Do 7 million people in the streets matter?
A Q&A with social movements scholar Ernesto Castañeda, and my thoughts on that heist
Big Idea of the Week
There is a 1982 quote that makes the rounds within the antiwar movement: “Let them march all they want,” it reads, “as long as they continue to pay their taxes.”
It is attributed to Gen. Alexander Haig, then secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, who was allegedly responding to a reporter’s question about whether a million-person march for nuclear disarmament would impact the administration’s policies.
There is some debate about whether this story is apocryphal, but the quote nonetheless continues to circulate, in op-eds and on buttons, because it struck a chord.
It is one of the reasons peace activists often give for why they have turned to more radical and direct forms of action, including tax resistance, in order to make themselves heard (for more on this, check out My Tax Dollars… but I digress).
I have thought of Haig’s quote over the past week, as the No Kings rallies, which brought 7 million people onto the streets to protest, seemed to quickly fade into the background of the nonstop news cycle.
I wanted to know how to make sense of this, so I did what I do best—I asked a smart friend! Specifically, I turned to Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, a leading scholar of social movements, Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab and Full Professor at American University in Washington, DC.
He had reached out because he read my post last week about how to evaluate the impact of the No Kings rallies using the “WUNC” scorecard, and he had a different take than me on the protest’s “Worthiness” score. Fun fact: Castaneda was a student of Charles Tilly, so he has thought more than most people about the WUNC scorecard!
So I obviously invited him to write up his own WUNC analysis! And also, while I had him, to answer a few questions for us. Below is a lightly edited version of our conversation.
Ruth Braunstein: First and foremost, how did you think the “No Kings” events fared in terms of their WUNC?
Ernesto Castañeda: American sociologist Charles Tilly was interested in when regular people directly engaged in politics beyond elections. One way is through protests — more generally, what he calls contentious performances —which are in turn a key part of “contentious politics,” popular politics beyond electoral campaigns and answering polls.
The “No Kings” events are loosely coordinated transnational contentious performances. The question is whether they represent the seed of a social movement and whether onlookers — the American (and increasingly global) public — see them as “legitimate” and sympathetic.
Thus, Republican campaigns before and after the events sought to discredit the events and the people who participated in them. Some critics say the marches had no clear demands; historically speaking, that is not a fatal flaw but indeed a strength.
I appreciate you using Charles Tilly’s WUNC —which stands for Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitment— to analyze the “No Kings” events that took place on October 18, 2025. I mostly agree with you. But below you’ll see a couple of minor disagreements around “worth.”
Evaluating the Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitment
Worth: Relates to the seriousness, respectfulness, and representativeness of participants. Seven million people across all counties are hard to miss or dismiss. The participation of a majority of White people of all ages, but mainly among middle-aged adults of all social classes, renders the protests’ participants worthy. This is even more the case as there were virtually no violent incidents.
No protest or contentious performance is going to be universally popular among contemporaneous members of a polity or with the regime, because it often points to a privileged group in power to give up some of its prerogatives and monopolies on power or access to resources. Contentious politics are zero-sum games on power, exclusion, resource accumulation, and opportunity hoarding.
Unity: Speakers did not disagree on targets or tactics in the 2-hour main rally I attended in DC. Few places had visible counterprotests.
Numbers: The unity was shown in a successful mobilization of over 7 million people on the same day, “at more than 2,700 events in all 50 states, DC,” and some abroad.
Commitment: Some participants were afraid they could be attacked by members of the National Guard, detained, or worse, and bravely decided to participate despite their fears. Government officials indeed threatened the public with repressing the protests and tried to criminalize participants in advance. There were no arrests or confrontations, but that was not guaranteed in advance.
Final Score: How did the No Kings rally fare overall on the WUNC scorecard?
Worthiness: ✅
Unity: ✅
Numbers: ✅
Commitment: ✅
We are seeing a strong opposition to the polices and actions of the administration in a way that goes beyond the actions of the opposition party, in this case the Democrats, who supported the marches, spoke and participated in them. This was a showcase for civil society and a party of the people.
