The No Kings organizers have a rule: no partisan slogans, no candidate endorsements. It is a sensible rule, and it is also being used as a hiding place.
Begin with what the rule does well. A rally that welcomes the retired Republican, the nervous independent and the first-time marcher is stronger than one that checks party registration at the door. Earlier No Kings days drew millions by organizers' count, and a crowd that size doesn't come from a party apparatus. It comes from people who never wanted to be an apparatus. Keeping candidates and campaign slogans off the signs protects that coalition. It also reflects a real distinction: refusing to bow to a would-be king is not the same as loyalty to a party.
But the distinction has limits, and spokespeople are straining it. When Nayely Cruz Hernandez and Nadine Seiler call these protests partisan, they are describing what many people in the crowd know. Indivisible's leaders, Ezra Levin among them, have openly discussed backing Democratic candidates and aiming activists' fire at Trump. Meanwhile the organization says partisan activity by attendees is "not affiliated." With the midterms weeks away, that sounds less like principle than like a lawyer's sentence.
The Right's critics will pounce, and they will be half right. The "nonpartisan" label is a branding choice, and it invites the charge that this is a Democratic field operation in a nicer coat. I would rather the movement take that charge on directly than flinch from it.
Here is the honest case. One of America's two major parties has chosen to be the instrument of Donald Trump's presidency. Its congressional majorities have declined to check him on one power grab after another. In that situation, a movement against unaccountable executive power will, in an election, favor the candidates who would restore accountability. That is not bias. It is arithmetic. If a movement says the abuse of power must be checked, then refuses to say who might check it, it is protesting as theater.
Nonpartisan can be defended in an honest form. It means: we do not exist to elect Democrats, and we will oppose Democrats who abuse power too. It means the movement's loyalty is to a principle, not a party's fortunes. It does not mean pretending that voting is irrelevant to the cause, or that a rally against Trump has no electoral meaning.
The Right has no standing to lecture here. Its own movements have run on the same blend of grassroots energy, nonprofit infrastructure and obvious partisan alignment for decades. The Tea Party never faced a purity test from the people now demanding one of No Kings. Turning Point and a thousand church-based voter drives do not refuse the label of civic engagement because they happen to help Republicans.
The warning also runs the other way, and Democrats should hear it. This movement is not their property. Many marchers are there precisely because they felt the party's institutions were too timid, too slow and too fond of decorum while democratic norms were stripped away. If Democratic leaders treat the crowds as free canvassers and then govern as if nothing happened, the nonpartisan streak in the movement will turn into something harder: contempt.
So my advice to organizers is to keep the rule and drop the coyness. Keep the rallies broad, the signs free of candidates and the discipline tight. Then say plainly that opposing a king means voting, and that this November voting means something specific. A movement can protect its big tent and still tell the truth about which way the tent faces.
People came out by the millions because they were tired of being managed with half-truths. They deserve better than a half-truth from the movement that speaks for them.
