“It’s weird for me. I’m not a movement guy. I’m more conservative than not. And now I find myself reading Saul Alinsky and all these lefties, and I’m going: Yeah, yeah, power to the people. So I’m going total revolutionary here. And what I liked about the No Kings rallies was just what E.J. mentioned: that people like me, who are kind of center right, would feel completely at home there. If it starts looking like Occupy Wall Street, then I think: Oh, good for you people, but it’s not for me. I’m hanging around Occupy and my hair starts falling out, but around No Kings, I just feel it’s pro-American. It’s basically in line with the cultural DNA of this country. And so I’m very impressed by it. I think a couple of reservations I would have that — I think, not criticisms, but things that are not yet there. If you look back at social movements that have exceeded they’re decentralized, they happen all over, but they’re always central collaborating committees. You look at the civil rights movement. They had the N.A.A.C.P., all these acronyms of all these organizations who are leading. Second, I do think you need leaders. And I think sometimes, like Occupy, people were averse to having one person at the top. But without that you can’t control your message. You can’t really conduct a strategy. The civil rights movement conducted a soap opera every day. They told the story every day about segregation. And through that repeated storytelling, you really built the movement and you made the segregators, you gave them an unwinnable proposition. When you control the streets, either they cede the streets to you, or they crack down on you and look like monsters, and that’s a way to achieve civic power. The final thing that I think No Kings is so far not making is a vision. Donald Trump has a vision. Trump is a culture. He has a core story: The elites have betrayed you. But he doesn’t only have that story; he has a culture of MAGA, a culture of what a man looks like, what a woman looks like. He has a religion. Basically, if you looked at the Charlie Kirk memorial service, he gives you identity. He gives you belonging. It takes a counterculture to best the culture that Donald Trump is leading. And so far, the Democrats don’t have that. They have a bunch of tax credits. And so far, the No Kings movement doesn’t have that.
