Outside of typical remarks from Donald Trump, JD Vance and Mike Johnson and a Fox News report, party stayed mum
Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the “hate America” depiction advanced by senior members of the party.
Instead of provocation, there were marching bands, huge banners with “we the people” references to the US constitution, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance.
It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.
It counts as protest, but not sustained protest, which is usually a decisive factor for if a protest will succeed in affecting anything. Even if every employee of a company left for a day, if they all came back the next day and resumed working, it wouldn’t be hard for the business to get back up and running, then just put systems in place to account for that in the future, but if those employees strike for months, suddenly all the business’s systems begin to fail without maintenance, customers leave because of no service, and the business goes bankrupt.