Conor here: We’ll see. It sounds like there’s quite a lot of work to do over the next month to make May 1 impactful—or at least as impactful as one day can be. While Payday Report lists some unions (AFT, AAUP, NEA, Starbucks Workers United and, the UE) are “mobilizing” and smaller locals (North Carolina AFL-CIO, the Milwaukee Labor Council, and UFCW 3000) have signed on to support May Day actions, many have not due to legal reasons. And let’s not forget that only 5.9 percent of private sector workers are union members; that’s compared to 32.9 percent in the public sector.
Nevertheless, the Iranians seem hopeful with the Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeting the following:
The largest protests in U.S. history are unfolding across the country as Americans demand an end to the illegal war their administration has chosen to wage against Iran.
For years, the American public has demonstrated remarkable moral courage by consistently opposing the… pic.twitter.com/0OK7cRMnCM— Esmaeil Baqaei (@IRIMFA_SPOX) March 29, 2026
For a more skeptical take we can turn to a piece from BettBeat, “The “No Kings!” Class Failed to Save You From the Gaza Method.” Here are a few relevant pieces:
What the Epstein class perfected in Gaza — the AI-driven kill lists, the biometric surveillance grids, the reduction of human beings to data points marked for elimination — is now being integrated, component by component, into the domestic architecture of nations across the world. The Gaza method is not an aberration. It is a product line. The Tel Aviv sales team has moved to Washington, to London, to Berlin, to New Delhi. And they are bringing it to a government near you…
And so today they march again. The liberal Americans. Millions of them, across more than three thousand locations, wearing inflatable dinosaur costumes and carrying upside-down flags, chanting their opposition to a king while genuflecting to the empire that crowns them. The No Kings website lists every grievance imaginable — healthcare, democracy, corruption, billionaires — but while the bombs are falling on Iran and 18-month old toddlers are tortured by US-Israeli war criminals in Palestine, it cannot not bring itself to name the genocide, the war, or the country that demanded both.
As Mondoweiss reported, the No Kings protest lacks a central demand, points of leverage, or a coherent theory of change — and it refused to address the US-Israeli war on Iran. The “special relationship” between the United States and Israel is not mentioned by the protest’s primary organizers at all. Groups like Indivisible undoubtedly have pro-Israel donors, and on some level the protest is probably connected to the mainstream of a Democratic Party that has not emerged with a coherent antiwar message in response to Trump’s worldwide rampage.
This is by design. You do not assemble a coalition of MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and more than 325 national partners and then turn it against the bipartisan consensus on Israel. You wave the flag. You sing the anthem. And when someone shows up with a Palestinian flag — as they did, by the thousands, in Palestine Contingents from Seattle to Manhattan — you tell them, as one woman told Medea Benjamin of Code Pink at the Washington D.C. rally: “You are in the wrong place.”
By Brad Reed, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams.
Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said on Saturday that a nationwide general strike is being planned for May 1 that will be modeled on the day of action residents of Minnesota organized in January against the brutality carried out by federal immigration enforcement officials.
Appearing at the flagship No Kings rally in Minneapolis, Levin praised the strength shown by the Minnesota protesters in the face of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) siege of their city this year, and said his organization wanted to replicate it across the country.
“The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest,” Levin said. “It is a tactical escalation… It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action.”
Levin then outlined what the event would entail.
“On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual,’” he said. “No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”
Levin: This is the largest protest in Minnesota history… The next major national action of this movement is not just gonna be another protest. On May 1st, across the country, we are saying no business as usual. No work, no school, no shopping. We’re gonna show up and say we’re… pic.twitter.com/bRPR7K5DuP
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 28, 2026
Levin added that “we are going to build on that courage, that sacrifice” that Minnesota residents showed during their day of action in January, and vowed “to demonstrate that regular people are the greatest threat to fascism in this country.”
In an interview with Payday Report published Saturday, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg said that the goal of the nationwide strike action would be to send “a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”
The No Kings protests against President Donald Trump’s authoritarian government, which Indivisible has been central in organizing, have brought millions of Americans into the streets.
Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris estimated that the previous No Kings event, held in October, drew at least 5 million people nationwide, making it likely “the largest single-day political protest ever.”
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Thanks, Conor.
> It sounds like there’s quite a lot of work to do …
Indeed. And since
> … [in the USA] only 5.9 percent of private sector workers are union members;
> [and] 32.9 percent in the public sector.
there won’t be much help from organised labour. Plus, I may be wrong but I have the impression that in general American unions are quite weak.
The choice of date for this protest resonates positively for many of us — but you can be sure that the other side will not miss their chance:
‘May Day’?!? Communists march on May Day!!!
