On March 28, 2026, the third series of “No Kings” demonstrations took place in thousands of cities, with the largest in St. Paul, Minnesota, New York, and Washington, D.C. This demonstration is a response to unpopular decisions by the federal administration, targeting Trump’s aggressive deportations, war in Iran, and expanding political influence. Additionally, the No Kings organization stated, “In America, we have No Kings.” While the subject matter, protesters shunning politicians abusing political systems, is incredibly grave in a time of rising authoritarianism, the protest was less of a crisis and more of a curated parade. The “No Kings” protests were populated with colorful signs and funny costumes, following a trend that has dominated political demonstrations since June 2025: a shift where protest is used for expression, not for leverage.
The Andover community has had recent attempts at large-scale protests, with the latest Anti-ICE Sit-In Demonstration bringing in more than 100 students, according to The Phillipian. However, the protest’s awkward timing led to students who needed to take tests being effectively barred from participating, whether or not they wanted to participate. This problem of “scheduling conflicts” was solved by the No Kings organizers by taking place when most don’t have commitments. For example, the No Kings demonstrations have routinely taken place on Saturdays, having a fixed schedule, and often working with local governments in order to maintain safety. These guidelines led to the large turnouts from working-class people, who normally wouldn’t be able to participate in a weekday protest due to work restrictions. Logistically, it is much easier to promote participation for a protest if it’s on a day without work, takes only a few hours of one’s day off, and is safe. However, by solving the scheduling conflict, which had barred Andover students from the Anti-ICE Sit-In, the original movement is sanitized by stripping away a lot of political friction required to force a political response.
When protests happen during the workday, they can generate friction, especially when it restricts the movement of traffic to workplaces. If workers are slowed in their path to work, it may decrease the company’s output. This is one variety of friction that often pressures governments to act because it has a great interest in keeping the economy flowing. For the government, if the protest slows the economy, yielding would reasonably remove that friction and reintroduce stability. However, when millions show up on Saturday, the government has no material reason to listen to demonstrators. Fundamentally, the expression-first demonstration allows governments to turn a blind eye.
This “expression-first” model stands in stark contrast to the economic realism of the Civil Rights Movement. The successes of the protests at the time were not due to raising awareness, but material tolls. First of all, protesters slowed the economic foundations of society, whether that be through sit-ins or boycotts. As local businesses and transportation services suffered economic tolls, protesters forced officials to choose between economic stability and maintaining segregation. Ultimately, they chose economic stability.
Furthermore, the largest protests had the support of organizations with tangible political organizations, often unions and civil rights advocacy groups. MLK Jr., for instance, worked closely with the NAACP and SNCC, generating grassroots connections across demographics, and later worked with the AFL-CIO’s unions to coordinate the March on Washington. Using these voting blocs, the movement was able to use the diverse nature of these organizations as well as the union’s power to strike, holding power against the government through grassroots energy and economic means. While these pillars led to immense change with existing systems, modern protests seem to lack that spine.
If we are to reclaim the utility of dissent, we must shift our focus toward grassroots economic power and uncomfortable disruption. As long as politicians remain primarily beholden to large donors, the voices of the masses will remain background noise. True pressure only occurs when politicians are economically tied to their constituents and when a threat to withdraw support carries the weight of a lost career. When disconnected politicians hear constituents being unhappy, yet not changing any tangible aspect of the nation, why should they care? If that protest doesn’t affect the status quo, their position wouldn’t be affected.
Moreover, we must stop asking for permission to be heard. A protest that respects a time slot and doesn’t disrupt traffic is a protest that has already been institutionalized. If we want to move the needle on issues of governance, we must be willing to make our dissent inconvenient. Traffic must be impeded; offices must be stalled; the economy must feel the weight of the public’s dissatisfaction. We must look to the Civil Rights era, where uncomfortable changes to the norm led to actual change. The bus boycotts were not an agreement, but a direct opposition to a force that led to oppression.
At a place like Andover, where we are taught to engage with the wider world, we must recognize that opposing the world without public pressure is merely a performance. If we want to see change, we must be willing to trade our signs for strategies and our parades for power. Until a protest costs the government more to ignore than it does to address, the facade of a protest will dominate supposed political dissent.
