“No Kings Day” impressive public relations … but no lasting impact

The Trump Resistance Movement is tiddling over the “success” of their “No Kings Day” anti-Trump event.  In the days following, the radical left has been downright giddy over their self-assessment of that day.  They see it as a turning point – an event that portends the end of the Trump presidency (just like all those other times that they believed they had put the final nail in his political coffin).

In the most hyperbolic language, Democrats and the left-wing establishment describe their No Kings Day as a humongous outpouring of the American people.  They say that 5 million folks participated in more than 2000 events across the country – evidence that the American people were done with Trump. The hyperbolic “happy days are here again” reporting dominated on left-wing news programs for days.  They made it a bigger story than the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

To be sure, it was an impressive event even if hyped to the max by the left-wing media.  The entire line up on MSNBC were on the edge of euphoria as that puffed up the event as another V-Day.  However, just as they endlessly peddled their mendacious over-the-top end-of-democracy propaganda narratives, their description of No Kings Day, and its meaning in the future, is more wishful thinking than political reality.

I say this, not in a partisan manner. I have been around the political block more than a few times and I have learned the difference between political events with real impact and meaning – and those that have the shelf life of a banana.  Those big crowd dog-and-pony shows play well to the base but have minimal impact in the long run. I have always believed that crowd sizes do not accurately reflect the real world – the big picture.  That was how I felt about the Tea Party protests and Trump’s rallies. I do not recall ever writing about crowd size as political tea leaves.   And you will recall – or maybe not – that the highly hyped “Mothers’ March” at the onset of Trump’s first term was old news a few days later, despite the predictions of Democrats and the media at the time.  To quote baseball Yogi Berra, we now have “déjà vu all over again”.

These political protests remind me of my high school and college days.  Prior to the big football game, there would be a pep rally.  Most of the student body would be on hand to cheer on the team.  There would be speech and a lot of enthusiasm – and predictions of victory on the gridiron the next day. Of course, none of it had any impact on the outcome of the game.  (My team inevitably lost).  It was just an event for the loyalists to feel good.

According to Democrats and the left-wing establishment, No Kings Day was a huge event.  The organizers and supporters of the event talk as if the protests represented the greater American public opinion.  A look at the numbers tells a different story – and why I do not see crowd sizes as a meaningful metric for political analysis.

First of all, we have to understand that the estimate of crowd sizes varies significantly by who is doing the estimate.  There is no empirical method to actually do an accurate account.  The first number to analyze is the number of such events.  The organizers of the events use a fudgy number – more than 2,000, they say.  Of course, they will include two protestors in a park in Keokuk, Iowa, as one of the events.

For the sake of conversation, let us accept the 2000 figure.  Several locations had what was described as “tens of thousands” of demonstrators.  Okay.  We can go with that as long as we understand that a lot of venues had considerably smaller crowds.  Yes, there were big turn outs in major Democrat-run cities – but more like the low hundreds in many other locations.

The AVERAGE over the 2000 events, however, is not in the tens of thousands, but in the hundreds.   But for the sake of the argument, let as consider an average of 1000 per event.  That means the turnout was in the range of 2 million protesters.  The event organizers claim 5 million protestors.  I will even adjust my estimate from 2 million to 3 million demonstrators.  That represents a measly 4 percent of the number of Democrat voters who cast ballots for Vice President Harris. Looking at it another way, 3 million protesters are less than one percent of America’s adult population.  Hardly representative of America as a whole.

No King Day was organized by the collection of far left advocacy groups – the ACLU, the Teachers’ unions, the Democratic Party, etc., etc., etc.  The event was heavily promoted by left-wing media.  This means that the vast majority of the protestors were Democrats who voted for Harris – or put another way, they were pre-determined Trump haters.  Put that all together and the claim that the protestors represented “the American people” is a huge exaggeration.  Essentially bullcrap.

Another reason I do not believe that No Kings Day is a flex point is the fact that there are no real options for follow through – although they claim there is.  The opinion of a small percentage of the American public—no matter how it is hyped – changes nothing.  It does not change enough options to make a difference.

The only opportunity for Democrats to have a meaningful impact is in the 2026 midterm elections.  Until then, Trump is the President with all the powers of the office, and Republicans are in charge in the Senate and the House.  The millions who showed up for No Kings Day cannot do anything but complain, whine and float false narratives – and that is getting tiresome and counterproductive.

As I have previously written, I expect Democrats to take control of the House.  I see it as close to an inevitability because of the history and the close margin in the House.  If they fail, that will be another HUGE crushing blow for the donkey party.

In the meantime, all they can do is file court cases, spew out false scaremongering narratives, and hold feel-good events – like No Kings Day — in an attempt to pump some enthusiasm in their dispirited base. 

And as I noted in a previous commentary, it is a pity that they chose to use their event to trash the American Army and the celebration of its notable 250^th anniversary.  Just another example of anti-America sentiment that courses through the left-wing establishment.

So, there ‘tis.