One day of shutdown will not be enough. IMO, June should have 2 consecutive days beginning on the 1st, July should have 3, August should have 4. And so on.
And – the Iran Notawar has more wait-and-see support than I expected.
Best…H
Hank Linderman: You make a threat with teeth. A monthly general strike that keeps expanding. Yes. Agreed.
USanians would also benefit by economic guerrilla warfare in the form of boycotts of Uber, Amazon, Whole Foods, Tesla, and ChatGPT to the point of causing bankruptcies. Likewise, Target and Starbucks. Business types love to talk about “creative destruction.” Good. Force Amazon out of business.
This also looks promising: https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/
Best…H
So protests not about 25th or impeachment?
One month after the outbreak of war, the global economy is on the brink of collapse. It’s impossible to predict what will happen in the coming month. Planning for May Day seems rather leisurely. All I can do is hope that the United States will still be standing by then.
You beat me to it. May 1 is a long way away. One possibility is that things could be bad enough by then to really ramp up participation in the strike action and, more importantly, change the tone from the current flippant “we could be at brunch” bs to perhaps something more urgent and angry, and less partisan politics.
perhaps something more urgent and angry, and less partisan politics.
Too bad they don’t focus in the Epstein list which is the Big Club. The same Big Club that has clubbed us over the head for my entire lifetime, got us into stupid wars, and steals and sells our information, just to list a few things. That is something BOTH sides could agree on.
But no, this has to be about Trump. Let’s just say they got rid of Trump. Most of these people would indeed go back to brunch and tell us to vote blue no matter who. While the people in the Big Club and the Epstein files gets away and continues to pillage us.
From the underlying Mondoweiss article, No Kings protests refusal to address war (revising this to war = all war).
“The US is not under any threat of a ‘king’ nor do I have any sense of what this even means,” [Adam Johnson] added. “It is however in the midst of an imperial murder spree and the largest opposition movement in the county, such as it is, should probably center this fact at some point.”
The ailments, inequality, oppression, and deterioration that are part of the long list of No Kings demands all stem from the endless wars. The Patriot Act is the venomous root of the problem, and neoliberalism is the vehicle — impoverishment, destruction, enshittification.
Clarification: Here in Italy, there were two general strikes last fall that had a particularly big effect in Torino. The unions of the base (USB) as well as the leftist group Potere al Popolo were the tip of the lance. Yet — and this is where the U.S. populace will now actually have to do something — students shut down their high schools and institutes, and university students shut down higher education. Many shops closed. Many cultural institutions — museums — did not open.
This is the test in the US of A. Organized labor in the US of A is so beaten down that it is almost absurd to expect unionists to make up for the lack of solidarity. Where is civil society?
Further, here, the general strikes focused on several clear demands: End to the wars. Liberation of Palestine. Ending of the current unjust economic order. (USanians seem to forget how clearly Martin Luther King put his message — and how closely he stuck to his message.)
If No Kings can’t come up with a political program, it is mainly just mass group therapy.
But mass group therapy will delay any political change by years. You don’t have to be the change that you want to see in the world.
I much prefer the sainted Fannie Lou Hamer’s formulation: I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Indeed. The lack of any pro-Palestinian signs at the first ‘No Kings’ rally I wandered through was a big tell.
Also, removing one ‘king’ makes the ‘we’re not Trump’ political faction, the ones who largely agree with him but are more polite about their imperialism, very happy.
Telling protesters ahead of time when the protest will be over means your protest is not serious. The war is still going on – why aren’t they still out there?
I refuse to attend the “No Kings” rallies — the characterization of them as mass group therapy is spot-on.
yes, my infuriating beef with the vain, astroturfing organizers of the protests—-the messaging is 100% directed to be “controlled opposition” only to Trump. They can’t even take a morally correct, but offensive position to certain Democratic Party donors/bundlers, that genocide in Gaza is bad; and that the US should just stay out of everything east of the Dardanelles.
“No Kings”, fails to resonate with me, partly because of its negative framing with no positive vision, but more importantly, a US President has far more power than any king of a country in Europe, even if the President were to adhere strictly to the powers granted by the US Constitution.
So it requires a certain deliberate blindness as a starting point.
“No Kings” bothers me be because it translates to “No Vision” if you squint your eyes a little bit. “No War on Iran”, despite its negative framing (it is a protest after all) would at least define an objective, but I’m not convinced team blue is against the war.
What do we want?
Non-specific, incremental change.
When do we want it?
We don’t know!
Most #McResistance liberals I know are indifferent to the crimes of empire, are easily (and often willfully) misled, and are incapable of connecting their material comfort to the exploitation of others. A critical component of this is their moral vanity, which is impregnable, along with their sense of political etiquette, which largely motivates their dislike of Trump.
