In over 3,000 protests across the country—from big cities to small towns—millions took the streets for the third "No Kings Day." This is important. People came angry and agonized about the war on Iran, the ongoing anti-immigrant terror being brought by ICE, and everything about how the Trump fascist regime is shredding the rule of law and lawlessly rampaging the world.

Millions and millions of decent people deeply deeply hate everything about Trump/MAGA fascism, and they were determined to stand up—many coming to a protest for the first time ever.

But as important and righteous as this was, what people are being led to understand and do about what we are facing, and what is needed, is dangerously insufficient. Too much of No Kings Day was locked into three deadly delusions.

Before we get into those, it’s important to take stock of the time since the last No Kings protest in October 2025. During that period the Trump regime has made major “advances” toward the consolidation of fascism… the regime has thrown gasoline on our rapidly burning planet… and, especially with the attack on Iran, they have increased the extreme danger of world war between nuclear-armed powers. Trump did more. He sent the army to kidnap and jail the leader of the sovereign nation of Venezuela. His fascist "Department of War" has continued to commit war crimes, murdering fishermen in international waters. Trump sent his ICE thugs to cities across the country—including Minneapolis, where they murdered two people and rounded up thousands more immigrants. The Trump regime continues to hold huge numbers of immigrants in torture-like conditions in detention centers across the country. It is actively criminalizing dissent and protest. And much much much more.

Most people are still underreacting—refusing to confront what is actually represented by this regime and that yes, all-out fascism can happen here.  In that light, let’s look at those three deadly delusions.

Delusion 1: Voting Democratic Will Save Us from Fascism

The main message coming from the protest leaders was a call to get organized for the mid-term elections to vote for Democratic Party politicians. 

First off, November is too late! Every day that goes by without thousands and millions organizing to drive this regime from power is a day where we are allowing the fascist juggernaut to roll ahead with crazed speed.

Trump has already proven again and again that he will not respect elections he loses. And he is actively moving to steal the midterms—delegitimizing the national elections, threatening to seize federal control, trying to pass voter ID laws that make it much harder for millions to vote, and sending out his ICE gestapo thugs to airports as a possible trial run for them to check IDs at polling places. (See Wake Up! The Trump Regime Is Organizing to Steal the Next Election)  

Some organizers admit this, but what they put forward as an answer is, again, dangerously insufficient and full of delusions. Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of Indivisible—the main organizer of No Kings Day—said at the flagship rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, "Donald Trump is facing down a midterm election that he knows he is going to lose because people hate this mad king business. And so what is he going to do? He is going to try to steal it. But he is going to fail because we are going to stop him." All we can tell is that "stopping him" means organizing people to vote in large numbers, and join a local Twin Cities rapid response text chain. This kind of thing can be important in defending people's right to vote at the polling places but will not hold up to Trump's multi-faceted coup.

The flagship protest was held in Minnesota to celebrate the righteous resistance there against ICE's surge, but as beautiful and heroic as this has been, it is not enough. While we do have to defend people's rights and lives against Trump's fascist terror, this needs to be part of going on the offensive to drive the Trump fascist regime from power. 

But there’s an even more fundamental reason why relying on the Democratic Party to fight this fascist regime is a loser. The Democratic Party is a political party of the ruling class of U.S. capitalism-imperialism. They are working to maintain the stability and functioning of this system and are opposed to this fascism from that perspective. This is why they capitulate again and again and again. This is why they refuse to call out the illegitimacy of Trump fascism. This is why they train people to think about what is in the best interests of the American people, and not the people of the world. As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has argued and proven, repeatedly "Democratic Party politicians may contribute to the crucial struggle against Trump/MAGA fascism—but the Democratic Party will not, and cannot, lead this struggle where it needs to go." (See his social media messages Revolution #119 and the two part playlist, “Not the courts, and not the Democratic Party: Decent people, mobilizing massively and relentlessly, are the force that must be relied on to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism”).

Delusion 2: The Root of the Problem is “The Oligarchs”

Another major theme of protest organizers, and taken up widely by people, is the idea that what we are facing is "oligarchy" or "the billionaire class." The next major day of protest being called for is May Day. The theme of this protest is "workers over billionaires." A year ago, Avakian spoke to exactly this same line of argumentation in a social media message, Revolution #114: “Defeating Trump/MAGA fascism: Looking to some future elections... or working now to mobilize millions around this powerful unifying demand: The Trump fascist regime must go!”: 

The specific and essential thing that is represented and is being enforced by the Trump regime is not “oligarchy,” it is not “billionaires”: it is fascism.

Fascism is a qualitatively different way that this system enforces its rule over people.

Trump fascism is a regime that openly and aggressively strips away basic rights and blatantly declares that there is no rule of law and due process of law other than what it dictates, and that raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.

