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Third No Kings protest to be held in March against ICE’s ‘reign of terror’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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As a reminder to people I already know will be furiously typing that these protests won't stop trump, or that they don't stop anything: that's not the point.
These protests exist to stop people from feeling hopeless, then to get them energized and motivated, then to give them ways to exercise their rights and free will to actually do concrete actions.
Holding a sign at a protest doesn't stop Trump, but giving millions of people booklets, cards, zines, and papers that direct them to their local ICE rapid response networks, get them canvassing for leftist politicians in their area, and giving them hope that lets them keep doing those things in the future is infinitely more valuable than saying "stay at home, these protests are worthless, now somehow organize your entire community to go raid an ICE facility or something, while you have no motivation or hope for the future because you feel alone."
These also exist to dispel narratives fascists use to justify their abuse of power. Nazis feel afraid when confronted with the fact that there are a lot more people that hate them than people that are with them. It's why ICE officers routinely leave scenes of arrests empty handed when enough community members show up. They're cowards.
At the last No Kings I went to, the organizers told everyone that they knew there would be people on the sidelines trying to agitate protestors, disrupt chants, and spread pro-Trump messaging. None of them showed up after they saw the size of the protest. The closest thing to it was someone in an apartment building too afraid to even put a sign outside their window playing a shitty rap song about missing a shot at Trump, with great lyrics like "B*tch, you missed", and "the left can't aim."
The alternative is everyone staying at home, getting progressively more angry and simultaneously hopeless, while the Nazis in power get even more emboldened from seeing only the few, more radical individuals willing to take action into their own hands while everyone else feels to hopeless to do anything, and I don't know about you, but that's not the world I want to live in.
I agree that these protests are very liberal and often convince some participants that the act of the protest itself is enough, that they've done their civic duty, but the people who are convinced by that are the same people that already self-limit the extent of their political action to holding an anti-ICE sign on the side of the road while people honk. They were never going to engage in any kind of actually disruptive protest in the first place.
It’s great for people not experienced in protest. The previous No Kings was the first protest my parents attended.
Yes. It's about visibility. Both to each other and to our elected officials.
They don't care, holding signs and chanting for 2 hours on a random Saturday doesn't disrupt the system
Protests are powerful, especially in autocracies. This is because they undermine, in full view of everyone, a key source of legitimacy for autocrats: that they represent the true will of the people. It also undermines the instrument of power that all autocrats rely on: fear.
Neither does making these pointlessly demoralizing comments, but that hasn't stopped you.
Did you read the comment? That part that says that’s not the point then goes on to explain the point?
Absolutely. Before the first one people on here were saying don't protest or they'll kill you. I realize it's a bit ironic to be saying this right now but aside from a few individuals, that was proven incorrect.
Nope the alternative is hanging the fascists running your country instead of doing protest for the 'gram
I get the sentiment sounds better to you than the amount of results you'd get from a No Kings protest on its own, but you cannot honestly believe that your local wine mom is going to wake up one day and literally grab a noose, go out with her friends, build some gallows, and then find a way to kidnap armed ICE officers.
You would never even get remotely the same turnout if you called for that vs No Kings, because one is something you can do with minimal risk to your personal safety, the other is a guarantee you WILL be shot at, gassed, and almost certainly killed by the authorities.
Essentially, you're saying that anyone who wants the situation in this country to be better should be willing to almost certainly die on the spot because there's a tiny sliver of a chance they might be able to kill some ICE agents before they do.
Go ahead.
Your country, not mine. We dealt with our jackbooted fascists 20 years ago.
Do you have evidence that these is the organizers ' intentions? I keep seeing this point made, but really if the point is radicalization and encouraging action they're failing miserably. I mean hell, it's been a year and only like two or three notable acts of resistance happened (no, No Kings protests don't count); when are we supposed to actually see this bear fruit? This argument made sense in April, maybe even in July, but January 2026 with project 2025 half done? At this point something is not going according to plan, and frankly I'm far more inclined to believe that No Kings is acting as a do-nothing release valve than that it's a successful method of radicalizing attendees.
I mean, I've talked to them in person? I've seen them countless times before this, and many of them have been organizing before Trump was president. Not only that, but I've seen the outcomes.
The local ICE rapid response networks in my community would not have nearly as many members had they not gotten tons of people at the last No Kings protest near me to sign up for their newsletters, the local progressive candidate would have been guaranteed to lose the election without the slim margin added from people at the protest becoming aware of their candidacy, and my reps probably would not have become more vigilant in their anti-ICE sentiment as a primary talking point over just a general wishy washy vibe of not being okay with it had they not seen so many of their constituents turn out.
My community has a progressive candidate in office who has plans to prevent ICE actions, police misconduct, and also make where I live more affordable, it has thousands more people on standby with whistles and plans to disrupt ICE activity if it happens near them, and it has my representatives voting no on funding ICE, instead of voting yes and saying "but we'll give them QR codes though."
If that's not a concrete positive outcome, I don't know what is.
I was referring to the leadership of organizations like Indivisible that are actually planning the protests, since those are the ones who set strategy.
You know what, fair enough. I still believe the pace is catastrophically slow, but I guess No Kings is more useful than I thought.
Not entirely, actually. That part surprised me when I first went. They couldn't control what I handed out to people for sure, and there were numerous organizations with stand-up tents there that weren't listed as part of the official organizations, and one of them even explicitly mentioned to me that the organizers weren't happy with them being there, but they didn't care and had set up 4 separate booths around the general area of the protest.
That I can 100% agree on. Though it does seem like the pace is picking up more as time goes on.