this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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The “No Kings” protests in every state may have been the biggest day of demonstrations in American history, a data analyst has suggested.

“Based on hundreds of crowd-sourced records of No Kings Day event turnout, and extrapolating for the cities where we don’t have data yet, it looks like roughly 4-6m people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday,” independent data journalist G Elliott posted to X Sunday.

For reference, that’d mean Saturday’s demonstrations featured 1-2% of the total population of 340 million taking to the streets in more than 2,000 cities to voice their opposition to the increasingly authoritarian, far-right policies the president has pursued since assuming office for the second time.

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[–] [email protected] 147 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Biggest protest in US history so far.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (4 children)

The next one will probably be No Kings 2 combined with anti Iran war protests.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

I was gonna say. Now we get to add anti-war protesting to an already lengthy list of complaints. This is going to get huge.

You want to protest the war? We have a whole anti-trump protest movement already warmed up and ready to go. C'mon in.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 days ago

It was the first protest I've ever attended.

It won't be the last.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The protests show you have support. Find ways to resist ice

[–] [email protected] 66 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You just need to get in the way. Slow them down. It works

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

i wonder, what do you, personally, think of slashing ice's car's tires? Do you think it's too violent, or is it just right?

the idea behind it is to "not let them get away with it".

I.e., when ice shows up in a place to disappear citizens, instead of driving away with these people, they get stuck because they can't drive away. This way, they don't get away with it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Destroying property, as long as it's not somebody's home, is not violence in my opinion. Government vehicle? Fucking go for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

WE own those government vehicles. I can do anything I want to my own car.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

You see masked people with guns don't engage with them or ask for ID. That's dangerous for you, and it's not your job.

Instead, immediately call 911 and report a group of masked individuals with guns at your location.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 days ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Historically, a regime falls when around 3.5 percent of the general population protest. You can do it, US, I believe in you!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Protest by itself achieves exactly jack shit. It's a tool, effective in conjunction with all the others, but you can't expect any change if you just put 3.5% of people on the streets. They will fuck around aimlessly, and then go home.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago

Yes - it's a signal that a large fraction of the population is mad, it's not the protest that does it but rather the fact that there's so many people involved in opposing the regime that it becomes difficult for the regime to act and easier for the population to find like-minded to fight back.

It's the willingness to act that makes a difference.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

it's at best a warning sign and a way to organise and prepare actual riots

once movement starts hurting the economy, regimes will collapse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

I think the statistic of 3.5 is more of a symptom rather than the cause of a regime's fall. For 3.5% to protest means that:

  1. Anger has reached a high level in the general population (a lot lot higher than 3.5%),
  2. The state of affairs is dire enough and hopeless enough that the trust that the system can improve on its own is very very low.

Probably other reasons.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

This oversells it. 3.5% is the level at which experts say can cause a "Tipping Point" for a trend to take hold, such as a dad like hula-hoops or yo-yos, to revolutions.

It's not guaranteed, though.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

I keep seeing estimates of everything from that 4-6 million up to 11 million or even 13 million.

I also saw estimates of 5 million for the Hands Off protests and these were definitely a lot bigger than that (certainly at least twice as big at my location), so either the Hands Off one was over-estimated or the 4-5 million for No Kings is underestimated.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago (5 children)

The other day I was seeing 13.1 million people, now I'm seeing 4-6 million, these are some big gaps.

A ton of people either way, but anyone know why the discrepancies are so big?

I can't even imagine how people are counted for things like this. The one I went to was in a town of about 100k total people so I'm sure it was on the smaller side of things, but if asked how many people were there I'd guess around 2000, but that would still just be a completely wild guess essentially. Is that how they count attendance for these things, wild guesswork?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The 13M type numbers came out early and captured a lot of attention but didn't have much legitimacy, but they anchored people's expectations. The smaller numbers are coming out now and have much more legitimacy. They may be smaller but in the big picture this is all still impressive, the movement is big and growing

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I saw 13.1 million come out from the alt national parks Facebook several days after seeing 5-11 million estimate. From that post it seems like they had people at each protest doing the work, whereas the others are back of the napkin estimates. So I'll go ahead and accept the absolute minimum conservative estimate being 4 million, while probably actually 10+ million.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 days ago

The numbers only count if it’s constantly repeated, otherwise it’s just a sort of a national holiday.

“Here in the USA, we are so progressive that we actually protest 4 times a year”

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Isn’t it still significantly smaller than Earth day 1970? I’d also like to see how it compares to percentage of population since the US has more people now than when other big protests took place. But still, good job America.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But did it accomplish anything?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Unfortunately change requires repeated and/or sustained protests over time, so we'll have to see. But this was a good sign that it may be possible. If we go to war with Iran, a whole new cohort will be added to the numbers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

And it’s achieved nothing at all, so can shitlibs finally stop pretending that protesting does something and start campaigning for violence?

Because while you were feeling good about yourself for standing on the street, they tried to kill the two democrats they needed to flip the state to them. Only one side was going to achieve something and it only took 1 person not millions.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago

Silly liberals, your strategy of standing on the streets pales in comparison with my strategy of sitting at home.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

Think of it as a medieval army forming up. An army didn't generally march straight into battle. They took the time to organise and prepare. It also acted as an opportunity to intimidate your opponents into backing down.

The protests are the army forming up. Connections are made, wills reinforced and tied to a more focused cause. In many cases, the powers that be recognise the danger this represents and back down. When they don't, that's when things escalate.

Protests like this are a necessary part of reaching the goal. They are a link in the chain. People don't want violence. It will be accepted, if required, but not joyously.

Just remember, in a blunt head to head fight, the enemy would be the US military. You would need to either defeat them directly, or break their will. What would it take to cause large scale defections within the US army? Are people willing to pay that price?

Failing that, the slower, less drastic methods must be employed. It's a war of psychological attrition, not a fist fight.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (4 children)

A better use of protest time would be a general strike. Protesting does little more than slow these assholes down in traffic.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 days ago

These rallies/protests/whatever are exactly how you build momentum for a general strike.

A general strike is useless without a significant percentage of the population joining. As these protests keep happening the attendees trust that the networks that are drawing them together will step with them into more drastic action, like a general strike. We are building a small amount of trust and cooperation between literally millions of people. It's not going to happen overnight.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (7 children)

I can show up to a protest, but I cannot afford to participate in a general strike. 🤷 I think you would see dramatically different numbers with a general strike.

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