On October 18, 2025, the United States welcomed the third national protest since Trump's return to the White House, and the largest.
This activity with the core appeal of "No King" covered more than 2,700 locations in 50 states across the United States, with 7 million participants.Set a record scale of American protests in nearly six decades.
A report released on October 16 by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Politics further pointed out that the geographical coverage of the protest reached a historical peak.
Protests even penetrated into many of the Crimson States that had previously firmly supported Trump, breaking traditional regional and party boundaries.
Just the day before the protest broke out, Trump firmly predicted in an interview with Fox News that the number of people participating in the protest would be "very small".
In addition, he has repeatedly denied the label given by the outside world as a "king". "They say they compare me to a king, but I am not a king."
As soon as he finished speaking, he left Washington for a vacation at Mar-a-Lago Estate in Florida, where nearly 700 people held protests.
More controversial was Trump’s response on the night of 18th, when he posted an ironic video of AI generated on social media.
In the picture, he wears a golden crown on his head, drives a fighter jet with the inscription "King Trump" and "runs mud" toward the protesters.
This insulting video instantly fermented on the Internet. Protesters thought it was a blatant contempt for peaceful demonstrations, and the already tense social sentiment was further intensified.
Some protest organizers bluntly said that this response was more hurtful than silence. “It made us see that our voices were not heard at all.”
Such a huge protest team did not gather suddenly. Everyone who took to the streets carried long-accumulated dissatisfaction.
The root causes of these dissatisfaction have long penetrated into every aspect of American life and finally erupted completely under the trigger of the government shutdown.
The nature of public protest
Economic pressure is the first mountain on the people. The "reciprocal tariff" policy implemented by the Trump administration has caused the average import tariff of the United States to soar from the original 2.5% to 25%.
Calculations by the Yale University Budget Laboratory show that this policy has put an additional annual burden on each American family of $3800. The prices of daily necessities have risen one after another, and the inflation rate has been rising.
At a protest rally in San Diego, the slogan, “Tariffs are taxing us” was especially vivid and accurately stamped the pain of the ordinary people.
Even more desperate for low-income groups is the fact that the government has also cut social welfare spending, and even disbanded the labor ministry, the ministry of education and other institutions responsible for people's livelihoods, and the families that depended on welfare livelihoods instantly lost their support.
The federal government shutdown lasted for 18 days, aggravating the people's livelihoods.
About 0 federal employees in "non-essential positions" have been forced to take unpaid leave, There are still hundreds of thousands of “necessary jobs” that can only work unpaid.
Salt Lake City International Airport has dedicated food distribution stations to provide food and daily supplies to federal employees at the airport for free because they have no money to maintain their basic lives.
More dangerously, about 1,400 key employees of the NSA responsible for upgrading the nuclear arsenal have also been forced on leave.
In addition, tens of thousands of federal court employees are unpaid, resulting in large delays in civil proceedings.The entire society is slowing down.
What is more disturbing than economic pressure is the fear of power across boundaries.
Melissa, a resident of Texas, always takes her passport with her when she goes out, for fear that agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau will arrest people in the street. She admits that "this is reminiscent of what happened in Germany before".
Sean, a veteran of the Iraq War, took part in the protest for the first time in his life.
He couldn't accept the practice of "detaining immigrants without due process and deploying troops in American cities" and felt that it was "not in line with the American spirit".
The Trump administration was also exposed to threatening to withhold $9 billion in federal funds, The University of Harvard has called for the abolition of the “diversity, equality and inclusion” program.
This interference in academic freedom has made the public see the shadow of power expansion.
When the voices of 7 million people gathered together, this protest had already gone beyond the scope of street demonstrations.
It began to have a chain reaction from the social, political and international levels, forcing the United States to face its own deep crisis.
Chaos amid the wave of protests
The protests broke down traditional partisan barriers and formed a cross-party consensus, with many voters who had long supported the Republican Party publicly expressing disappointment that Trump had "changed the direction of the party."
In front of some of the deep red state parliamentary buildings, banners of “nothing more patriotic than protest” even appeared, demonstrating that discontent has penetrated Trump’s “iron ticket zone.”
There were also signs on the scene of the protest, saying that "both parties have deceived us."Alex, a construction worker in Virginia, said directly that “they have no confidence in the Democrats, they lack the spirit.”
Faced with this situation, Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives and a Republican, denounced the protest as a rally to "hate America" and discredited the participants as "members of Antifa" and "Marxists."
Democrats, including Senator Bernie Sanders, participated in the protests. But this did not win all popular recognition, and many people felt that the Democratic party "will only speak, no action."
Both parties are using government shutdowns to advance their own agenda, while the Republicans want to use the shutdowns to “soften the government” and are expected to cut more than 10,000 federal positions.
The Democratic Party wants to strengthen unity within the party through "rebellion" and prepare for next year's elections.
This uncompromising attitude makes it more and more likely that the government shutdown will continue. Some predictions say that its probability of breaking the longest record in history has reached 65%.
In addition to the U.S. embassies in cities such as Berlin, Rome, Paris and Sweden, people gathered to protest, holding slogans of “beware of new dictatorships” and “condemn fascism” in solidarity with the American people.
The scene is reminiscent of the transnational alarm clock during the rise of the Nazis, and the American image of democracy is being damaged.
Economic impacts are also spreading, with experts estimating that the government loses about $15 billion in U.S. GDP every week of shutdowns.
JPMorgan Chase analyzed that the release of key economic data was delayed due to the shutdown, allowing policymakers to "grope in the dark."
U.S. commercial banks are concerned that the chaos could affect the dollar’s dominance.
It is worth noting that this protest has always maintained a peaceful posture.
As of the evening of the 18th, the police in new york and Washington indicated that there were no large-scale arrests. In some places, some people even played guitars and took their children to participate. The atmosphere was calm but firm.
The Washington Post commented that this was the Americans "expressing their fiercest dissatisfaction in the most peaceful way."And the cohesion behind this kind of peace is precisely the force that makes the power class most uneasy.
conclusion
Trump's "I am not the king" excuse appears particularly pale in the bills of rising tariffs, in the meals of unpaid employees, and in the passports held by people.
The essence of this protest has never been directed against individual discontent, but the collective alertness of American society to power out of control, and the struggle to guard the bottom line of democracy.
The direction of the future is not about who will win the next election, but about whether it will bring power back to its rightful boundaries and make the voice of the people truly heard.