No Kings in America, Real Resistance in Rome — How Liberal Democrats and AIPAC Allies Hijacked the Movement While Italy Actually Fights Empire and Genocide
Photograph by Linda Loew
The “No Kings” slogan sounded promising when it exploded across the United States in 2025: a mass rejection of authoritarianism, unchecked executive power, and the cult of the strongman. But like so many liberal-led mobilizations in the Trump era, the U.S. version has revealed itself as carefully managed theater — heavy on performative outrage, light on principle, and deliberately blind to two of the greatest crimes of our time: Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the illegal U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The contrast with the Italian “No Kings and Their Wars” mobilization in Rome could not be starker. While American liberals stage-manage their dissent to stay safely within the bounds of acceptable Democratic Party politics, the Italian movement — broader, more radical, and explicitly anti-imperialist — has named the beast: U.S. and Israeli aggression, European rearmament, and the complicity of governments like Meloni’s. One is protest as brand management. The other is resistance.
The U.S. Version: Liberal Theater with AIPAC Guests
Across the country and in what was billed as a virtual and accessible rally streamed online, stages of the “No Kings 3” moment was dominated by establishment Democrats and liberal non profits. Featured speakers included Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, Jamie Raskin, and Adam Schiff among many other mainstream Democrats and non profit spokespeople from liberal groups like Indivisible and MoveON.org. Many of the politicians that spoke have long records of strong support for Israel and have received significant AIPAC-linked funding. The official messaging stayed tightly focused on Trump as a threat to “our democracy,” while remaining conspicuously silent on Gaza, Palestine, the war on Iran, and U.S. imperialism.
Despite the attempts by lead organizers to water down the focus, anti-war and pro-Palestinian solidarity messaging still seeped into the street demonstrations across the country. In many cities, Palestinian flags appeared alongside anti-Trump banners, chants against the war and for a free Palestine mixed with calls to abolish ICE, and younger protesters openly linked domestic authoritarianism to the genocide abroad. These grassroots actions revealed a clear tension: while the stages and virtual events were sanitized and AIPAC-friendly, the actual streets sometimes showed the potential for a more honest anti-imperialist politics.
Chicago activist Andy Thayer, a longtime socialist organizer with the Chicago Anti-War Coalition and veteran of decades of anti-imperialist, LGBTQ+, and labor struggles, described the gap after the Chicago march:
I can’t speak to U.S. ‘No Kings’ organizers’ claims of record attendance nationally last Saturday, but can say that attendance in Chicago, while still impressive, was decidedly less than at last fall’s ‘No Kings.’ Worse, like at the previous No Kings marches, it continued to be overwhelmingly white in a majority-minority city — this at a time when federal thugs have ravaged immigrant communities and programs designed to help Black and Brown communities have gotten the axe. As expected, the NGOs tied at the hip to the Democratic Party closely hewed to what the national party finds acceptable.
Veteran activist journalist Arun Gupta, writing from New York and a longtime chronicler of Occupy Wall Street and the failures of the institutional left, delivered a withering assessment of the national leadership:
There is a gaping fallacy at the heart of the argument that leftists should show up to No Kings, which he in fact did… This is the most bizarre anti-war movement that ever existed. It doesn’t oppose any wars… No Kings is run by Democratic Party operatives and is a front group for Democrats. Their role is to protect the left flank of this astroturf movement from actual radicals.
Gupta went even further on the AIPAC influence:
“I think the AIPAC stuff is absolutely appalling. This is how degraded much of the left has become. It supports an AIPAC-approved ‘movement’ that won’t even name the genocidal wars the US-backed Zioreich is carrying out.”
The watered-down messaging was no accident. Organizations like MoveOn and Indivisible — the main engines behind the national “No Kings” effort — steered the campaign into safe, Democratic-friendly territory. The goal was never to challenge the empire, but to protect it from Trump while keeping the broader anti-imperialist and pro-Palestine left marginalized.
Rome’s Version: Anti-Imperialist and Uncompromising
In Rome, the “No Kings and Their Wars” events (the massive concert on March 27 and the national march on March 28) took a fundamentally different path. Organizers from autonomous left networks, anti-fascist collectives, peace groups, and pro-Palestine coalitions made the connections explicit: opposition to authoritarianism at home cannot be separated from opposition to imperialist war abroad.
Palestinian-Italian student leader Maya Issa, one of the most visible young voices in Italy’s pro-Palestine movement and a key organizer of the massive fall 2025 demonstrations, put it powerfully:
“Gaza has defined a generation. Palestine woke this generation up to the brutality of Israel and the crimes of the US empire. The Gaza Generation is here to stay and is defining this movement.”
The Italian mobilization was explicitly against:
• The re-armament of Europe and Italy’s growing military spending
• Meloni’s slavish alignment with Washington and Tel Aviv
• The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the expanding war on Iran
• The complicity of the entire European political class, including the so-called center-left
Speakers and artists repeatedly linked the fight against “kings” to the fight against empire. The message was clear: you cannot oppose authoritarian drift in Rome while remaining silent on the mass murder being enabled by your own government’s weapons and diplomacy. Millions took to the streets last fall in the largest mobilizations Italy has seen in decades, providing the energy and political clarity that the U.S. movement has so far lacked.
The “No Kings and Their Wars” rally on the 28th of March surprised organizers as upwards of 300,000 people took to the streets of Roma for hours at one point blocking the main highways that loops the city. It came on the heels of the resounding referendum victory opposing the Meloni governments darconian judicial reforms the week before.
Photograph by Arun Gupta
The Real Test: Will the Movement Name the Empire?
The difference is not stylistic. It is political. The U.S. “No Kings” national leadership has chosen the safest possible terrain: Trump the individual, “democracy” in the abstract, and carefully calibrated liberal slogans that never threaten the bipartisan war consensus or AIPAC influence. The Italian movement has chosen the harder, more honest terrain: naming the empire, the genocide, and the complicity of their own government.
This is the fundamental divide. One side is still trying to save the empire from Trump. The other side understands that the empire itself is the problem.
If the American “No Kings” movement wants to be more than liberal nostalgia dressed up as resistance, it must do what its Italian counterpart has already done: break with the AIPAC-funded Democrats, name the genocide in Gaza, condemn the war on Iran, and reject the rearmament of Europe and the United States. Anything less is not resistance — it is containment.
The youth in both countries are watching. The Gaza Generation in Italy has already shown what real opposition looks like. The question for the U.S. movement is whether it will follow their example, or continue to play it safe while the empire burns the world. No Kings is a good slogan. But without No Empire, it is just another brand.
The struggle continues.
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