Like many Americans, I watched with interest as the “No Kings” spectacle unfolded. It was rather like a box of Monty Python's chocolates. I had no idea what I was going to get, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it much. In this, at least, I was not disappointed.
So, what, exactly, did this crunchy frog of a “No Kings” thing accomplish? We haven’t had any kings since the day we declared our independence. And before I had my coffee made this morning, I was deeply concerned, so I checked. Turns out, we still don’t. So, apparently, the protests were quite successful in helping us dodge the bullet. (Well, we still have Stephen King, but, undesirable as that may be, let’s not worry about that, at least for now.)
From the after-action reports that I’m seeing from around the country, indications are that, for the most part, grayer heads prevailed among the protesters to the tune of 80% or 90% in some cities. Based on appearances, the protest organizers must have raided every bingo hall they could find in every reliably leftist city in the country. (That might explain the one group shuffling around the Colorado state capitol that was reportedly chanting, “B27.”) I suppose many viewed it as a last fling for the Woodstock generation.
"Woodstockholm Syndrome"
— Foster the Prankster (@FosterThePrnxtr) October 18, 2025
They're no longer protesting anything meaningful. They're protesting because it's fashionable, because it's the only thing they have left. It's revolutionary cosplay. A pressure-release valve for a populace with absolutely no power over its ruling class. pic.twitter.com/CmxERV4TUO
I was amazed at how many of the protesters were riding motorized wheelchairs, Rascals, and the like. Must have absolutely killed the batteries in those things. An odd sight, all told , for a group of people supposedly representing new and fresh ideas. And that ignores all of the points I brought up in yesterday's VIP column. Still, same story. We didn’t have any kings the day before yesterday. The as-yet-unconfirmed result is that we still don’t. Good job, gang.
I’m also seeing reports from folks on the ground that many were well-rewarded for their efforts, with most reports indicating $300 to $500 for the day. I’ll leave to others the task of documenting where, exactly, that money came from and, for that matter, how the tax situation was handled. It should be noted that not all of them were paid. I guess they simply wanted to be involved with something larger than themselves. It does leave me wondering how small you need to be to have something like this measure larger than you are.
According to what we're being told, the job included being bussed in, carrying a pre-made sign for a couple of miles for the sake of the cameras, and then being bussed out again, in some cases to another location to march there. When you’re thin on marchers, it’s what you need to do, I suppose, to generate a multiplicity of those impressive-looking pictures in the news tomorrow. The result of all that effort being that, again, we don’t have any kings. Now, of course, we didn’t have any kings day before yesterday, either, but it’s best not to dwell on such minutiae. So, great job, all. You got what you wanted.
Oh, and in Times Square, the crowd dispersed at exactly 1 p.m. All of them. Yeah, strictly a grassroots effort, that. Given the relative age of the protesters, I can only assume that they all left at that time because the Golden Girls marathon was on at three. Or perhaps they were due to appear on the bridges over the Cross Bronx. Anyway, for that effort, they got what they wanted. We still don’t have any kings. Yeah, great job.
I didn’t get up to nearby Rochester, but I hear from friends in the area that the same thing happened in the downtown area there. In that situation, they packed up and “organically" moved on to one of the 'burbs to march there.
How many people went to this farce? I did gather a few examples before I went to bed last night. NBC reports that there were some 3,000 marching in Boston, a city of about 676,000 people. That's 0.443% of the good people of Boston deciding to participate. In Huntsville, Alabama, a city of about 300,000 people, they managed to gather up around 1,200 for their performance. Uh, folks, my admittedly rusty math tells me they got around 0.4% of that city's population too. Reports from other cities that I checked were of a similar paltry nature, usually smaller in percentage, even, than these examples.
Pulling back for a broader view doesn't help those numbers. The immensely, reliably accurate NBC reports that the "No Kings" organizers claimed to have gathered up the impressive sounding number of around 7 million marchers nationwide. I’m not going to impugn the honesty of the organizers by suggesting they pulled that number out of thin air, so let’s go with what we are given:
At the last census, the population of the kingdom—err sorry, the country—was 347 million people. Not including illegals of course. So that 7 million they managed to scrape up constitutes around 2% of the population. Indeed the only places they got any kind of serious crowds were in the deepest of deep-blue cities. The rest of the country seemingly declined the invitation to look like an idiot for the cameras. And those figures make the assumption that the protesters were all legally in the country. I think we have a really good working definition for performative protests.
Honestly, I expected a better showing. I can hear Marvin the Martian complaining: "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" Still, that great effort resulted in us having no kings. Just like the day before. So, great job. You got what you wanted.
Now, look at the pic at the top of this page and ask yourself: What does this "No Kings" march have in common with a statue of Lenin from the armpits up?
Clearly, they’re both called an artifact of a nearly extinct political system, and a bust.
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