No Kings protests won’t change anything without real sacrifice

The author argues that short, low-cost protest actions—like afternoon “No Kings” rallies—fall far short of the sustained boycotts and sit-ins that produced real policy change in the past. The piece draws a direct line between today’s digital activism and the f

On June 14, many Americans plan to show up for an afternoon protest under the slogan “No Kings,” then go home. It will be the president’s birthday, and there will be yet another rally—loud, visible, and, the author argues, unlikely to move the needle.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, by contrast, lasted 13 months. It wasn’t a single day of attention. It was a long disruption of everyday routine—carpooling. walking. watching each other’s kids. leaving home earlier and getting back later—so that people could desegregate a public transit system in a single city. The author points to that kind of sustained sacrifice as the standard modern protest efforts keep refusing.

“There’s a phrase for this kind of action: Doing the bare minimum,” the author writes, describing a cycle that includes calls to protest for a day, boycott for a day, stay silent for a day, wear a color for a day, and post once on social media—followed by the same question: why nothing changes.

The piece leans into an uncomfortable comparison: the lunch counter sit-ins in the South weren’t an afternoon interruption either. Those college students didn’t treat hostility as a passing inconvenience. The author describes what they endured—food being dumped on them. being punched and kicked. spit on. and called racial slurs—and says they went back again and again rather than claiming victory after one appearance.

That historical contrast frames the central argument of the op-ed: real change demands more than performance, and it demands costs people are currently avoiding.

The author argues that today’s activism can even feed the people it targets. While the country’s political system is described as increasingly shaped by billionaires, the piece says the money keeps flowing. It argues that President Donald Trump has “free rein” partly because billionaires bankrolling his world continue to profit. and that power will crack only when those backers stop making money.

That’s where the author turns to social media and the economics of attention. The essay traces the rise of slacktivism to Facebook, calling it quick, effortless, and costless. It cites campaigns and habits that it describes as symbolic rather than disruptive: posting about Kony 2012. hashtagging #BringBackOurGirls. and posting a black square on Instagram.

The author then describes deleting X while keeping other platforms. The personal story is used to underline the point: after references to what many interpreted as Elon Musk’s “Nazi salute” and Musk’s role in DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). the author says friends asked whether they would sell a Tesla. The author says the car was already paid off. and choosing not to sell it—rather than going into new debt—didn’t meaningfully change the story on Musk’s side.

Instead, the author says they deleted X and “watched as Americans who claim to despise Musk kept their accounts anyway.” The piece argues that selling a paid-off car would have “changed nothing,” while abandoning Musk’s platform would not.

The criticism goes further. The author argues that social media echo chambers make people feel like they are making a difference. when the measurable result is enrichment for the platforms themselves. The essay claims that for all the “resistance” work liberals have done online. there has been exactly one definitive outcome: Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg “have gotten extraordinarily rich.” It portrays a common loop—insulting Musk on X. screenshotting it. reposting on Threads and Instagram—as engagement that still benefits the very platforms driving profit.

It also points to a moment of broken promises: it says Facebook once ran an ad acknowledging that it had turned people against each other and sold their data. promising to do better—and then argues the company did not keep that promise. The author says the response from many users was staying and using Facebook even more.

The piece then turns from personal choices to a hypothetical that’s meant to feel operational rather than symbolic. It asks what would happen if everyone who opposes Trump deleted Instagram. Facebook. WhatsApp. X. and TikTok for a year. stopped using Amazon. and truly walked away. The author argues the impact of that kind of nonparticipation would be bigger than protesting for a single day.

To support the idea that nonparticipation works. the author invokes Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. and “countless others. ” saying nonparticipation was a central weapon for successful protest movements. The through-line. the author says. is that these efforts didn’t happen in a day. over a weekend. or when it was convenient. They took time and sacrifice.

The essay also cites research: it says research has shown that when just 3.5% of a population engages in sustained nonviolent resistance—including boycotts and nonparticipation—serious change becomes nearly inevitable. It then pushes the thought experiment: imagine half the American population sustaining that resistance for six months or a year.

In that scenario, the author argues the pressure would land where it hurts—on the billionaires assumed to have taken control of Washington. It proposes that a sustained drop in users and revenue would test shareholders and how billionaires protect their net worth.

The tension throughout the piece is clear: the protests people are planning are visible and immediate. but the target—profit. engagement. and customer behavior—moves on a different timeline. The author’s point is that a sign held for two hours doesn’t alter the mechanisms that bankroll political power.

The essay draws a hard line in practical terms. It says nobody is asking people to boycott a bus or take a beating at a lunch counter. Still, it argues that ordinary people could bring “a few billionaires to their knees” with discipline and patience.

Where the argument lands is the question the author believes many people are asking on June 14: if the country is “on the brink” and democracy is under pressure, why is the response still so easy to complete?

The author closes with a direct challenge: demand more of yourself than a day of protest, a repost, a like, or another lap around a billionaire’s digital universe. Change, the piece insists, won’t come from something that costs almost nothing.

Joslin Joseph is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq.

No Kings protests Montgomery Bus Boycott digital activism slacktivism social media economics Elon Musk Meta Mark Zuckerberg Facebook X nonviolent resistance boycott political power billionaire influence U.S. economy investors