By Lucy Komisar
Oct 20, 2025
The only official signs in the No Kings march were the anodyne “No Kings Since 1776” and “We Have Friends Everywhere.” They could have been for a TV sit-com series or a new breakfast cereal. Because the neo-con Democrats who organized the events in NYC and across the country were against Trump but not for anything.
Well, actually they are, but they didn’t want to make the marchers realize that. They cleverly organized the events with support of liberal and even a few socialist organizations. https://www.nokings.org/partners
But what are the slogans? The issues those “partners” care about? Besides we don’t like Trump?
Medicare for All?
Ending arms to Israel, ending the Gaza genocide?
No mention.
And if the president was a copycat Biden? There would still be no national health care, still support for Israeli genocide.
For a clue about who is behind the marches and rallies, the organization “Home of the Brave” announced a $1 million ad campaign supporting them. Who are they? The “Braves” includes neocon Bill Kristol, some corporate lobbyists, and George Conway, president of the Society for the Rule of Law, an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers devoted to “the protection of constitutional governance in the United States.” I’ll take bets that doesn’t include workers’ right to organize unions.
For some unaccountable reason the No Kings organizers posted this “Why we wear yellow” flyer to their website, revealing what they really stand for – what neocons care about.
They wanted protesters to wear yellow ribbons to remind people of the U.S. Deep State-funded operation in Hong Kong to destabilize the city and create problems for China. Poster: “Posters carried yellow umbrellas as acts of protest…peaceful resistance against violence and suppression.” In fact, the Hong Kong “activists” were violent; there’s a video of them burning a local man to death. Not surprising, the operation was not supported by residents. One of the hapless “democrats” actually went to Washington and had his picture taken with politicians. It didn’t play well at home.
(Note, the “protest” was against a bill would allow criminal suspects to be extradited on a case-by-case basis to any jurisdiction without pre-existing extradition treaties with Hong Kong, including mainland China. Extradition treaties exist all over the world!)
Yellow ribbons also to show support of the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. “Yellow … as a signal of resistance and national self-determination amid invasion.” The real “resistance” in Eastern Ukraine has been by the majority Russian speakers against the Deep State-cultivated 2014 Ukrainian Maiden coup that banned their native language, threw them out of government, more recently even banned their branch of the Orthodox Church. And of course dropped bombs that killed 14,000 Russian-speaking Ukrainians over eight years. Piffle, right?
Nothing about the U.S.-supported Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Why? See this graphic on X. About the Israeli AIPAC $$$ which has bought the Congress.
I didn’t know about the South Korea Sewal story and asked an expert, journalist Tim Shorrock, who has lived in that country.
He said, “The Sewol was a ferry filled with high school students that sank on a voyage to the island of Jeju in southern Korea. Over 300 of the children died, largely because of the utter incompetence of the right-wing government of Park Guen-hye. It sparked the huge Candlelight Movement that led to her impeachment and conviction on corruption charges. That was a genuine people’s movement against fascism and was NOT supported at all by the US government and if anything opposed by the Deep State.”
He sent this link to a documentary on what happened on the Sewol and the public response.
Here is what the banner leading the march said. Against the oligarchs.
But one commenter on X wrote: “The cause must be clear. For without a coherent goal or an articulate demand, this gathering risks becoming not a protest born of conviction but a confused assembly adrift in collective frustration, mistaking noise for purpose.”
But the demands can’t be clear, because this is a political operation against a Republican president by Democrats who share the same militarist policies. (Hillary Clinton endorsed it! Enough said!)
I wanted to know what marchers thought. The NYC march started at Times Square and went down 7th Avenue to 14th Street. Here are conversations I had with participants.
First with two march marshals in yellow vests. I asked a gynecologist, 43, “What are you for.”
She: “Freedom, no genocide in Gaza.”
Me: “That’s not one of the issues.”
She: “For democracy, health care, reproductive justice, housing, not billionaires.”
Me: “But there’s no political platform, no demands. Someone tweeted instead of No King should be No Empire.”
She: “I don’t know where they come from.”
Me: “The U.S. trying to control other countries.”
She “That is another problem.”
Me: “On Gaza how different was Biden sending weapons to Israel used to kill Palestinian children?”
She didn’t reply.
I asked, “Was Biden a king.”
Another marshal, a retired naval man now supervisor in construction, said, “Kinglike.”
In the march I saw a man with a Save Gaza sign. He was a software engineer, 28.
“Are you concerned that Gaza isn’t an issue here?
He was disappointed. “It should be an issue, I don’t how how to make it.”
Another with sign “Release Epstein files.”
Me: “Are you concerned that Biden didn’t release them?”
He: “It was a mistake.”
A couple with keffiyehs, both 60, had more to say.
The woman, an academic, said, “My cause is the Palestinian cause and justice for the Palestinians. And I’m fed up with the Democrats as well as the Republicans, disregard for human rights and for the hierarchy of suffering. I wasn’t even sure we would come to this because we do feel like it’s a kind of Democratic establishment thing but we thought you got to still come out
The man: I think it’s clear that the entire political establishment and most especially the mainstream media has done their best to silence people and to hide the genocide. And that’s one reason why people don’t come out for it.
Me: “Do you see any difference between the Democrats and Republicans on this?”
He: “No, I don’t. I see that even Bernie, even AOC are scared and cowed by the Zionists. They haven’t used the word genocide.”
They didn’t want their pictures taken. The woman: “I work in academic institutions and I am appalled by what’s happening with academia.”
Later I talked to some people who had been in the trade union march that started at Canal Street and went north to 14th Street. Members of Local 1199 of SEIU are health care workers and their sign was about health care. I asked that they though of the Trump policy. “Bad, he cut Medicaid” And Biden, “It was better.” Is that all you want for the country? “No.”
My favorite signs were these that spoofed Antifa. Josephine Baker, ML King, and Bogie and Bergman in “Casablanca.” There was also Orwell, FDR, AOC and the cast of “The Sound of Music.”
The organizers obviously hope the millions of marchers will vote Democratic on the next ballot. Except that the Democratic Party is supremely unpopular among ordinary Democrats. Precisely because it refuses to support the policies voters want. And Trump isn’t on the next ballot. Do the organizers think that their pro-war congressional candidates will get votes simply by being the anti-Trump? Ask the pro-Palestine rights voters who stayed home rather than vote for Kamala.