Psychotherapist Who Criticized ‘No Kings’ Protests Last Fall Writes in Anticipation of This Weekend’s Protests, Calling Them ‘Bad Group Therapy’
Last fall, when the utterly pointless ‘No Kings’ protests were first happening, a New York psychotherapist named Jonathan Alpert criticized them by noting that they were mostly made up of ‘educated white women.’ Whether or not he knew it at the time, he was referring to AWFLs (Affluent White Female Liberals.)
This weekend, the ‘No Kings’ folks are coming back for another bite at the apple. No one knows exactly what they expect to accomplish, other than continuing their years-long temper tantrum over the presidency of Donald Trump, but they will be in public spaces all over the country tomorrow, waving signs and screaming dumb, meaningless slogans.
In anticipation of this, psychotherapist named Jonathan Alpert has returned, and has written a column about these protests, which he calls ‘bad group therapy.’ It’s just perfect.
He writes at the Wall Street Journal:
‘No Kings’: Politics as Bad Group Therapy
After a “No Kings” rally last October, I was walking through the area and paused to read the signs. A woman asked me, “Aren’t these great?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I kind of like some of Trump’s policies.”
“Well, f— you then.”
The No Kings rallies are set to return Saturday—the third such round in the past year—built around a slogan that suggests Americans are living under something closer to tyranny than democracy. It’s a striking claim for a country that fought a revolution to overthrow a king and hasn’t had one since. Still, it’s revealing. It reflects a broader shift in how political disagreement is understood—not as a clash of views, but as a struggle between victims and villains.
The U.S. remains what it has long been: a contentious, often frustrating democracy shaped by competing interests and imperfect leadership. But describing it in more dramatic terms raises the emotional stakes. It transforms ordinary political conflict into something more absolute—and more psychologically satisfying.
In my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen a parallel change in how people interpret their personal lives. Feelings are increasingly treated not as signals to examine but as conclusions to affirm. Discomfort is no longer something to work through but something to explain—often by projecting blame onto an external source. This mindset doesn’t stay in the therapy room. It has begun to shape political life, and the No Kings rallies offer a framework that favors affirmation over scrutiny: a clean moral narrative in which there are those who are wronged, and those responsible for the wrongdoing.
That is a perfect summation of what is happening.
In the last few years, you may have heard people describe shows like Colbert and Kimmel as ‘late night group therapy for libs.’
The ‘No Kings’ protests are merely an extension of that same premise. These people feel like they just have to ‘do something’ in order to make themselves feel better about the fact that Trump’s 2024 victory means they are actually in the minority and that no one is listening to them.
Because they aren’t.
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