MAGA Is Not America: 250 to One
Why We Should Celebrate No Kings Day Every Year and Every Day
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Happy No Kings Day
June 14th, 2025 shall be a day long remembered. This day shall continue to remind us of the freedoms we enjoy in spite of what any government tells us and the responsibilities we hold. Against an insurmountable environment of fear and distrust, we stood tall against the threats of Donald Trump and his like. Yesterday, a nation cried out against authoritarian government, against corruption, and against those who would willingly destroy their own constituents to give the rich more money. They stood strong against a man who believes himself king.
In Beaumont, Texas, an oil and gas capitol, 500 people protested in Rogers Park. This is more than double the amount of people who came out to the April 5th “Hands Off” protests not two months ago. Meanwhile, an estimated five to eleven million people marched in around 2000 towns and cities across the United States. Particularly notable was that these protests were not limited to large cities like New York or Los Angeles, but to even cities like Beaumont, TX. Even rural America got in on the action!
Why This Is Important
At the beginning of the week, the anti-ICE Los Angeles protests had seen major negative coverage from mainstream media. What had begun as a pushback against ICE raiding restaurants and courthouses in certain L.A. neighborhoods became a formalized protest. The more the LAPD pushed back against the protest, the more people joined them. Naturally, agitators, some of them right-wing, some of them people raging against an unjust system, and some of them just people who wanted to break things, threw bricks at police cars, set Waymo self-driving cars on fire, and vandalized buildings. LAPD, meanwhile, threw flashbangs into crowds, shot protesters with tear gas, and even shot and detained reporters.
Though California Governor Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and the LAPD had the issue contained, Donald Trump overexerted his influence. After his “Big, Beautiful Bill” stalled in the Senate, his friendship with Elon Musk seemed over, and his attempts at diplomacy with Iran, China, and Russia seemed to get him nowhere, Trump needed a win. So he sent the California National Guard and the U.S. Marines to L.A., where they mostly sat around federal buildings. While they did shortly detain people, they immediately transferred them over to the LAPD. Ultimately, the state of California did not need their presence there.
In the buildup to No King’s Day, Governor Greg Abbott activated the Texas State Troopers and said he would not tolerate any violence during protests. Florida Governor Ron Desantis encouraged Floridians to run over protesters with their cars. Donald Trump said that anyone who disrupted his parade would be met with “big force.” Federal officers boarded up the Jefferson County Courthouse, even though there were no protests planned in that area. We received several reports that right-wing instigators were going to come to our protest and cause trouble or potentially violence. Some of them even reported us to ICE, even though peaceful protests are not exactly within the jurisdiction of immigrations and customs.
To make things even scarier, the morning of the protests, a MAGA assassin dressed as a police officer shot two Minnesota lawmakers.
But Then
On June 14th, the people of America spoke loudly and carried big sticks with signs attached to them. Most of the protests were peaceful, though some erupted in sporadic bursts of violence by outside actors. A shooter in Salt Lake City fired into the crowd, critically injuring one person. At two protests, one in San Diego and the other in Northern Virginia, an instigator drove their cars into crowds. In Portland and Los Angeles, police fired tear gas and flashbang grenades at protesters. In Nashville, a person brandished a gun.
Still, five to eleven million people protested Donald Trump’s horrendous and militarized birthday celebration. Across the country, people chanted, shouted, sang, and danced. At our protest in Beaumont, the few MAGA counter-protesters who showed up blasted music at us and shouted. Some protesters danced along to their music. Maybe the great crowd of Trump supporters who kept claiming they would disrupt our “violent protest” had something better to do. Lord knows they didn’t go to Trump’s birthday party.
It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want to
Unfortunately, none of us could attend Trump’s military parade either. To celebrate Flag Day, our “Support a Star” program brought gifts to veterans throughout the Golden Triangle. By the time that was done, SETX Impact members had to get to the protest. Once the protest was over, nobody had the time to get on a plane to Washington, D.C. and attend the parade.
From what I’m told, we didn’t miss much.
Trump and his organizers expected 250,000 people to show up, but only 20,000 did. The event was so loud that the military participants in the parade marched out of sync. While chants of “USA, USA” occasionally broke out, the spectators mostly sat in silence as tanks squeaked by them. C-SPAN captured Marco Rubio yawning. Ads for Coinbase, an energy drink by UFC owner Dana White, and Palantir played on large screens near the president’s pavilion. After Trump delivered an abnormally short speech, JD Vance wished the president and the military happy birthday, and then quickly added that it was his wedding anniversary as well.
But then, this was just Trump’s 79th birthday. Hopefully, they pull out all stops next year. In my personal opinion, they could draw more people if they feature more corporate sponsors, have JD Vance sing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” to Usha, and give Trump thirty minutes to do a dance on stage.
Crowd Sizes
Kamala Harris gathered enormous crowds during her campaign, and she still lost, and following her loss, non-MAGA voters entered a stage of panic or apathy. Just because we have massive crowds does not mean that Trump will immediately resign. I guarantee if Donald Trump held a rally at the Washington monument, they could fill up the entire mall.
However, let’s say that only five million people attended the No King’s Day protests. Five million is a little less than the population of Finland. For every one person who supported Trump (or rolled their eyes at Trump and just celebrated the military), 250 protested. While Trump saluted and slept through his birthday party, people gathered in the biggest protest against Trump since the Women’s March in 2017, which drew four million people.
But let’s say that eleven million people attended the No King’s Day protest. That sort of committed and coordinated political action could change things massive. Kamala Harris lost by two million votes. Joe Biden won by seven million. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by two million votes, but lost the electoral college. If eleven million people engaged in this protest, that means almost 3.5% of the United States’ population is angry at Trump enough to get off their butts, in the faces of extreme threats of violence, and protest him anyway, including people in rural areas whose votes carry more power in the electoral college.
And this is only June. Five months in, and people have had enough.
What Must We Do Now?
Protests must turn into action. We can’t just take our signs home and expect Trump to give up. We need those five to eleven million voices calling representatives daily. We need those people running for office. We need them informed and voting in every election. Donald Trump is not going away just because we recited some pithy chants and waved some signs. We need to elect people to office who will hold him accountable.
Yesterday, we showed the world that MAGA is not America. We are. From this day forward, we must be the America we want to be. Not the colonial country that has disrupted the development of countries across the world, but the idyllic country of which Martin Luther King, Jr. outlined:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that [all] are created equal.”