On Oct. 18, the “No Kings” protests took place across all 50 states, with an estimated seven million Americans showing up to protest the actions of American President Donald Trump. Ranking as the largest single day protest in American history after the previous No Kings protest in June, participants agreed upon the overreach of President Trump in his ongoing second term.
Progressive news outlet Brut Media posted a video on TikTok on Oct. 18 asking some of the protestors to describe the Democratic party in one word. “Spineless,” “incompetent,” “weak,” “shameful,” “disappointing,” were among just a few of the answers provided.
Why is it that so many of these protesters feel so negative about their own party?
The answer: Democrats no longer seem like the right fit in the eyes of the working class.
One thing nearly every interviewed protestor shared via Brut Media was a feeling of strong dissatisfaction with the urgency of the Democrats in response to Donald Trump’s executive overreach in the three branches of government. As the actions of Trump grow more radical and extensive, it seems to the protesters that Democrats don’t budge in their retaliations.
The problem lies within this label: “moderate.” A label that well over half of congressional Democrats identify with, Moderate Democrats, or sometimes called New Democrats. These labels root all the way back to Bill Clinton, who wanted to appeal to independent voters who worried that welfare policies from older progressives were too semblant of Communism in the shadow of the Cold War.
Since President Clinton, both Barack Obama and Joe Biden both opted to maintain the “Moderate Democrat” stance in their campaigns and presidencies. When Kamala Harris accepted her nomination for candidacy in the 2024 presidential election, just about every poll showed her leading against then-former President Donald Trump, and it seemed like there would be another 4 years of Moderate Democrat control.
What resulted in the November election was a devastating blow to the Democrats; Trump won in every single swing state and Republicans earned a majority in both chambers of Congress.
This supposed upset has been deliberated by many political scientists trying to understand exactly where Harris went wrong in her campaign. One thing that almost all analysts attribute to her loss, however, is her lack of an overall compelling stance on, well, literally anything.
Donald Trump, despite his largely controversial and questionable propositions, brought answers to the insecurities of the voter population. Whether or not these answers were the right ones was unimportant, as Kamala Harris failed to provide the same sort of resolution to her potential voters and she left many of her supporters not necessarily wanting to vote for her, but only really wanting to not vote for Trump.
William Galston of the Brookings Institution, for example, argued that “by refusing to explain why she had abandoned the progressive positions on crime, immigration, health care, and climate change, she blurred the public’s perception of her.” Why exactly she was hesitant to embrace these progressive positions would not have reversed the damage done by refusing them, but it is likely that she was compelled to maintain moderacy against her best wishes by President Biden during her campaign.
Regardless, this loss was celebrated by Trump and his new administration as the end of the “woke era” of the United States, seeming to imply that Americans would welcome his right-wing reformations of the federal government with open arms and excitement.
On the contrary, President Trump currently sits at a staggering 41% approval rating according to opinion polls by Gallup News, The Economist, Reuters, and other aggregate sources.
Don’t be mistaken, this isn’t the era of the Democrats either; a late September YouGov poll shows Congress Democrats sit at an even lower 34% approval rating.
So, whose era is it? What do the American people want?
A young state assemblyman from New York City might have the answer; the democratic-socialist Zohran Mamdani doesn’t need an introduction for anyone following American politics. Mamdani shocked the entire nation with his victory against a mostly centrist Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Mamdani put on a campaigning masterclass in the race against the centrist, but it wasn’t just his social media skills and parades that led him to victory.
Zohran’s promises of free buses, a freeze on rent prices, state owned grocery stores, and a $30 minimum wage sounded to many like a dangerous place to tread; as they sounded like socialist policies. Because they are!
His success came from eroding the negative connotation of the word “socialist” that many Americans have adopted from the post-Cold War era; by embracing his progressive policies and worrying about labels later, he found the key to what these No Kings protestors have been looking for in their Democratic representatives: he actually stood for something.
He didn’t back down on his stance when met with resistance to the label assigned to it; he didn’t look for careful compromises to appeal to everyone’s listening. Instead, he offered an answer. Not a mush of some conservative, some progressive, but rather completely and truly his own voice. And most New Yorkers came to like it!
While Mamdani-style policies won’t be the answer for every single area and every politician, taking a firm stance on what to do to help constituents and answer their insecurities is the first step, a mark that most Democrats have missed for some time and can’t afford to miss this next time around during 2026 midterms. One thing that voters are undeniably tired of is choosing between “Trump” and “Not Trump” at every election. Democrats can no longer stop at simply being Not Trump.
The No Kings protests can tell us one thing about the future for Democrats: not choosing progressive policies is choosing to not take a stance at all against the far-right policies of the Trump administration and ultimately tells voters that the Democrats simply don’t have a compelling solution to their problems.
The path forward for Democrats is to take the stage with confidence and with a voice that can answer concerns not with strategic appeals, but instead with understanding, addressing, and listening to voter’s issues, and inspiring hope in every American with policies that they can, in any case, trust.