Just as “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”, so it is difficult for the citizens of the imperial center to connect “their material comfort to the exploitation of others”, until the point of diminishing returns on imperial investments of blood and treasure is reached, and most importantly, widely felt. It doesn’t look like we’re quite there yet, but there’s still more pain in the pipeline.
‘UNN
@UnityNewsNet
No Kings organiser Leah Greenberg said that it was an ‘anti-semitic trope’ to suggest that George Soros is behind their protests.
As a matter of public record they have received millions of dollars of support from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation.’
https://xcancel.com/UnityNewsNet/status/2038168914698420596#m
When billionaires are paying to organize a protest, then do not be surprised when they set the agenda for that protest.
Perhaps a rather crude and vulgar piece of commentary but this meme probably sums up the entire “No Kings” movement nicely
https://nitter.poast.org/ZeBolshevikman/status/2038348683855503715
At the local No Kings, There was a little 3 year old gal on her dad’s shoulder’s handing out free Constitutions. She had three left, had handed out 47. They were ‘free’, printed and provided by The Cato Institute. By affiliation, our radical local economics professors, Chicago School/ Austrian Friedmanites, “because markets”, on steroids. I am NOT a fan.
I noted there were as many pages – a heavy preface, drafted by Cato staff, and a post script regarding who Cato is— those pages were only a couple shy of the Declaration and the Constitution. My copy now omits those sections.
Interestingly, no Bill of Rights in the Cato version.
Reading the comments here, I note a lot of They-ing. My take on No Kings, it that it is trying to reinforce that there IS an Other, there are more than a few of us, and, as things amplify and go futher south, there is an informal network that could be the skeleton on which to hang some meat of less passive, more active resistance and/ or change.
Looking through the crowd in my town of affluent white retirees, “the Toothless Gray Panthers”, I would say one in 20 owns a gun, and the gun is probably NOT a high capacity assault rifle with thousands of rounds of warm dry ammo lying in wait. Probably a 28 gauge Purdy or Holland and Holland.
I believe the No Kings folks want an election, and a different group of ‘representatives’, for change to happen peacefully. They might not have seen the Tree of Liberty in old Boston.
Unfortunately, I firmly believe Trump’s Ace Card is a Declared Emergency, no elections, Martial Law of sorts. His actions and choices are certainly taking us that direction where the call would be ‘legitimate’.
At that moment, I am not sure where the No Kings, The Occupy, The No Iraq War factions will be- how motivated they might be to Act, and what that action will be.
Not to mention where / what if anything the many observers who deride No Kings as a vacuous nothing-burger. Apparently 75-80% of Colonists sat out the American Revolution. No telling who/what would fill the vacuum. Where I live, it would NOT be good- or at least not my cup of tea vis a vis political economic tenets!
Feels to me the Moment must not be here, or something would have happened?
Good Luck, everybody. The irony of the religious holidays of Ramadan, Easter, and Trump and Nuttingyahoo’s Excursion weighs heavy.
Thank you. It is good to be gently reminded that the people out on the street holding up the mishmash of signage are not the problem, and for the most part should be respected for taking action.
What we should be demanding:
No Kings, No Empire
No American troops fighting abroad unless Congress declares war, pull them back now
No more military foreign aid to any country
No more PACs for foreign nations bribing members of Congress or the Executive and Judicial branches
No more insider trading by members of Congress, the President, the Vice President, or their families
End the corruption in both parties, starting with the Epstein network investigations
Remind people that when asked what kind of government the Constitution gave us, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” We didn’t keep it, so now we have to reclaim it. Legalized corruption is the biggest roadblock in our way. Legalized violations of the Bill of Rights are how they try to stop us.
Oh, and no dual citizens in Congress or the Cabinet should be a demand. Renounce your non-US citizenship or resign now.
I lived in DC for ten years during the aughts and attended a score of demos. The “Don’t Mess With Mesopotamia” protest had half-a-million people and the famed-four Billionaires For Bush showed up. From the photo above, it looks like the have a “parade permit” for marching around the DC Mall. Nobody around on the weekend except a couple of tourists. Try detouring down K Street to Georgetown or up 16th where there are actual citizens and get your head cracked.
I chatted-up a European cameraman at a World Bank demo and told him when his photos hit the papers people would think that nobody attended. He told me that Euro and US papers had different standards. The Euro media wanted an expansive shot that showed the size of the crowd while the US media wanted a shot of the old guy carrying a little kid on his shoulders and maybe showing a generic sign.
Well, The Master is ready for his 18 holes, so I’ll bring his tea in before I carry his bag. Cheers!