Astroturf and selective outrage: The real story behind ‘No Kings’

Organizers of last weekend’s “No Kings” protests claimed eight to nine million participants across more than 3,300 events. It was billed as the largest single-day protest in American history.

The usual script played out here in Los Angeles: Crowds gathered near City Hall, Bruce Springsteen performed in Minnesota, Robert De Niro delivered remarks in New York, and elected officials competed for prime microphone time. By evening, some cities also saw dispersal orders and arrests.

I have seen this one before, going back to the 1990s. The production values improve, but the argument does not. My background in finance has taught me that patterns matter, and this one is not hard to read.

The No Kings coalition markets itself as a spontaneous citizens’ uprising. It is not quite that. A Fox News Digital investigation found roughly 500 activist groups involved in the effort, with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenue.

The flagship march in St. Paul listed on its permit filing, as lead coordinator, the group Indivisible — a Democratic advocacy organization funded by George Soros. The same network includes groups tied to Neville Roy Singham, an American tech entrepreneur living in China who has publicly identified as a communist and has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Singham’s funded organizations — the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the People’s Forum, the Answer Coalition, CodePink — openly discussed using March 28 to advance what they called “revolution” and oppose “imperialism, capitalism and state violence.” Spontaneous it was not.

The stated rationale for the protest was to resist executive overreach. That sounds reasonable, until you understand that this standard is applied so inconsistently that it looks less like a true grievance than an opportunity.

In October 2010, President Barack Obama declared publicly that he lacked authority to change immigration law unilaterally — on at least 25 separate occasions his own statements reflected that position. He created DACA anyway in June 2012, now arguing in public that Congress had refused to act, therefore he had to — kind of like a king. Mass protests against this unilateral and tyrannical action never materialized.

Former President Joe Biden later pursued a broad student loan forgiveness plan based on a very thin and irrelevant statutory pretext. He tried illegally to transfer $430 billion in debt to taxpayers who never signed promissory notes. The Supreme Court struck it down 6-3 in June 2023, only to have Biden defy the ruling and try again by other avenues. His efforts were only conclusively defeated after Trump returned to the White House. Despite Biden’s very clear attempt to seize unlawful presidential powers, the streets stayed quiet.

Biden was also responsible for a short-lived Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, which raised obvious First Amendment concerns. His administration leaned on social media companies to censor American citizens’ constitutionally protected free expression online. These overreaches attracted substantial criticism, but nothing like eight million people coming out in an organized fashion.

The pattern is clear: When policies align with one political tribe, expansive executive moves are framed as compassionate governance or pragmatic problem-solving. When the other side wins an election and enforces existing law — on the border, on federal spending, on bureaucratic accountability — suddenly the republic is in danger, and a vast, well-funded apparatus goes into motion to manipulate public opinion.

Even considering only the best of this protest and setting aside regrettable acts of violence toward law enforcement, this is not principle. It is partisanship wearing a protest permit.

California’s long-running version of this double standard has included sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants, pension expansions that endanger needed government services, draconian pandemic-era shutdowns and a frustrating two-tier regulatory system that punishes businesses and privileges homeless encampments. It has produced a cautionary tale about how single-party governance can hollow one of the world’s most productive economies.

Families who once built wealth through discipline now navigate higher taxes, deteriorating infrastructure, and public safety concerns tied to selective enforcement — and increasingly, they leave. Meanwhile, coordinated street takeovers of working-class neighborhoods do not fix those problems — they add to the bill.

To see Springsteen perform at a rally sponsored by the coalition that lectures the rest of us about equity is precious — even more so when it causes drivers to sit in gridlock.

If eight million people believe excessive executive power is a genuine threat, the correct response is to demand that Congress reclaim its legislative role — that it stop delegating so many hard choices to the executive branch and reclaim its prerogatives. Congress must pass laws and accept accountability for them. That is how a republic functions, and it is considerably less theatrical than a national day of organized disruption.

Rules that apply selectively corrode everything they touch. An elected president acting on a clear voter mandate is not a king. And a well-funded protest machine that reserves all of its outrage for one party while giving the other a pass is not a conscience.

Those who work, pay taxes, raise families, and serve in uniform deserve a political culture that takes the Constitution seriously all the time — not just when it is convenient.

Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management.

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