MARCH 30, 2026
The Resistance Score: 3.5/15
The No Kings March (Saturday, March 28) brought upwards of 9 million people into the streets, in red states as well as blue, to protest Trump’s war and authoritarian approach to governing.
This would make it the largest single-day turnout in American history. Ho hum.
Getting bodies into the streets matters. People need to go public, come together, state their grievances clearly, and gain courage. But marches are just part of effective activism. After a march, the obvious question is: What next?
To counter the ongoing assault on democracy, Americans need more than to march every month or so. They need to organize, block by block. They need to identify the sources of power. They need to block malignant actions. They need to find a compelling, unifying message.
In the leadup to the 2026 elections, we will be tracing how well American activists are going, using the 15 imperatives identified in Rules of Activism.
Here’s the first report:
Rule 1 – Connect, Listen, and Share: Weak, but not empty.
The protests are grassroots-organized, with no central body, and two-thirds of No Kings attendees came from outside major cities — which suggests real community reach. But there’s little evidence of structured deep listening, the kind of “beginner’s mind” conversations this rule requires. The movement is mobilizing, not yet listening.
Rule 2 – Identify Gaps and Contradictions: Shallow, edging toward moderate.
Grievances are real and widely shared — ICE raids, the Iran war, cost of living — but the framing stays reactive to Trump rather than rooted in structural analysis. The movement is naming symptoms more than causes.
1/2 ★ Rule 3 – Master the Big Idea: Strong, but …
“No Kings” is genuinely good. It’s historically resonant, broad enough to hold a coalition, and clear enough to orient action. But a democracy movement needs a positive goal: Easier voting. Championing basic rights. Robust civic space. Meeting people’s basic needs.
Rule 4 – Map the Sources of Problems: Very Weak.
Almost everything is still focused on Trump as the singular villain. The ecosystem enabling him — compliant courts, corporate donors, billionaire media, congressional cowardice — gets minimal activist attention. No serious power-mapping infrastructure is visible.
Rule 5 – Recruit Allies Near and Far: Improving.
The geographic spread into red and rural areas is the most underreported story. Tennessee, St. Louis, Houston, Idaho — the resistance is genuinely reaching places it never did in 2017. The NEA and Chicago Teachers Union are engaging around May Day. That is real progress.
Rule 6 – Build a Strong Organization: Fragile.
No Kings is explicitly not an organization — it’s a coalition that Indivisible and others support with toolkits and training. That keeps it nimble, but it also means no durable infrastructure. Indivisible has structure, but it is enabling rather than leading the movement.
Rule 7 – Nurture Servant Leadership: Unclear.
Hard to assess this week. The grassroots event model suggests distributed leadership, which is healthy in principle. But there’s no visible leader-development pipeline, and the movement hasn’t produced a next generation of figures the way the Civil Rights movement did.
1/2 ★ Rule 8 – Create a Multi-Dimensional Strategy: Emerging.
There is a sequence being built: No Kings III to 80-plus April events to May Day general strike. That’s more than just “keep marching.” But it’s still rally-dominant, and there’s no visible theory of how these actions create compounding leverage against specific targets.
1/2 ★ Rule 9 – Work off the Grid: Quiet but real.
This is more active than it looks. Signal-based ICE rapid-response networks are operating in dozens of cities — neighbors alerting neighbors, video-documenting raids, physically showing up. Indivisible’s One Million Rising is training people in strategic non-cooperation. These are seeds of something more serious.
★ Rule 10 – Rally for Solidarity and Attention: Strong, but limited.
Millions of people, 3,300 events, enormous national visibility. Full marks here. The movement is doing this exceptionally well. The problem is that it is the only thing it is doing exceptionally well.
1/2 ★ Rule 11 – Withdraw Consent: Building, but fragile.
May Day “No School, No Work, No Shopping” is the most serious Rule 11 action on the horizon. The Target boycott has staying power, particularly among Black women who are keeping it alive. But 10,000 consumers not shopping is a rounding error; 1,000 workers not showing up shuts things down. The movement hasn’t bridged that gap.
1/2 ★ Rule 12 – Block, Occupy, and Subvert: Scattered.
Some real examples — Portland ICE facility escalations, Jewish Voice for Peace’s Trump Tower sit-in, Sunrise at ICE facilities — but these are isolated actions, not coordinated disruption. There’s even an anarchist federation piece this week arguing No Kings must evolve from protest to civil disobedience. The movement’s own participants know this rule is underfired.
Rule 13 – Create Enduring Symbols and Identity: Partial.
“No Kings” is a strong symbol. But beyond the slogan and some protest art, the movement hasn’t built the richer symbolic vocabulary — music, holidays, iconic figures — that sustains long campaigns. No equivalent of “We Shall Overcome” or the raised fist.
Rule 14 – Evolve Multi-Stage Campaigns: Early Act II.
The March 31 Interfaith Alliance town hall and the April organizing calendar suggest the movement knows it needs to move beyond the march. But “what comes next?” is literally the headline of the most-read piece about the movement this week. The question being asked publicly is itself diagnostic.
Rule 15 – Pivot from Protest to Policy: Mostly absent.
The midterms are on the horizon and some groups are framing No Kings energy toward electoral organizing. But there’s no serious policy agenda, no legislative vehicle, no “here’s what we win if we win.” The movement is expressing opposition without specifying what it wants to build.