This article will be updated throughout the weekend with on-the-ground reports, photographs and videos from demonstrations across the United States and internationally.
Mass “No Kings” protests draw millions across US and around the world
The third round of the mass “No Kings” demonstrations on Saturday drew millions of people into the streets across the United States and internationally in what appears to have been the broadest expression yet of popular opposition to the Trump administration.
According to the Democratic Party-aligned 50501 Movement, more than 8 million people participated in over 3,300 locations nationwide, making it, in their words, “the largest single-day protest in modern American history.” The organization stated that 600 of the protests took place in mostly rural, Republican-leaning communities, underscoring the breadth of opposition to the Trump regime and its policies of oligarchy, dictatorship, war and anti-immigrant repression.
The largest demonstration took place in the Twin Cities, where 50501 organizers said more than 200,000 people attended. Many in Minneapolis carried signs memorializing Renée Good and Alex Pretti, US citizens murdered by the immigration Gestapo earlier this year.
Large demonstrations were also reported in major urban centers across the country, including an estimated 350,000 in New York City along with tens of thousands in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas, alongside rallies in smaller towns and rural areas. The scale of the protests points to a deep and growing social anger that extends far beyond the framework of official politics.
Demonstrations and solidarity rallies were held in Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy and other countries. This international scope reflected the broader reality that the issues driving people into the streets are not exclusively American but expressions of a deepening global crisis of capitalism.
While the official “No Kings” organizers either downplayed or ignored the illegal US war against Iran in their public framing of the demonstrations, anti-war sentiment was visible at every protest. Alongside signs denouncing ICE raids, deportations and attacks on immigrants, demonstrators across the country carried placards opposing war and chanting against both militarism abroad and repression at home.
If there was a slogan that rivaled “No Kings” in frequency and intensity, it was “No ICE, No wars.” This reflected the real political consciousness developing among broad layers of the population: the understanding that dictatorship at home and imperialist violence abroad are two sides of the same class policy.
The presence of Democratic Party politicians and trade union bureaucrats at some of the largest rallies was aimed at subordinating this opposition to capitalist politics. In Minneapolis, speakers included Senator Bernie Sanders, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, SEIU President April Verrett and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Their role was not to develop an independent movement against dictatorship, war and social inequality but to channel mass opposition back behind the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracies, institutions that defend capitalism and have facilitated the growth of the far right.
Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site and members of the Socialist Equality Party intervened at demonstrations throughout the world where they advanced a socialist perspective to halt the drive towards World War III and end the reign of the oligarchy.
David North barred from speaking at “No Kings” rally in Nuremberg, Germany
World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North was prevented from speaking Saturday at the “No Kings” rally in Nuremberg, Germany, after organizers, who had said there would be an open mic, blocked him from addressing the crowd because he intended to condemn the illegal US war against Iran and the Democratic Party’s support for it.
In video of the confrontation, Democratic Party-aligned organizers repeatedly refused to say whether North would be allowed to speak. One told him it was a “non-partisan event,” to which North replied, “Does that include allowing a socialist to speak?” Another responded, “Thank you, no kings.” North answered, “We don’t have a king, we have an oligarchy, which is bipartisan, run by both political parties, and you have a war going on in which thousands of people are dying.”
North then explained the significance of what was taking place: “I’m not being allowed to speak because I was going to speak against the war in Iran, which is supported by the Democratic Party.”
Addressing WSWS readers after being denied the microphone, North continued: “This is why Trump dominates the country, because there is a phony opposition in which the Democratic Party is in a bipartisan alliance with Trump to block any opposition to the war in Iran.”
North added that, had he been permitted to speak, he would have recalled the historic significance of Nuremberg itself. “What I would have said, had I had the opportunity, is that this city, 80 years ago, was the site of the Nuremberg trials, where those who were responsible for World War II were tried for crimes against peace—the same crimes which are being committed today by the American government.”
At Romulus, Michigan rally, immigration attorney Eric Lee calls for working class movement against detention camps, dictatorship
Immigration attorney and Socialist Equality Party member Eric Lee spoke at the “No Kings” rally in Romulus, Michigan, where he detailed the horrific conditions immigrants, including his clients in the El-Gamal family, have endured at the Dilley detention center in south Texas.
The family, including 5-year-old twins, a 9-year-old, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, along with their mother, have been held for more than nine months at the concentration camp, where they have endured inadequate medical care, abusive guards and inedible food. After speaking out against these deplorable conditions, guards separated the 18-year-old from the rest of the family.
“This goes beyond negligence and ‘bad apples,’” Lee said. “This is a systemic effort by the federal government to carry out child abuse, to kill detainees, to allow them to die. This is not just a moral issue. The Trump administration is attempting to establish a dictatorship in this country.”
