At 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18, Northfield residents took to Ames Park to gather for a No Kings rally.
No Kings is a nationwide movement of protests against the Trump administration and its policies. According to organizers, an estimated seven million people rallied in more than 2,700 protests across all 50 states on Saturday, making it the largest mobilization during Trump’s presidency. In Minnesota alone, No Kings events were held in dozens of cities, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester and Northfield.
“I think it’s safe to say that America is upset,” said Bea Culligan ’26, president of Carleton Democrats (CarlDems). “Nothing is getting to everyday Americans to make their lives better. Nothing is getting cheaper. We are seeing mass deportations. We are seeing the military operating and invading, frankly, blue cities. We are seeing the trampling of civil liberties.”
The first national No Kings Day was held last June; an estimated five million people participated. There have since been significant developments in the Trump administration’s policies.
“I think to some degree ICE and the whole deportation process and the Supreme Court’s decision that allows police to stop people for their ethnicity [will be focused on]… The other thing they’re going to probably protest is the deployment of National Guard forces to cities,” said political science professor Greg Marfleet.
The messaging of No Kings reflects a growing fear of authoritarianism in the United States during the Trump administration.
“What the No Kings thing is really about is that they look like they’re trying to move towards one-party rule, and that they’ve managed to get the Supreme Court to step to the side and let them do things that no Supreme Court would have ever let anybody else do,” said assistant political science professor Ryan Dawkins.
CarlDems has conducted many of the No Kings promotions at Carleton. These promotions included campus announcement emails and poster-making sessions.
“We’re spreading the word and hoping to encourage students, and also Northfielders, to participate,” Culligan said.
Thousands of people — primarily Northfield residents but also some Carleton students — showed up with signs and listened to speeches from guest speakers and townspeople about how Trump’s policies have affected them and their communities.
“We invited Richard Painter, vice-chair for Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [CREW] and the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration, because he has unique expertise and perspective in discussing the corruption we’re seeing from the Trump administration,” said Julia Menard, one of the organizers of the Northfield No Kings rally. “We also look to people who can speak to how the current administration’s policies are affecting them: veterans, farmers, people of faith [and] people who are being adversely affected by Federal policy.”
“A lot of the speeches talked about how the current Trump administration is violating the Constitution by passing tariffs that are being approved by Congress or by using the military for domestic matters,” said Ingrid Liening ’29, who attended the Northfield rally.
Much of the rhetoric in the speeches focused on promoting connection between people of all different backgrounds.
“I think a lot of the speeches were catered to be more nonpartisan and more on fundamental values, not of a political party, but of people who believe in equality for everyone and in democracy,” Liening said.
While speakers in the rally did express criticism of Trump and his policies, many of them also focused on creating moments of hope and community. “I thought it was really powerful when everybody was singing at the same time or doing something together,” Liening said. “That feeling of like, we’re doing this for something that’s bigger than us. We’re here to show the rest of the people what we stand for and what we want to see.”
Menard emphasized that the effects of students’ activism often extend beyond themselves. “Courage is contagious,” she said. “By standing up, we enable others to stand up as well. When we all stand up as Americans, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. We can even defeat an authoritarian administration.”
In the aftermath of the protest, left-wing advocates on campus are looking towards the future.
“What I would really want out of No Kings is for people to come out with that feeling of wanting to be more involved with other things, like future protests, or getting involved with student organizations like SJP and What Now!,” said Junyoung Benjegerdes’26, president of What Now!, Carleton’s student-run leftist zine. “I don’t want people to just go and feel better about themselves, and then leave and not think about it.”