Is The Resistance Futile?
The second round of No Kings rallies will take place today. Will they matter?
The Atlantic’s Quinta Jurecic argues “Resistance Is Cringe—But it’s also effective.”
After Donald Trump’s win in 2024, commentators declared the so-called Resistance “dead” and “futile.” The opposition movement against Trump had been embarrassing, ineffective, a performative failure that did nothing “besides making the #Resisters feel good about themselves.” With the country now nine months into Trump’s second term, though, reports of the death of the Resistance turn out to have been exaggerated. The movement looks different than it did the last time around. It’s more hard-bitten. But it retains the same underlying idealism about the American project that led first to the explosive growth of the coalition, and then to its dismissal by cynics.
Today, in a reprisal of the first “No Kings” rallies that took place in June, millions of protesters will gather around the country to express their opposition to Trump. Over the summer, protesters waved American flags, dressed as the Founding Fathers and the Statue of Liberty, and held signs with quotes from the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Those rallies drew an estimated 2 million to 5 million people around the country—on the scale of the 2017 Women’s March that convened the day after Trump’s first inauguration, then a competitor for the largest single day of protest the United States had ever seen.
Organizers are now expecting an even bigger turnout.
The evidence that such demonstrations are effective is, well, thin:
The movement that became known as the Resistance grew rapidly in this context, in what the political scientists Theda Skocpol, Caroline Tervo, and Kirsten Walters termed a “civic explosion” of local political engagement across the country, largely by first-time activists inspired by their disdain for Trump’s policies and character.
That movement’s on-the-ground organizing proved to be quietly, but strikingly, effective. The early phase of the opposition to the first Trump administration—before the racial-justice protests following George Floyd’s murder, in 2020—was largely led by white, college-educated, suburban women, and many of them, yes, wore pink “pussy hats” and T-shirts with slogans such as It’s Mueller Time! But they helped secure the “blue wave” midterm victory in 2018 that flipped the House of Representatives for Democrats and allowed the party to begin clawing back Trump’s power through legislative oversight. And though that congressional response had its limitations—neither impeachment of Trump, after all, successfully barred him from office—the Resistance notched continued successes at a local level in countering efforts to pull books from school shelves and restrict access to reproductive health care after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And, of course, a Democrat won the White House in 2020.
This strikes me as incredibly post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Yes, there were protests. Yes, Democrats won the midterms and retook the White House. But Trump was wildly unpopular and, in the current alignment, Democrats are naturally going to have higher turnouts during the midterms because they, not the Republicans, are now the party of the affluent and college-educated. And, I would contend that Biden’s 2020 victory was as much about COVID restrictions and Team Trump’s bizarre attempt to discredit nontraditional voting methods as it was about The Resistance.
Then came 2024, and Kamala Harris’s failure to secure the presidency against the rising tide of inflation and post-pandemic malaise. Lara Putnam, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who studies grassroots activism in Pennsylvania, told me that the progressive social politics and “focus on protecting democracy” of the Resistance were not well aligned with the concerns of less engaged swing voters, who chose Trump for economic reasons. Still, Putnam’s research shows that local organizing that grew out of the Resistance made an impact in 2024: Activists were able to help Pennsylvania Democrats hold on to control of the statehouse, even as the state swung to the right.
I mean . . . okay?
When Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he did so with a new claim to legitimacy after winning a plurality—though still not a majority—of the popular vote. This time, the streets were quiet on Inauguration Day and immediately after. Some on the right saw this as evidence of a “vibe shift,” a broader turn toward right-wing cultural dominance and away from liberal and progressive ideas. The rapid capitulation of major civic institutions, such as social-media companies and law firms, only emphasized the supposed shift.
In this environment, resistance seemed pointless. Maybe even worse than pointless: It had been kind of cringe. Meaning: unself-conscious; overly sincere; insufficiently insulated from criticism by the protective layer of irony that allows a person to declare, when mocked, “Just kidding!”; and, worst of all, ineffective. Remembering the pussy hats, Liza Featherstone, a columnist for the left-wing magazine Jacobin, mourned, “It’s triggering to even write these things down.” The progressive writer Ross Barkan derided the “hysterics” of the first-term Resistance and hoped the new quiet might “speak to the growing maturity of America.”