The mood was festive and positive and showed a lot of hope and faith in the values, ideas, institutions, and potential behind the symbol of the American flag, which were passed around and displayed proudly by participants who saw themselves as patriots and peaceful protesters exercising their freedom of speech, right to gather and organize in a context of de-democratization and growing concentration of power in the figure of the President. Thus the “No King” slogan resonated and was shouted loudly as a reply to speakers and marching song.
Ruth Braunstein: It’s hard to imagine a protest scoring better than this, at least on paper. Why do you think public attention to these protests appears to have evaporated so quickly?
Ernesto Castañeda: Participants were able to show that they were not terrorists or anarchists, but the White House faces no accountability for untruthful statements. The marches were a success, they were peaceful, joyful, and well-organized. Therefore not “newsworthy” a few days after they took place.
Maybe in an example of the “enshittitfication” of content production and online discourse, the feces-ejecting-crowned-pilot-incorrectly-wearing-a-mask AI video took over some of the coverage after the marches. This brought attention back to Trump and allowed him to regain control of the narrative.
Trump also changed the narrative through the many news and extreme actions just in the last week, including: sending a large carrier close to Venezuela, continuous strikes of small boats off South America, discussions about whether to talk to Russia and new sanctions, possible higher tariffs with China and then walked back, and the destruction of the East Wing without any permissions. Among many other headlines and a continued government shutdown.
So, the White House was able to regain control of the media attention by flooding the zone, putting the No Kings marches on the rearview mirror.
Furthermore, it was maybe a counterproductive dynamic for organizers to set up 3.5% of the population as the goal for the No Kings marches. Neither one of the #NoKing days so far has been able to reach this ambitious self-imposed goal. So, the 7 million may have been wrongly framed as underwhelming.
The turnouts were impressive and a WUNC success. These lofty goals also set in the mind of organizers the need to continue reaching out to people, organizing, and communication locally and in the grassroots.
Ruth Braunstein: What do protests like these need to do to stay relevant and keep the pressure on?
Ernesto Castañeda: Some critics have called for actions and contentious performances that go beyond rallies and marches. Some have called for labor withholding — that is, strikes to put economic pressure on employers.
While others are calling for going back to temporary community food kitchens and pantries — as community members did during the pandemic and a previous 50501 day of action campaign. Citizen food aid would be popular and attuned to social needs at a time when many federal workers are not getting paid and many working families will lose access to SNAP, food stamps, and well-stocked existing pantries, along with increases in healthcare premiums, inflation with no wage increases, layoffs, tariffs, deportations, and the resulting crops rotting.
Ruth Braunstein: Interesting. Sounds a lot like the conclusion that people in the peace movement came to as well, after Gen. Haig dismissed the power of people in the streets. We will have to keep our eyes out for these developments.
Something Light
A little afternoon art heist
I am not personally obsessed with the Louvre heist. But I am obsessed with the fact that so many people are obsessed with the Louvre heist (because: sociologist!).
What is happening here? I actually think Clara put it perfectly in her perfectly titled Substack last week, “we can have a little art heist, as a treat.”
Who needs yoga or deep breathing exercises when we have French heists of Napoleonic jewels to read about. Not only a victimless crime, but one with positive externalities, because look at us now, brushing up on our French history and museum security protocols!
I understand the fascination. Because, look, the world is not doing great right now and this just feels a bit, “je ne said quoi?” Glamorous? Cinematic? Distracting?
That said (because why merely think about things if you can overthink them), I do want to reflect on why this feels like a “victimless crime.”
I agree it does feel that way. Probably because wealthy institutions like the Louvre aren’t especially sympathetic.
But isn’t this heist really a crime against the public—meaning public access to something beautiful and historic? Those jewels will now likely remain in private hands forever.
Historically speaking, that would be normal. In private hands is where all great art and books and culture used to be hoarded, before we democratized access to them through museums and libraries and universities, etc.
So really the moral of this story is: Don’t forget that museums are basically social miracles that only exist because of democratic ideals.
Another moral of the story: I can make even the most salacious news story into a lesson about democracy. Sorry not sorry.