Trump Won't Last Until 2028, And No Kings II Proves It

The clock is ticking.

Photo by AJ Colores on Unsplash

Dan Greaney is a legendary Simpsons writer and apparently a clairvoyant able to predict the future with painful accuracy. He famously penned the episode ‘Bart to the Future’, which predicted Trump’s damaging presidency all the way back in 2000. Well, Greaney has obviously been staring into his crystal ball again, because this September, he predicted that “The end is near for the Trump presidency. It will happen in spectacular fashion. His fall will be unambiguous and universally acknowledged. He’ll be removed from office.” While many saw this as a beacon of hope for democracy, civil rights and human rights, few took this foresight seriously and instead saw it more as a desperately hopeful meme. But the second No Kings Protest, and the cogs it has set in motion, have shown that Greaney’s prophecy is coming true once again.

The No Kings II protest was gigantic, with seven million protestors filling the streets of cities all over the US, and MAGA reacted in possibly the worst way possible. There was the typical smearing, such as baselessly claiming protestors were paid, despite having absolutely zero evidence and refusing to self-reflect on the fact that Trump’s main PR guy tried to buy an election with a lottery, which is way worse than paying protestors. But this sort of crap is par for the course now. What was truly weird was MAGA and Trump basically admitting they want him to be a king, posting AI videos of him as a king with Congress bowing to him and him as a king ruling for decades. Possibly the worst was one of Trump wearing a crown in a military fighter jet (despite the fact he was a draft dodger), dropping faeces on protestors.

If a fake AI puppet of a man pretending to be a king shitting all over the American people from a pathetic, made-up projection of power isn’t the perfect metaphor for the US, I don’t know what is.

But yeah, Trump and MAGA seem to have admitted they want King Orange-Neck Vagina the First…

Either way, are seven million people peaceful enough to turn the tide on Dorito Bonito?

Well, I, and many others, have repeatedly pointed to the brilliant work of Harvard researcher Erica Chenoweth. She discovered that peaceful protest is by far the most effective way to create major political change and that when 3.5% of the population participates in these protests, such change is guaranteed to happen.

Because the US has a population of around 340 million, that means 2% of the US population took part in No Kings II. So, not quite there yet.

It does, however, demonstrate a considerable escalation against Trump.

The Hands Off Protest in April had three million attendees, the first No Kings Protest in June had five million, and now No Kings II has seven million. If you average this growth out, over 21,000 people in the US are joining the movement to peacefully protest against Trump every day.

At that rate of growth, this movement will have grown to 11.9 million people, or 3.5% of the US population, by the 24th of May 2026. In other words, in just over half a year, there will be enough Americans publicly protesting to force Trump out of power.

Sadly, unlike Greaney, I don’t have a crystal ball, so this date isn’t set in stone. Many things can change between now and then that could affect when we reach this critical tipping point. For example, economic collapse and damaging policies could cause it to happen a lot sooner. Likewise, Trump’s aggressive state crackdowns on dissent could delay it slightly.

But either way, the numbers show that the US is unavoidably barrelling towards an anti-Trump evolution.

Luckily for us, there is a way to expedite this process, and it has already been put in motion.

Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, called for a general strike during the No Kings II protest. That is how you can turn this protest into a beautifully powerful, peaceful weapon against the Trump administration.

Firstly, the No Kings II Protest proved that seven million people would be willing and able to mobilise and join such a strike. The number of people striking at once would cause enormous economic damage! To give you an idea, the US lost 9.6 million jobs during COVID, which was the primary cause of a 9% drop in GDP over the same period, crippling the economy. Just a day or two of striking on this scale would send shocks through the entire US economy and force businesses and financial systems to sharply turn against Trump.

And here is the thing: it is far easier and safer (as long as you have a good union) to join a general strike than a protest. You don’t march yourself into the crosshairs of police brutality, and if it is appropriately organised, you don’t risk your job. You can just go home and relax. As such, the disabled (who make up over 25% of the US population), the anxious and the lazy, who physically couldn’t join, feared to join, or weren’t motivated enough to join previous protests, will join the general strike. This is why general strikes are almost always far larger than the protests that sparked them.

Italy has just proven this. Back in August, they had nationwide protests against their government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, with 300,000, or 0.5% of the Italian population, attending. These protests inspired general strikes, in which two million Italian workers participated. By organising through general strikes, rather than protests, they were able to increase their numbers more than sixfold in less than two months.

This strike also proved Chenoweth right, as those two million Italians represent 3.3% of Italy’s population, a hair’s breadth away from the critical tipping point. Some critical industries reported that 80% of their workforce joined the strike, demonstrating how a relatively small portion of the population peacefully protesting can create such a huge impact. This caused entire industries to put significant pressure on the government, and they rapidly changed their approach to Israel. Indeed, these strikes are why Italian warships escorted the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Now, will a general strike in the US increase numbers as effectively as it did in Italy? Sadly not. 35% of Italian workers are unionised, in comparison to less than 10% of US workers (come on guys, pump those numbers up!), and really, you need a union to be a part of a general strike. So, while Italy could sixfold its numbers with a general strike, if things are proportional, the US should only be able to double its numbers.

But that means right now, there are theoretically 14 million Americans who are capable of and willing to join a general strike, which is over 4% of the population.

That is more than enough to take Trump’s imaginary crown away from him.

So, if Mayor Johnson’s calls are heeded, I can see the US blasting well past that 3.5% point, kicking out the tyrant, and getting their democracy and rights back. But even if his calls fall on deaf ears, the outcome will be the same; it will just take a few extra months for the protestors in the streets to reach the same critical tipping point.

It’s almost like Mr Greaney is onto something here. But really, it is more than that. It is like hope isn’t dead. And, in 2025, we need all the hope we can get.

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Sources: Democracy Now!, Will Lockett, Sky, Huff Post, Truth Out, Al Jazeera, Euronews, Harvard, UniLad, Pew Research Centre, CBPP, CDC, Reuters, USA Facts