The problem with The Resistance—as with most protests—is that it didn’t have a unified message. The fact that the first of the “pink pussy hat” protests preceded Trump’s inauguration signaled that they were simply mad that Trump won the election.
Contrast that with the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder. While there was certainly some noise—violent rioting and calls for Defund the Police—amidst the larger movement, the central message was crystal clear. And, while they weren’t wildly effective, they did spark meaningful reforms in policing practices across the country.
As to the “cringe” aspect,
As the reference to hysteria suggests, it’s difficult to fully disaggregate the substance of this critique from gender politics, especially because of the predominance of older women in Resistance organizing during Trump’s first term. Liberal politics, the humor writer Clare Haber-Harris assessed in early 2025, had become “middle-aged-women coded” and therefore “uncool.” These Resistance aesthetics contrasted with the macho energy of Trump’s second term, itself a promise that Americans wouldn’t have to listen to those hectoring women anymore.
But these dismissals both ignore the very real victories of the Resistance and miss why cringe was essential to the movement’s effectiveness. These organizers were people “who basically believed that there was such a thing as the rule of law, that there was such a thing as democracy,” Putnam told me, “and that these were things that were worth fighting for.” They were, in that sense, institutionalists—and therefore inherently opposed to MAGA’s devil-may-care desire to burn the place down.
Cringe “implies a kind of naïveté that so often gets coded as feminine,” wrote the New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen, “a silly belief that human beings, through sincere effort, might actually improve themselves and the world.” Such a belief might seem uncool. But it can be a powerful tool with which to cut through the nihilism of Trump and those around him, which draws its power from its insincerity, its refusal to distinguish between truth and falsehood, its willingness to mock and degrade previously treasured beliefs. As one protest sign put it at a demonstration early in Trump’s second term: BE CRINGE. SHIT MATTERS.
Shit does indeed matter. The problem is that roughly half the country seems to have a different opinion on what the solution is.
“I didn’t like resistlib cringe content in the first Trump administration,” wrote Adam Gurri, the editor in chief of Liberal Currents, in a social-media post two months after Trump’s second inauguration, admitting: “I was wrong. I was just being a snob.” As Gurri suggests, the administration’s insistence on irony and insincerity has given a new power to plain, old, corny symbols. Recently, a photo published in the Chicago Tribune went viral, showing a Marine veteran protesting amid clouds of tear gas in front of an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, stoically holding not one but two American flags. Even the name of the No Kings protest is a reclamation of foundational American heritage that might have felt cheesy a year ago, but today carries a new seriousness.
My longstanding bias is that protest movements rarely achieve the intended results. And, yes, I found the first of the pussy hat protests rather cringe.
In a Schoolhouse Rock world, the energy spent organizing rallies would be better devoted to recruiting effective candidates for the next election, improving party platforms, and the like. But the reality of the matter is that most of our votes don’t matter. There’s next to zero chance the Republican presidential candidate will win in Virginia, where I live, in 2028. The odds that the Democratic candidate will win in Alabama, where my co-blogger Steven Taylor lives, are even less. Ditto House and Senate races.
The study highlighted in my recent post, “The Revolution Will Not Be Happening,” does show that peaceful protest can be effective. But the chosen cases were all cases where the regime was incredibly repressive.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is widely considered the gold standard in the U.S. context. They were wildly unpopular with the broader public, as seen in polls from 1961 to 1963. That flipped by 1965, with Americans supporting Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Selma marches by a nearly two-to-one margin. That’s incredibly effective.
It’s not at all clear that the No Kings marches have anything like the clarity of message. That the President shouldn’t have unchecked power is a wildly popular notion! (Although Presidents who exceed their Constitutional authority to do things the base supports tend to be supported in so doing by said base.) But what’s the actual policy aim? For Congress to start demanding deference to its authority? For the Supreme Court to issue rulings faster? What?
Organizers of today’s No Kings rally have emphasized that the gatherings are just one part of this broader movement, an opportunity to loudly and collectively voice the defiance already happening on the ground. The Trump administration appears to have noticed. Although June’s No Kings protests gained relatively little attention from Trump and congressional Republicans, the party has busied itself over the past week with attacking the upcoming demonstrations as a “Hate America Rally.” The mood this time is darker than in June: The government is shut down, more National Guard troops are deployed on the country’s streets, and the administration is intent on portraying its political opposition as un-American. But the protesters are coming with the Stars and Stripes in hand.
