I think the intention is to include people who don’t think of themselves as Democrats but who also oppose tyranny and/or object to specific things the current administration is doing.
I agree with that.
My Sinclair-adjacent local paper has decided that Saturday’s local demonstration, attended by twice the number of the previous one, was not worthy of a mention in the two days following. But a “doggy picnic” with dozens in attendance warranted a full page of pictures.
We’re facing this fight with the American media in full opposition.
Went to the one in Cheyenne Wyoming, the very red state capitol of a very red state. It was cold and very windy. There was even blowing snow during the first hour. Even with bad weather there were as many people at this one as there were for the one in June during much nicer weather (maybe 300 in a town of 65,000). I saw only one counter-protester this time, whereas there were at least a dozen in June. There were a lot more passing cars emitting honks of support, and passengers waving. The most memorable sign was held by someone in a cow costume, and said “Ugh, where do I even start?” There were 2 dinosaurs, a unicorn, a koala bear and 3 frogs.
I don’t even know why we were supposed to wear yellow, but I have a lot of yellow shirts, because once I got into running, my mom’s go-to gift for me for a few years was a bright yellow shirt so I could be slightly more visible in low light conditions (albeit not as visible as if I worse custom made high-vis gear.) So I wore one.
Don’t miss Paul Krugman’s Substack this morning (free to subscribe):
Highlight (but read the whole thing–it’s short):
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And on that point, my second question arises: does it matter whether people are out there marching and carrying signs, even if they number in the millions? Well, there is a solid body of research by political scientists like Erica Chenoweth about the effects of civil resistance – nonviolent shows of opposition to those controlling or attempting to control the government. The clear answer from this research is that demonstrations like No Kings Day can make a big difference. They are a show of the depth and popularity of a movement, reassuring those who are opposed to a nation’s direction that many, many others share that opposition.Moreover, if a broad cross-section of society is represented in the demonstrations — and the crowds I saw consisted of a mix of seniors, middle-aged liberals, families with children, students and other unthreatening types — they can induce defections from the ruling regime, because the protestors can’t easily be “othered,” portrayed as strange and alien. So protests with a wide base of support can ultimately pierce the regime’s bubble. In fact, in the aftermath of the massive scale and breadth of the demonstrations, the MAGA propaganda machine has gone remarkably quiet, although Mike Johnson has claimed that the demonstrators were all Marxists.
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I think this started in Portland as a response to the National Guard being sent there. I have a couple of friends in Portland, and their FB posts is where I’ve seen this the most, but I don’t know how it came about. I think it’s just spreading because it’s so non-threatening and silly.
There’s no symbolism in the green. Or the animal the frog.
In Portland, where the National Guard was deployed to deal with “terrorist” protesters, people showed up in those blow-up costumes such as frogs, unicorns and dinosaurs to show the absurdity of thinking that the protesters are violent (also probably to mask the identity of the protesters). Lots of photos and videos were taken of the Guard facing off with people in goofy costumes. I think the most numerous costume happened to be that of a frog.
There was one incident where pepper spray was deployed directly into the air intake of one of the frog costumes. Super not cool.
So now people are specifically seeking out inflatable frog costumes, and other frog costumes, and using the image of the frog to harken back to what has been going on in Portland.
Somewhat FQ question: How reliable are the participation numbers? Could it be way larger or way smaller? I’ve seen people on Reddit claiming the actual figures (for their particular city or town) were much smaller or larger than what media claim. Some sources say 7 million in total, but could it be as small as 5 million or as large as 9 million? Unless authorities are doing actual, neutral, unbiased counting (and the authorities themselves may have reason to be biased), it seems like people trying to do counts would be highly difficult - when you’re in a massive crowd, 400,000 can look the same size as 200,000. To make matters even more complex, many protesters wouldn’t stay for the entire event, they might come and go, with some only joining for a short time, so you have an ingress and egress flow of people.
The Alt National Park service had an “official reporting form” set up plus they were specifically tracking 3000 events (but ended up getting reports from 4000 events). Police & sheriff departments would have official reports from people who are much better at gauging crowd size than the average protester might, so I would assume many of the counts came from those reports. And absent of official police reports the 3000 coalition members probably had some tools for properly reporting. ANPS reports 8.1 million.
But sure, it probably doesn’t account for people coming in and out, and drive-by support.
Sure. For all the reasons you name.
Oh, the Cheeto Faced Shitgibbon is desperately, DESPERATELY trying to do just that today.
There seems to be some dispute over the crowd size in my town (Lawrence KS). Crowd size estimates for Topeka (the rally we went to, 30 miles away) was around 7000, which is about what I estimated based on our previous attendance and estimates. Reports Sunday morning were estimating the size of the crowd in the later rally in Lawrence (which we did not attend) at 8 to 9000, which I found hard to believe. This morning my wife says she’s seeing comments from people who were actually at the rally who say it was only about 2 or 3000.
Crowd sizes, especially crowds that are moving and in non-rectangular spaces, are notoriously difficult to estimate. This has been an issue as long as I’ve been going to protests. The police, who often are more conservative than the protestors, tend to to downplay sizes, while the organizers want to represent as large a crowd as possible. Even if neither side is lying, unconscious bias is gonna get involved.
Speaking of reports, I have seen varying numbers of protestors being arrested, as well as arrests of counter-protestors. Has anybody seen definitive numbers regarding arrests on both sides?
Yeah I saw several people at my local protest in upstate NY in frog costumes and frog hats.
I took time out from the nearby Sheep and Wool Festival I was attending to join the No Kings event. Here’s my sign. 
Your sign is awesome!
very nice !
Thanks! A lot of fellow festival-goers enjoyed it. 
Great read. Thank you for sharing.
That’s assault for sure, if not attempted murder.