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The matter was settled. The founders broke from monarchy and built a republic ruled by law. The crown was thrown aside. But the desire to be ruled is persistent. It lives on, waiting for someone willing to claim it.

That someone has come. Donald J. Trump is testing the idea that a president can rule as a king. He promises vengeance, demands loyalty, and uses the law as a weapon. He does not try to disguise his ambition. He seeks to be king in a republic built to prevent it.

Even if there exists a desire to be ruled, absent him that old instinct would remain only a shadow. It is Trump’s deliberate reach for unchecked power that has given it shape and created followers. He has turned his private appetites into a public movement, inviting his subjects to trade the work of self-government for the comfort of obedience.

A Counter-Movement

Thankfully, not everyone is following. Across the country, a different movement has been growing since January. It is a movement for democracy. It is a movement for the rule of law. It is a movement to rescue our nation.

The Hands Off protests in early spring called out the politicization of justice and the threats to constitutional norms. Then came No Kings 1 in June, one of the largest public protests in American history, when millions filled public squares to defend the rule of law.

Now No Kings 2 is planned for October 18, a visible declaration that this republic still belongs to the people, not to a tyrant.

These rallies are not small. Political scientist Erica Chenoweth and her Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard have tracked participation in democracy-related protests throughout the year. Their data show that more Americans have demonstrated in 2025 than at the same point in Trump’s first term.

The numbers tell the story: America is awake.

Judge J. Michael Luttig has given this awakening another voice. On Independence Day he issued a new declaration — a list of self-evident truths of freedom and of tyranny. He traced the founders’ grievances against King George III to today’s abuses of power: contempt for courts, corrosion of truth, and the pursuit of personal immunity. Judge Luttig plainly lays out the fundamental strength of American democracy, and why it is antithetical to what we now see:

“The genius of the American experiment in self-governance is that ‘We the People,‘ not the government, possess all power and we govern ourselves by representational democracy. We entrust our power to our government to exercise on our behalf in the interests of our nation. To ensure that our government faithfully exercises the power we entrust it with, we the American people ordained and established government by law, instead of by kings.”

The appeal of kingship, especially when cynically manipulated by a would-be ruler, is simple. It promises clarity in confusion and order in chaos. It lets people believe that someone else will do the hard work of holding the world together.

The promise is false. Democracy is shared responsibility, not surrender. It is willingness to argue, to lose, to begin again. Its strength lies not in a single voice but in our collective refusal to kneel.

On October 18, when citizens gather for No Kings 2, they will be doing the most important work that our American democracy now requires. They will be standing where others can see them. They will be saying that allegiance belongs to the Constitution, not to a man who claims he alone can fix everything.

The danger of this moment lies not only in Trump’s desire to be a king but in the temptation of some to accept it.

Let the rallies be a reminder:

That America must have no throne.