It is a regime that is bent on unleashing unregulated and unfettered capitalist plunder, and in the pursuit of that takes a sledgehammer (or chainsaw) to crucial programs and services that people depend on—ruining livelihoods, wrecking science and health care, undermining and perverting education, and creating chaos that will cause huge numbers of people to suffer, here and all over the world.

A fascist regime like this requires someone like Donald Trump as its head: a pathological maniac, with his finger on the nuclear button, who appoints dangerous madmen and power-mad parasites to key positions of power.

The dominant Democratic Party strategy of appealing to “economic populism” will not succeed in bringing about the defeat of this fascism by winning over Trump supporters who are supposedly motivated by economic concerns.

At his rallies against “Oligarchy,” Bernie Sanders has revived the “Occupy” formula of the “99 percent” against the “one percent” of super-rich. But the problem is that nearly half of the “99 percent” are fascists. Why? Because, as I have pointed out before, it is not just their economic position but also their social position that they are worked up about. For the ranks of the MAGA fascists, even beyond their economic situation, a powerful, perverse motivating factor is their insistence on white supremacy and male supremacy, hatred of LGBT people and of immigrants (especially immigrants from “shithole countries,” in Trump’s disgusting racist terms). This is what these fascists mean by “Make America Great Again.” And all this is wrapped up with and driven by blatant lies, anti-scientific lunacy and crazed conspiracy theories—with vulnerable groups made into targets of hatred and persecution, like immigrants denounced as “dangerous criminals” and trans people treated as perverted predators.

As for “oligarchy” and “billionaires,” the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party, receives heavy financing from the super-rich, heads of corporations, and so on. Even more fundamentally, both of these parties are instruments of the system of capitalism-imperialism, which is based on mercilessly exploiting billions of people, and enforcing literally murderous oppression of masses of people, here and all over the world. This is why the Democratic Party, and those who are tied to or aligned with it, will never challenge the rule of Trump the way that is necessary in order to actually defeat it. For these “mainstream” (or so-called “progressive”) representatives of this system of capitalism-imperialism, the stability of this system, and the dominant position of U.S. imperialism in the world, is of greater concern than actually defeating Trump/MAGA fascism.

Ultimately and fundamentally, it is this whole system that needs to be swept away, through a revolution involving masses of people, determined to fight for a radically different, truly emancipating system (as spoken to in the document We Need And We Demand: A Whole New Way To Live, A Fundamentally Different System, which is available at revcom.us).

Right now, for decent people everywhere, and for the future of humanity, defeating this Trump/MAGA fascism is of profound importance, and an urgent need.

Delusion 3: Students and Youth Can "Sit This Out" 

While there were some people from younger generations at these protests, the people who came out were overwhelmingly older. First of all, kudos to all those who see the danger and the need to act. But for everyone else who stayed home: this is unacceptable. Standing aside in the face of Trump's genocidal global rampage and fascist terror is complicity. Every high school and college campus needs to be an anti-fascist organizing hub, and there should've been huge contingents out and representing. But instead, too many young people are either ignoring what's happening or doomscrolling at home while pretending helplessness with the whole future on the line.

In his major new presentation, Humanity on the Brink: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way out of the Madness, Avakian speaks sharply about the "Students and 'Educated Youth'":

Some have told me that I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it anyway: The absence of college students, as a general phenomenon, from the crucial struggle against the Trump fascist regime is a disgrace. And I’m going to go on to say: If this were happening in earlier times—for example, the time of the civil rights and Black liberation struggles, and the anti-war movement of the 1960s—every campus across the country would have been shut down and students would be flooding into the streets in sustained protest.

After digging into the material and ideological factors that have fed this situation, he poses this challenge:

All that I’ve said about “disgrace,” and so on, should be taken as a prod to transform this. It would be a great thing for other generations to surpass “the '60s generation.” Take this up as a challenge. Break out of the confines, both material and ideological, and join in the struggle against the Trump fascist regime and for a better world through revolution. 

What Is Urgently Needed

We cannot afford "protest as usual" while this fascist regime is moving to lock in their grip on the future. No one should learn to live with this, or get comfortable just letting off steam. Instead, people need to seriously confront what it is we are facing and come together with others to stop the whole fascist trajectory. Doing this means uniting all who can be united to drive this fascist regime from power through nonviolent but determined and sustained protest of millions.

There is also extreme urgency in looking deeper into the fact that it is this system that has given rise to Trump/MAGA fascism and so many other horrors. There is urgency in thinking outside and beyond the killing confines of this system to grapple with the need, and profound basis, for a radically different system brought about through a revolutionary struggle. The concrete blueprint and sweeping vision for this system is concretized in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. 

There was real openness to this discussion amidst yesterday's protest, and this openness and serious debate needs to spread quickly.

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!

THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS ROTTEN AND ILLEGITIMATE—
WE NEED AND WE DEMAND A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, 
A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM!