No Kings, Plenty of Kingmakers

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — March 25, 2026

No Kings, My Ass

If you are going to call a protest campaign “No Kings,” then the first question practically asks itself: why is this thing crawling with political royalty?

That is not a metaphor. It is not a vibe. It is not me being cranky on purpose, although yes, I am cranky on purpose. It is the public record.

This March 28 protest push is not some pure spontaneous uprising that bubbled up from the sidewalks because ordinary people finally snapped. It is a coalition operation with national organizations, press coordinators, executive directors, presidents of major unions, advocacy officers, training programs, event funnels, and a partner ecosystem that reads like a who’s who of institutional progressive politics (50501, 2026; Indivisible, n.d.; No Kings, n.d.).

So let’s stop pretending this is 2011 with better fonts.

Who Is Actually Behind This

Start with Indivisible. Indivisible is not leaderless. It is the Indivisible Project, a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) with EIN 81-4944067. ProPublica’s nonprofit database lists it as a tax-exempt advocacy organization and shows 2024 revenue of about $10.4 million, expenses of about $12.2 million, and named officers including co-executive directors Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin. That is not an accident. That is an institution (ProPublica, n.d.).

Then there is 50501, which sells itself as decentralized and says the movement was born on Reddit and spread on social media. Fine. I will even grant them that as an origin story. But decentralized does not mean nameless, and it sure as hell does not mean leaderless. The group’s own website says it has a volunteer team, and its own press materials identify public-facing figures including Sarah Parker as a 50501 national partner, Hunter Dunn as a national press coordinator, and Rebecca Larson as a co-leader of the No Kings Twin Cities coalition. Again, that is not a swarm of anonymous nobodies. That is structure with better camouflage (50501, 2026a, 2026b).

And then there is the coalition itself. The January 28 No Kings coalition release did not hide who was in the room. It quoted Ezra Levin of Indivisible, Deirdre Schifeling of the ACLU, Katie Bethell of MoveOn Civic Action, April Verrett of SEIU, Randi Weingarten of AFT, Becky Pringle of the National Education Association, Kelley Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush of Interfaith Alliance, M. Adams of Movement for Black Lives, Gwen Mills of UNITE HERE, Shaniqua McClendon of Vote Save America, Jose Vasquez of Common Defense, and others. That is not a campfire circle of leaderless rebels. That is a roster (50501, 2026b).

So yes, there are kings here. Maybe not crowns and ermine robes, but there is plenty of hierarchy, brand management, staffing, coalition muscle, and institutional power.

Grassroots? Or Grassroots With Handlers?

This is where the rank-and-file Democrat gets played for a fool.

Not because every person attending is fake. That would be cheap and wrong. Plenty of people will show up because they are sincerely horrified by Trump, ICE abuses, democratic decay, and the sheer filth of American political life right now. Fair enough. They should be horrified.

But sincerity is not the same thing as control.

The public-facing regular Democrat is being told this is a people’s uprising, when the public paperwork and public messaging show something much closer to managed coalition politics. Indivisible has legal status, money, executives, and a formal structure. 50501 says it is decentralized, yet still runs events, guides, toolkits, press contacts, digital safety resources, organizer pages, and alliance links. No Kings itself promotes trainings and event infrastructure. That is not a ragged spark in the dark. That is an organized machine, even if parts of the machine are modular and distributed (50501, 2026a; 50501, 2026b; Indivisible, n.d.; No Kings, n.d.; ProPublica, n.d.).

And this is exactly where the old phrase comes in.

Useful Idiots, and What That Phrase Actually Means

The phrase “useful idiot” is commonly attributed to Lenin, but that attribution is shaky as hell. There is no solid evidence Lenin actually said it. Modern lexicographic and quotation research points instead to later Cold War usage and earlier print appearances of the phrase or related wording. Merriam-Webster defines a “useful idiot” as a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda. Quote Investigator and other reference work note that the famous Lenin attribution is unsupported (Merriam-Webster, 2026; Quote Investigator, 2019).

That matters, because the phrase is often mangled into lazy insult. Its real sting is not “stupid person.” Its real meaning is closer to this: somebody who thinks they are acting independently, morally, and heroically, while more disciplined political actors use that person’s energy for goals set elsewhere.

That is the danger here.

If the rank and file are the bodies in the street, but the strategy, branding, timing, coalition alignment, press rollout, and future leverage all sit with institutional players, then the rank and file are not steering. They are supplying heat.

Useful heat. Useful outrage. Useful turnout.

Useful idiots, if you want to be cruel about it.

And in this case, cruelty may simply be accuracy.

What Occupy Was, and What This Is

Occupy did not have this kind of polished institutional wrapper. It did not have a tidy national partner page with toolkits and polished press ecosystems. It did not have a respectable lane inside establishment opposition politics. It had people on the ground, in tents, in the cold, in the rain, with kitchens, libraries, and medics, refusing to leave.

That is why Occupy was treated like a threat.

The ACLU documented coordinated law-enforcement responses to Occupy, including simultaneous crackdowns and evidence that the Department of Homeland Security monitored the movement. Obama, for his part, publicly said Occupy expressed broad public frustration and gave voice to anger over how the financial system worked. So I could not verify a public record showing Obama personally “conspired to denounce Occupy” in those terms. What the public record does show is messier and, in some ways, more revealing: rhetorical sympathy at the top, while Democratic mayors and coordinated law-enforcement responses helped crush encampments on the ground (American Civil Liberties Union, 2012; Obama White House, 2011).

That brings us to Rahm Emanuel, who absolutely belongs in this story. Before becoming mayor of Chicago in 2011, Emanuel had been Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff from 2009 to 2010. He was not some random municipal bureaucrat who wandered in off the street. He was a major Democratic insider, then became the mayor who oversaw the city during Occupy Chicago’s confrontation with police and park enforcement. News coverage from October 2011 documented roughly 175 arrests in Chicago after protesters refused to remove tents and leave the park after closing hours (Britannica, 2026; U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Japan, 2022; WBUR, 2011).

That is the point the party faithful never want to touch. The same Democratic power structure that now smiles warmly on choreographed anti-authoritarian coalition politics had no such tenderness for Occupy when people actually stayed put and refused to behave.

Back then, they gave us lectures about rules, parks, sanitation, and order.

Now they give webinars.

Funny how that works.

No Kings, Just Better-Connected Courtiers

The problem with this campaign is not that people oppose Trump. Good. They should. The man has spent years dragging the country toward open strongman garbage.

The problem is the branding versus the wiring.

“No Kings” sounds populist. The wiring underneath looks institutional.

“No Kings” sounds horizontal. The wiring underneath looks hierarchical.

“No Kings” sounds like a people’s rebellion. The wiring underneath looks like a coalition of advocacy groups, unions, nonprofits, digital organizers, and party-adjacent professionals who know exactly how to turn street anger into list-building, pressure tactics, media moments, and eventually electoral leverage.

Which, to be blunt, is why I do not trust the slogan.

If you really had no kings, there would be less choreography and more risk. Less messaging discipline and more disruption. Less onboarding and more commitment. Less event culture and more sacrifice.

What we have instead is a polished anti-king campaign led, in no small part, by people who already sit near the throne.

The Bottom Line

If you want to protest Trump on March 28, go ahead. I mean that. Better to show up than sit home and mumble at the wallpaper.

But do not lie to yourself about what you are joining.

This is not Occupy reborn.

This is not leaderless.

This is not institution-free.

And it is definitely not some innocent uprising untouched by the political elite.

It is coalition politics wearing a protest mask.

If you want no kings, start by asking why so many kingmakers are holding the microphone.

References

50501. (2026a). 50501 — 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement. https://www.fiftyfifty.one/
50502. (2026b, January 28). No Kings coalition responds to escalating brutality and authoritarianism with immediate action and future mobilization on March 28; condemns ICE’s deadly actions. https://www.fiftyfifty.one/post/no-kings-coalition-with-immediate-action-and-mobilization-on-march-28-condemns-ice

American Civil Liberties Union. (2012, July 19). Spying on Occupy? https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/spying-occupy

Britannica. (2026, March 2). Rahm Emanuel. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rahm-Emanuel

Indivisible. (n.d.). Indivisible. https://indivisible.org/

Merriam-Webster. (2026, March 1). Useful idiot. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/useful%20idiot

No Kings. (n.d.). In America, we have No Kings. https://www.nokings.org/

Obama White House. (2011, October 6). News conference by the President. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/06/news-conference-president

ProPublica. (n.d.). Indivisible Project. Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/814944067

Quote Investigator. (2019, August 22). Phrase origin: Useful idiot. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/08/22/useful-idiot/

U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Japan. (2022, January 20). Ambassador Rahm Emanuel. https://jp.usembassy.gov/ambassador-rahm-emanuel/

WBUR. (2011, October 16). Thousands nationwide join New York-born protest. https://www.wbur.org/news/2011/10/16/nationwide-occupy-protest