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Fact check: Which historical events are linked to the rise of the No Kings movement?
Executive Summary
The historical claims tied to the phrase “No Kings” actually refer to two distinct movements: a 19th-century Māori King movement (Kīngitanga) in Aotearoa/New Zealand and a 21st-century U.S. protest movement using “No Kings” as a slogan in 2025. Primary accounts link the Kīngitanga to mid‑19th century hui, the formal establishment of a Māori kingship in 1855, and the Waikato Wars of the 1860s that targeted the movement, while contemporary U.S. reporting documents mass “No Kings” protests in October 2025 that organizers described as a moral rejection of concentrated executive power and as rooted in republican anti‑monarchical language [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. How a 19th‑Century Māori Awakening Became a ‘King’ Movement and Why It Matters Today
The Kīngitanga formed through sustained intertribal conversation among rangatira who sought a unifying institution to protect Māori land and authority amid growing colonial pressure; scholars and contemporary accounts date the movement’s formal inception to 1855 when rangatira selected Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as the first Māori king after hui such as the 1856 Pukawa gathering and travels by leaders like Mātene Te Whiwhi and Tāmihana Te Rauparaha in the 1850s [1] [2]. The movement’s consolidation provoked direct confrontation with colonial authorities: the Waikato War of the 1860s included government campaigns aimed explicitly at undermining the Kīngitanga and confiscating land, making the kingship both a political institution and a focal point for military conflict with long legacies in land, legal, and cultural grievances [1]. Contemporary references to “No Kings” should not conflate this historical Māori kingship with modern U.S. protest slogans without acknowledging distinct origins and aims [2].
2. The 2025 U.S. ‘No Kings’ Protests: Scale, Organizers, and Stated Aims
Reporting from October 2025 places the modern American “No Kings” events as a coordinated set of demonstrations that organizers described as a moral rebellion rejecting the veneration of concentrated executive power and invoking founding republican language that America “has no kings”; multiple outlets reported thousands of registered local events, with claims of turnout in the millions at December‑month rallies across major cities on October 18 and later iterations, framed as protests against President Donald Trump’s policies and perceived expansion of presidential authority [3] [6] [4] [5]. Organizers represented the movement as broadly progressive and deliberately distancing itself from extremist groups such as Antifa, while public messaging emphasized constitutional rhetoric rather than partisan platforms, a framing intended to attract diverse civic actors and to root protest in historical American anti‑monarchical tradition [6] [7].
3. Competing Narratives: Religion, Republicanism, and Political Mobilization
Coverage of the 2025 protests advanced competing narratives: one framed the movement as a religiously inflected moral stand against idolatry and human sovereignty, invoking Deuteronomical warnings and portraying mass gatherings as civic recitation [3], while other accounts emphasized secular republican roots, presenting “No Kings” as a revival of America’s foundational slogan to contest perceived executive overreach [6]. Political reporting highlighted tactical organization by progressive networks and described the protests as a reaction to a specific presidential administration’s policy trajectory and power consolidation, suggesting a partisan impetus even where organizers promoted constitutional language; these differing framings reveal how the same phrase can be used to mobilize faith communities, civic conservatives, and progressive activists under overlapping rhetorical banners [3] [5] [8].
4. Numbers, Geography, and Media Claims: What the Evidence Supports
News outlets reported wide geographic spread—thousands of events in every state and major demonstrations in cities like New York, Washington, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston, and Seattle—with one set of reports estimating nearly seven million participants nationwide on particular days in October 2025 and others documenting over 2,000 to 2,600 registered events [4] [5] [7]. These figures show large mobilization but vary by outlet and method of counting; the disparity between crowd‑size claims and event registrations points to the need for careful verification when translating organizer or media estimates into definitive participation numbers. The pattern of repeated, expanding demonstrations across multiple dates indicates sustained mobilization rather than a single isolated protest, a fact consistently reported across sources [8] [7].
5. Bottom Line: Distinct Histories, Shared Slogans — Watch the Context
The phrase “No Kings” connects historically to very different struggles: a mid‑19th century Māori response to colonization that produced a formal kingship and drew military suppression, and a 2025 U.S. protest movement invoking anti‑monarchical rhetoric to challenge perceived executive overreach. Conflating these threads obscures essential distinctions of time, geography, actors, and aims; accurate analysis requires citing the Kīngitanga’s 1850s origins and the Waikato Wars when discussing Māori history, and the October 2025 mass protests, organizers’ claims, and stated motivations when discussing the American movement (p1_s2, [2], [3],