‘No Kings’ crowds don’t want more democracy — they want LESS

Watching the “No Kings” protests, a friend commented: “Democracy dies when the other side wins. Another rule they wouldn’t want to have turned back on them.”

That does seem to be the animating spirit not only of the various marches around the country, but of the entire anti-Trump resistance. 

President Donald Trump’s crime isn’t anything he’s said, or done, or even believed (which, all too often, anti-Trump protesters can’t cogently describe anyway). 

It’s that he won, and he represents the other team.

As Batya Ungar-Sargon put it: “The ‘No Kings’ rally isn’t protesting Trump but rather the agenda the majority of America voted for. The Left isn’t protesting a king but their fellow Americans. They aren’t standing up for democracy — they are protesting against it.”

This is entirely correct. Trump isn’t a king; he’s a popularly elected president who won in something of a landslide, delivering exactly the policies that he promised the electorate. 

His actions generally involve invoking various statutes acted into law by Congress over the past several decades.

His enforcement of immigration laws and deportation of criminal aliens is very popular. 

His ending of DEI policies is also very popular. So is his slashing of federal payrolls, and his cuts to foreign aid. 

Then there are his cuts to federal regulations.  And his support for law enforcement.

In fact, Trump is a “king” — or “dictator,” as we’re often told — whose actual program seems to involve shrinking the government he heads. That’s not the usual thing for autocrats.

Kings inherit their jobs; presidents are elected for a term. As Meghan McCain tweeted, “I don’t understand how Trump is a King when he won every single swing state, the electoral college and popular vote in a democratic election.”

Legal scholar Ilya Shapiro responded, “No no he’s a king by dismantling an administrative state that <checks notes> nobody voted for.”

That’s Trump’s real sin — carrying out the will of the voters.

Democrats know their policies are unpopular. That’s why they have to lie about everything from immigration to affirmative action to gun control. 

Democrats represent the administrative/professional class: bureaucrats, educators, academics, media people and, of course, a huge gaggle of useless nonprofit and foundation and NGO flunkies.

Their true program is to move more money and power into the hands of these groups and out of the hands of ordinary Americans, whom they regard with a mixture of fear and contempt.

During the COVID years, the same people who are out marching for “no kings” supported an endless array of dictatorial measures: lockdowns, firing people for not vaccinating, arresting people for being outside, arresting people for paddle-boarding in the ocean without a mask, arresting people for holding unlicensed religious services, etc.

These measures were all fine with the laptop class, which now sees in Trump an existential threat not to liberty, but to their position and, at least as important, their self-importance.

When Trump first took office in 2017, I noted that much of his opposition came from “gentry liberals” who suffered from status anxiety.

They valued their position at the top of the social order and the respect they got for their expertise.

Trump gave them no such respect, and undermined their positions. (Their “expertise,” as COVID underscored, was always overrated).

Now it’s much worse, of course. Trump 2.0 isn’t just belittling them and ignoring their advice and demands: He’s cutting off the money.

No sooner did he kill off the US Agency for International Development, which was basically a slush fund for lefty foundations and NGOs, than leftist organizations and even media businesses had to shut down for lack of funds.

And that’s just the beginning of what Trump has been doing.

He’s not just a threat to their self-image now; he’s a threat to the whole feedlot.

The anger toward him is also explained by understanding that pretty much the entire post-World War II institutional arrangement was designed to ensure that voters don’t get what they want. 

The administrative state makes regulations that have the force of law but that no one gets to vote on.

Important domestic-policy decisions are turned over to international organizations that are accountable to no one, even as they scarf up US taxpayer money.

Justice Department attorneys abuse their power to prosecute political opponents of the system while protecting the system’s made men. (And women). 

The No Kings protesters invoked Revolutionary War symbolism in support of their marches, but the true revolution here is that of Donald Trump, who’s taking apart unaccountable powers and returning power to the people. 

No wonder they hate him.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.