Certainly, it beats showing up with Mexican flags.
MAGA must be reminded in tangible ways that they have not cowed us all. “No Kings” is actually quite a brilliant approach to take. It establishes a base from which to attack Trump’s overreach, a position that is not just anti-Trump, but pro democracy.
What policy positions are we aiming for? My policy is the Constitution of the United States of America. That’s where I stand, and what I will stand for when I go to the No Kings protest here in Las Vegas.
You know, it’s funny, because I didn’t want to go; my wife did. My core job is her safety and with Trump urging his cult followers to kill liberals, I worry about her safety. But frankly, James, I find your dismissive attitude toward people who are simply trying to defend the Constitution that you, as an officer, swore to defend, offensive. You remind me why I have to go.
The question is not why I and millions of others will attend the rally, but why you won’t.
@Michael Reynolds: This, a googolplex times.
In the spring of 1970 after Nixon invaded Cambodia and the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed innocent American Citizens at Kent State the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale erupted. There had already been weeks of anti draft and anti Vietnam war protests and demonstrations. One night hundreds of demonstrators sat in the middle of a main intersection in town and refused to disperse. Then the Illinois State Police teargassed the crowd and charged the throng with billy clubs swinging. The police attacked from three sides leaving the only escape route down the main drag heading towards the campus. When the teargas cleared and the demonstrators were dispersed almost every storefront window for eight blocks was smashed. This was the beginning of two weeks of more demonstrations and riots in town. The State of Illinois called in the National Guard. I knew some of them because before they were called up they had been participating in the anti war demonstrations. Virtually every Illinois State trooper was called to Carbondale. There were rock and glass bottle (no plastic bottles in those days) throwing versus teargas and billy clubs battles all day long in town. During the day the State Police would chase people off the street into restaurants. The cops would then throw tear gas into the restaurants and block the door so no one could get out. When they finally opened the doors they would beat the people on their heads with billy clubs and arrest them for disorderly conduct. At night the State Police would go to neighborhoods where they claimed the “leaders” of the demonstrations lived. They would throw tear gas through the windows into the house and when the occupants came running out coughing and choking the cops would beat them on the head with billy clubs and arrest them for violating curfew. After days of turmoil and demands that the University be shut down 8000 people gathered in the streets and marched to the University Presidents house on campus. Finally the Chancellor came out and announced that the school was closed. The party that followed was wild! The next day everyone left town.
The war lasted another five years.
If the protests don’t matter, why have the Republicans been freaking out about them for the whole week?
They are futile in the sense that in the short term nothing much will change. Trump will still be POTUS, SCOTUS are his cheerleaders and Congress is supine. However, it will draw publicity and hopefully call attention to what is going on that many people arent aware of as most people dont pay that much attention to politics. It will hopefully energize people so that they dont just give up.
Steve
One of the standard conservative fallacies is, “Action X won’t completely solve problem A, so it’s not worth doing.”
In my little red corner of FL we had two or three hundred of us along Tamiami Trail, our main street. The county went about 60/40 for Trump. If nothing else, we let the 40% see they’re not alone. As James said, our little demonstration won’t turn Florida blue, but a D school board candidate got a lot of signatures on his petition and maybe Guv DeUseless will feel less unconstrained. It may not be a big thing, James, but what is the harm?
@Michael Reynolds: I’m not being dismissive of the protestors; I’m questioning what actual impact the protests will have. As noted in the piece, for most people in most states and Congressional Districts, the outcome of the next election is essentially baked in, so protesting is likely as much as one can do. I just don’t know who that isn’t already against Trump will change sides because there are some protests going on.
BLM called attention to something that most of White America was oblivious to. I don’t know who it is that pays enough attention to the news to notice the protests don’t already know what Trump’s doing.
@James Joyner:
1) No Kings prepares us to organize for a national strike if/when it becomes necessary.
2) No Kings sends a message which seems to have freaked out Fox News and MAGA.
3) No Kings puts the lie to the notion that we are strictly bi-coastal.
