Landscape magazine cover showing ghostly Founding Fathers before Independence Hall, overlaid with tanks, crown, and storm clouds in a foreboding scene.

No Kings in America: The Constitutional Crisis at Democracy's Crossroads

No Kings in America: The Constitutional Crisis at Democracy’s Crossroads The day America chose sides At 2:30 PM on June 14, 2025, two competing visions of American power played out 200 miles apart. In Philadelphia, where the Constitution was written, protesters gathered with handmade signs reading “Federal Employees Don’t Work for Kings” and “He was elected president NOT KING.” Their voices rose in a chant that echoed across 248 years of American history: “No kings in America!” ...

Grim 18th-century-style oil painting of Trump as a crowned king on a throne, overseeing a joyless military parade of tanks and unhappy American soldiers.

The Last Constitutional Moment: America Chooses Between Kings and Democracy

On June 14, 2025, more than 2,000 protests are taking place across all 50 U.S. states in a nationwide event called “No Kings Day”. The demonstrations, organized by a coalition of over 150 groups including Indivisible and the ACLU, directly counter President Trump’s $45 million military parade and protest the policies of his second term. Organizers describe the mobilization as “the largest single-day, peaceful protest in recent American history”. The central message, captured on signs reading “He was elected president NOT KING,” is a direct response to President Trump’s recent embrace of monarchical rhetoric. In Philadelphia, one of the major demonstration sites, Pennsylvania criminal lawyer Holly Feeney stated her reason for marching: “I am just appalled at the lawlessness of this administration. Disappearing people is what authoritarian governments do, not democratic republics”. ...