where does Democratic resistance go next?

This weekend’s “No to Kings” demonstrations attracted an estimated crowd of millions across the United States to protest President Donald Trump’s policies and his willingness to push the limits of presidential authority.

It was a moment for like-minded Democrats, liberals and some anti-Trump Republicans to come together at a time when the American left had little formal power in national politics.

But where do they go from here?

By most accounts, attendance at Saturday’s events in major U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington and Los Angeles, and hundreds of smaller towns, was higher than expected, surpassing the first “No to Kings” rally in June.

Republicans in Congress warned that the demonstrations would be “un-American” and some conservative governors put law enforcement and the National Guard on alert for violence.

The mass demonstrations appeared to be peaceful; It’s not a massacre, it’s a carnival. There were no arrests related to the protests in New York, and families and young children attended the meeting in Washington, DC.

“Across America today, Americans are saying loudly and proudly in numbers that would dwarf any day of protest in our nation’s history that we are a free people, that we are not a people to be governed, that our government is not for sale,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said at a Washington D.C. rally. he said.

Just down the street from the No Kings meeting in the nation’s capital, the White House responded to the protests with mockery.

“Who cares,” deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote in response to numerous media questions about the marches.

Trump shared several AI-generated videos on the Truth Social website showing him being crowned. where he flies a jet This blamed what appeared to be human waste on the protesters.

While Republicans may downplay the significance of the marches, the scale of turnout — combined with Trump’s net negative approval rating in major polls — points to an opportunity for Democrats to bounce back from last year’s election defeats.

But the party still has a long way to go.

Polls show only a third of Americans view it favorably (the lowest in decades), and Democrats are divided on how to mount an effective opposition to Trump when they no longer control both houses of Congress.

Liberals took to the streets on Saturday for a variety of reasons. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, tariff policies, government cutbacks, foreign policy, deployment of the National Guard to US cities, and norm-breaking use of presidential power were frequent subjects of concern and anger.

Some of the frustrations were also directed at Democratic leaders.

“We just keep our mouths shut and don’t speak up,” one of those attending the march in Washington, D.C., told NBC News on Saturday. “You know, I think we need to do some more elbowing. Unfortunately, the main road isn’t working.”

Democrats have been more combative over the government shutdown, which is entering its fourth week. They have been reluctant to approve a short-term extension of existing federal spending without a bipartisan agreement to address health insurance subsidies for low-income Americans that expire at the end of the year.

Due to Senate chamber rules, Democrats have some power despite being in the minority, and at least so far the public appears to be placing at least as much, if not more, blame for the stalemate on Trump and the Republican majority.

However, the strategy also brings risks. The pain of the shutdown, especially for those in the Democratic coalition, will grow as the weeks pass.

Many federal workers have missed paychecks and are facing financial difficulties. Funding for food support for low-income earners is expected to run out. The US judicial system is scaling back its operations. And the Trump administration is using the shutdown to order new cuts to the federal workforce and suspend domestic spending, targeting Democratic states and cities.

The reality is that Democratic leaders in the Senate will eventually have to find a way out of the crisis. But they may have difficulty reaching conditions that the protesters who took to the streets on Saturday would find acceptable.

“If we shake hands with President Trump on a deal, we don’t want him to lay off thousands more next week, cancel economic development projects, cancel public health funding,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday. “So we’re trying to come to an agreement that a deal is a deal.”

There’s still a chance the government shutdown will continue in early November, when voters in some states will head to the polls for the first time since last year’s presidential contest.

Elections for governor and state legislatures could provide a barometer for whether the anti-Trump sentiment displayed in the “No Kings” protests will translate into electoral success for Democrats.

Four years ago, a Republican won the race for governor in Virginia, an electoral battleground that saw a left-leaning trend in the last presidential election, sending an early sign of voters’ dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden. This time, the Democrat (former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger) is leading her Republican opponent in the polls.

Although Trump lost New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, his margin of defeat (less than 6 percent) was significantly lower than Biden’s 16 percent victory in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s 14 percent victory in 2017. November’s gubernatorial election shows a similarly close race.

At the No Kings rally in Montclair, New Jersey, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin urged attendees to vote in the upcoming election.

“It’s one thing to participate in these protests,” he said. “And it’s another thing to move the needle and get some power.”

This November’s election will be a test of whether antipathy toward Trump is enough to get left-wing voters to support Democratic candidates.

But these are just the beginning of next year’s midterm elections, which will decide which party controls both houses of the US Congress and give Democrats a real check on Trump’s power over the final two years of his presidency.

The priority of Saturday’s protests was to unite around the Stop Trump message. Less worrying, at least for now, was what the Democrats might do once they return to power.

But there are some signs that cracks remain in the party coalition.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris’s book tour, for example, is regularly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters who object to the Biden administration’s Middle East policies. Proposals by centrists to focus on economic issues rather than social policies, including trans rights, have drawn condemnation from many on the left.

There will be competitive primary battles to determine Democratic candidates in next year’s elections in Maine, Massachusetts, California and Michigan; Old order politicians will face young candidates, liberals will face centrists.

These wars can quickly open old political wounds that are difficult to heal. In this case, marches alone may not be enough to solve what is disturbing the party.