The PoliticsGirl Podcast Why No Kings Matters: With Indivisible’s Ezra Levin
Mar 24, 2026
Ezra Levin, co-founder and executive director of Indivisible and longtime democracy organizer, talks No Kings as a strategy to counter authoritarianism and build people power. He discusses protests as recruitment and escalation, turning demonstrations into sustained organizing, and using mass numbers to hijack narratives. He frames No Kings as joyful community building that strengthens democracy.
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Use Mass Peaceful Protests As Strategic Tactic
- Do organize and attend mass nonviolent protests to fight authoritarianism because visible people power undermines the narrative of inevitability.
- Ezra Levin cites No Kings as a tactic that aggregates power and signals democracy is reasserting itself through large public gatherings.
Turn One-Day Protests Into Ongoing Organizing
- Do treat one-day protests as part of a laddered strategy: recruit at events, then plug new people into ongoing local organizing.
- Levin points to Twin Cities organizers who used weekend actions to sustain neighborhood-level resistance to ICE.
Visible Numbers Shape Perception At Home And Abroad
- Large visible turnout changes both domestic and international perceptions about American resistance to authoritarianism.
- Leigh McGowan notes the geographic scale of the US makes weekend mass events important signals to bystanders and global audiences.