4) No Kings also sends a cautionary note to local GOP. For example, Iowa GOP will notice the protest in Des Moines.
5) The LEOs and soldiers Trump hopes will kill Americans on command will be reminded that it’s their friends and relatives Trump is targeting with threats of violence.
6) It’s a great way to register voters and enlist activists.
@James Joyner:
I’m not eating; I’m chewing food and swallowing it.
The fact of asserting one’s right to participate in mass protest is aim enough to do so, especially in opposition to an authoritarian and neofascist regime that despises free speech and wants to stifle and discourage dissent.
As alluded to by wr, the unhinged, angry fearmongering about these protests from the Party of Pro-Hitler Chat Groups shows why these particular 21st century MAGA Nazis should be protested for protest’s sake: authoritarians hate protest. Because their anti-democratic project often rely on manufactured consent and the illusion of popularity.
Americans protest because the USA was founded on protest, it’s in our cultural DNA. That’s reason enough, to remind the powers-that-be that a) we will not be bullied into silence and b) we have the numbers to burn their shit down if they push us to the edge. Moreso when a pederast president and his enablers are militarizing cities and bidding to destroy American liberty.
@wr: The right is desperate to manufacture consent for its hugely unpopular dismantling of the Biden economy and the US Constitution. Republicans need the body politic to believe only a violent far left fringe opposes Epstein-bestie pedophile Trump and his unpopular, illegal, unconstitutional warmongering at home and abroad — the dumb, job-killing trade war including.
Thus, Republicans hate for Americans to see their normie neighbors protesting President Trumpflation’s amoral, anti-American, incompetent acts (as opposed to the freaks, weirdos, and terrorists he sent to sack the Capitol on Jan 6).
@Gregory Lawrence Brown: there is a great documentary on Netflix about the band Devo, who were all students and at that protest. That’s when they decided that the only way to fight that kind of government tyranny is by forming a band and pointing out societies flaws to the masses. Change requires 24×7 multifaceted movements that include protests,art, music, organizations.
@James Joyner:
Perhaps so. But maybe some of the Ds and D leaners who sat out ’24 will see they’re not alone and turn out in ’26 and ’28.
@James Joyner:
Well then, what’s the point.
I was at No Kings in Carlsbad, CA this morning and the results for myself, my sons, and the +10,000 fellow citizens lining the streets there with us was a sense of community and patriotism that I hadn’t felt in months.
At one point, a guy drove down the street in a lifted pick-up truck flying a Trump 2024 flag (a singular exception to all the cars honking and flying US flags). He was clearly trying to invoke a more aggressive response, but the people just pointed, then politely booed and laughed. I have no expectation that guy will changes sides because of how he was received today, but there is no way he went home feeling as empowered as I did.
That’s a worthy result.
Will it result in change overnight? Nope, there is a long way to go, but that does not mean that people shouldn’t also take it to the street to let MAGA know that there is something going on.
Even in my country crossroad north of San Francisco with a population of about 1,700, over 200 people showed up for our No Kings rally. It was fraternal, and I believe people want to be part of the journey back to normalcy and decency.
To me, one significant bit of this is that being out on the street is being visible in a way that is hard to accomplish these days. You can post all you want on Facebook and most of the MAGA in your own community will never see it or hear about it. The Algorithm makes sure of that.
But standing on a street corner with a sign makes it visible in meatspace. Anyone who drives down that street sees it. If you have a clever sign or a costume, it draws more attention. I would demur with any assertion of “no message” on this one. The message is anti-authoritarian: No Kings. And it is developed in a way that is as decentralized as possible, just like Occupy was.
This is significant. It’s as much about finding each other and finding voices. It’s also about staying in the game, and not giving up.
From the “No Kings is getting under their skins” department:
You might not quite understand the geography. I-5 is The Freeway on the west coast. It is the main way in and out of San Diego. It goes to the Canadian border. It isn’t just some road.
So, what changed? Oh, Pete Hegseth and JD Vance decided to attend. I won’t link, but it’s reported on Fox News among others.
So shutting down The Freeway for four hours was a flex orchestrated by the administration. Also there were signs on The Freeway. “Live Weapons Over Freeway” covered the usual “A Street next Exit (left 2 lanes)” sign.
Oh, this stuff is under their skins. Definitely.