by Bill Southworth
Seven million Americans marched on October 18. History says 11.9 million could tip a regime. The next 90 days will decide which future we inhabit.
Editor’s note (October 20, 2025): All events, executive orders, legal cases, and protest figures in this report are accurate as of October 2025. Sources are cited in the bibliography. The image and video of Donald Trump in a fighter jet wearing a crown was posted by Trump to Truth Social on October 18, 2025: https://youtube.com/shorts/mmx6kBiMycg?si=wyIzQ921mjb6YyUi. Content warning: You may find the video offensive.
It began in rain.
In Spokane, in Buffalo, in Little Rock and El Paso, the signs blurred under plastic sleeves and the chants dropped into puddles. In Chicago, they surged past the fountains and onto Columbus Drive, more than 80,000 strong. By midnight on October 18, over seven million Americans had marched in 2,600 towns and cities, from the Kenai Peninsula to Key West. The phrase No Kings threaded the banners, the chants, the whiteboard signs left leaning against courthouse steps.
At 6:47 a.m. the next morning, Donald Trump logged into Truth Social and posted a 57‑second AI‑generated video. It showed him flying a fighter jet in slow motion, wearing a golden crown, and dumping a torrent of excrement over a pixelated crowd labeled “PROTESTERS.” The caption read simply: WINNING¹.
“This isn’t satire. It’s aspiration,” said former intelligence official Julia Gerberding.¹⁴
For a moment, the country lurched. But movements are not victories. Not yet.
“We are still short of the tipping point,” said political scientist Erica Chenoweth. “But we are closer than we’ve ever been.”²