, and more—to report on the demonstrations in their area.
On October 18, more than seven million people flooded the streets of America for the “No Kings” protests, a follow-up to the actions over the summer decrying the authoritarianism and tyranny of the second Trump administration.
The latest protests come at “a time when Trump and his accommodationists have attacked freedom of speech and freedom of the press; when they have sent masked men and armed troops into American cities; when they have threatened to jail political Democratic governors, mayors, and attorneys general; and when scholars of totalitarianism warn that American democracy is in peril,” wrote John Nichols, the executive editor of the Nation, ahead of the demonstrations.
The protests were not limited to big cities or blue states, however, where an anti-Trump message might be expected, but stretched to over 2,700 locations around the country. “Across cities and towns, large and small, rural and suburban, in red areas and in blue areas millions of us are peacefully coming together for No Kings to send a clear and unmistakable message,” said MoveOn Executive Director Katie Bethell. “The power belongs to the people.”
To better see how people coast to coast are responding to this moment, we asked six student writers—in Indiana, Alaska, Alabama, and more—to briefly report on the protests in their area.
