On Saturday, March 28, “No Kings” Day was once again the largest single day of protest in US history, with upwards of eight million people participating in over 3,000 demonstrations worldwide—a million more than the previous day of action last October. In the Twin Cities, Minnesota, where just two months ago a general strike forced Trump and ICE to retreat, “No Kings” drew a record-setting 200,000.
These protests came amid Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, which ignited mass outrage and drove millions out to them. The Trump administration is, in many ways, at its weakest point yet, having been dealt its first serious bloody nose by the working class in the Twin Cities in January and faced with the extremely unpopular looming possibility of deploying boots on the ground in Iran.
January’s general strike against ICE in Minneapolis shows exactly the kind of escalation needed to seize on this weakness: strike action. Now, the “May Day Strong” coalition has raised a call for a national day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May 1 this year. These “No Kings” protests were a key place to raise this call, as well as the role that every single person has to play in building it among our coworkers, classmates, and communities, to really shut down business as usual.
On The Ground At “No Kings”
Socialist Alternative members took part in protests in dozens of cities, talking with thousands of people about what brought them out and what next steps are necessary for the anti-Trump movement. With this number of people mobilized to take action, it’s clear that there’s a huge opening for further organizing and escalating the struggle, which many keenly felt the necessity for.
As with previous “No Kings” rallies, the crowds continue to disproportionately lack young people and people of color, though in some cities—New Haven, Raleigh, and San Diego just to name a few—students did come out in force. Each new wave of attacks from Trump’s authoritarian administration has drawn more young people and people of color into struggle, as they’ve come out onto the streets, organized school walkouts, participated in rapid response groups to ICE activity, and taken strike action.
All these avenues of struggle must be linked up. They all rely on the kind of grassroots, person-to-person organizing that’s necessary to pull off any kind of mass coordinated action. Much of this new organizing—like rapid response groups, student walkout planning committees, and “No Kings” marching contingents—could be the foundation for strike-ready groups nationwide. The energy and mood for struggle at “No Kings” must be channeled into building the biggest possible day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” this May Day.
No Work, No School, No Shopping
Especially now, after the Minneapolis general strike, the call for a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May 1 is not an abstract idea, but a very concrete step to escalate the struggle against Trump and the rotten capitalist system that allows him and his ilk to come to power. But it can only come to life if it’s actively built for, which means major national unions need to be shouting it from the rooftops and openly organizing their members. Several important unions have already endorsed the call, like the Association of Flight Attendants and National Educators Association, but they need to be publicizing it much more and placing a real emphasis on work stoppage. Union members around the country should demand that their unions join the call and actively organize for “No Work” on May Day.
Socialist Alternative branches around the country will be holding strike-ready meetings where all working people, whether or not you belong to a union, can gather for concrete discussions on how to organize workplace action with your coworkers. Students can also get strike-ready! Many have organized walkouts already and should coordinate May Day actions with teachers and other school workers. SAlt members are also organizing Students for a General Strike on campuses around the country to help schools get strike-ready and stay strike-ready even after May 1.
What’s Next For Anti-Trump Struggle?
All three “No Kings” days of action have been huge displays of strength, showing just how much opposition there is to Trump’s regime and how much potential power this movement could exert if harnessed and directed. However, they have also had serious weaknesses. For instance, in New York City and elsewhere, these massive marches have had no speeches at all, indicating a lack of political direction behind them. Organizers have even said that they intentionally forgo rallying behind a specific demand, to allow protesters to fill in the blank with the issues most important to them. While this may sound like a good way to maximize engagement, it actually leaves the movement undirected and disunited rather than focused and aligned around key points of agreement. It’s absolutely possible to organize these rallies around bold demands that would still maintain the broad appeal necessary for building a mass movement.
Leading with clear demands like, for example, abolishing ICE, opposing new “forever wars,” and taxing the rich to fund schools and essential social services would serve to better galvanize people than a vague and general anti-Trump stance. Without demands that underscore what we want to win—and a plan for escalation—struggle can languish if it’s not clear what real progress or victory for the movement would look like. People’s energy and anger can transform into demoralization.
All too often these impressively massive protests also end with a whimper, not a bang. Marchers are instructed to disperse quickly and not given clear next steps or proposals for follow-up action. And the next step can’t always be another street protest. Next, we need to get organized, and when we come back into the streets, it should be on the back of mass coordinated strike action on May Day, hitting the political establishment and the corporations that back them where it hurts, in their profits.
It’s clear that we can’t rely on the Democrats or organizations closely tied to them to take a real stand against Trump, since they benefit from the same system that put him in power. Working people need to build our own independent organizations of struggle that can build a strike-ready movement and also demand that progressive and union leaders take up the call for a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May Day.