But Lee warned that the fight to defend democratic rights cannot be subordinated to the Democratic Party. “If this movement is going to develop to actually bring to a close and to criminally prosecute every single ICE official and White House official who’s responsible for carrying out this attack on the rights of immigrants, for assassinating American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis, it’s going to require a movement that takes an entirely different orientation than an orientation to the Democratic Party, which is responsible for the very laws that allow for the mass detention that exists in this country.
“Dilley was opened by the Obama administration. It was kept open by the Biden administration. The laws that exist in this country that keep immigrants out of federal court—the 1996 laws—were passed almost unanimously, and in fact that fight was led by the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration in 1996.”
Lee concluded by appealing to the crowd: “Study the history of this country. Study the history of the struggle against fascism in Germany and Spain, because what this country needs is a mass movement from below based in the working class.”
Protest fills Norfolk, Virginia’s Town Point Park
Some 500 people gathered in Town Point Park in Norfolk, Virginia. A Socialist Equality Party table featured literature and placards calling for a general strike against the Trump government.
Isaiah, a truck driver, spoke in support of a general strike.
“It’s amazing that we are talking about a general strike, which is exactly what we need to do. A lot of people think that voting is going to stop this, but it’s two parties of the same system. They do the exact same thing. If we’re about ICE, about Israel, all these things, both parties are going to be in support of those things.”
Isaiah added, “I pull containers right out of the port here in Norfolk, and I guarantee you, if most truckers stopped going into these ports, all of the corporations within a 200-mile radius will cease functioning.”
In Los Angeles, anti-Trump anger collides with Democratic Party control
In Los Angeles, thousands took part in the city’s “No Kings” demonstration. On the one hand, there was widespread and genuine opposition to the Trump administration and its reactionary policies, including anger over the war in Iran, mass deportations, attacks on democratic rights and the Democratic Party’s complicity in enabling these measures. On the other hand, the event was heavily shaped by efforts by the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus, above all the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to control and politically contain the protest.
Large sections of the crowd expressed deep hostility not only to Trump but to the entire political establishment. Many participants spoke of worsening social conditions, including the soaring cost of living, the housing crisis and declining real wages. There was a palpable sense that neither party represents the interests of working people. One participant, Mary, captured this sentiment succinctly, describing the Democrats as “Republican light.”
This oppositional mood found no expression in the official messaging of the event. Instead, Democratic Party-aligned organizations and union officials saturated the demonstration with voter registration drives and promotional material for a so-called “billionaires tax” ballot initiative. The measure was presented as a progressive answer to inequality, while its real function is to divert social anger into safe electoral channels.
At the same time, the city’s Democratic Party-controlled administration made clear that it was preparing for repression. In advance of the protest, authorities installed swinging gates along sections of the 101 Freeway in anticipation of possible unrest and the need for rapid containment. As the demonstration unfolded, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a citywide tactical alert, citing “incidents occurring on Alameda between Aliso and Temple” in the downtown area near the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility.
Police moved quickly to assert control, announcing on social media that arrests were being carried out on Alameda Street for “failure to disperse.” Officers forcibly removed journalists, including a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, warning that “mass arrests” were imminent.
March 28 “No Kings” protests: The fight against the war on Iran is at the center of the fight against Trump’s dictatorship
This statement was distributed at “No Kings” demonstrations throughout the US and internationally.
Workers and young people are marching across the United States Saturday in the third round of “No Kings” demonstrations. More than 7,000 events are planned in all 50 states. Together with the massive anti-ICE protests that swept Minneapolis and cities across the country in January 2026, these mobilizations express enormous social and political opposition to the Trump administration.
The question that must now be answered is: Toward what end and on what political basis must this opposition be developed?
Opposition to the escalating war against Iran must be placed at the center of opposition to the Trump regime. Under the standards established at the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War, the initiation of a war of aggression is the “supreme international crime.” Those who launched it are war criminals. And those who—in Congress, in the media and in the political establishment—are providing it political cover are accomplices in these crimes.
The war is now in its fourth week, and the trajectory points unmistakably toward a massive escalation. At least 2,200 U.S. Marines have been deployed to the region. The 82nd Airborne Division is being readied. Trump’s supposed “15-point plan” for peace was designed to be rejected by Iran and to serve as a pretext for a ground invasion.
The consequences of a land war against Iran, a country of more than 90 million people, would dwarf anything the American people have been told to expect. And underlying all of this is the danger of nuclear war. The Trump administration has pointedly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Iran.
The human cost is already staggering. Thousands of Iranian civilians have been killed in the bombing campaign. The escalation of the war will mean tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranian dead, along with thousands of US soldiers. The economic consequences are already being felt throughout the world economy: Oil prices have risen 35 percent since the Strait of Hormuz was closed, driving up the cost of fuel, food and every commodity whose production and transport depend on energy.
Click here to read the rest of the perspective.