They march beneath banners that cry, “No Kings.” They claim to defend democracy, to save it from tyranny. On the surface, their demand sounds noble: no one should rule by decree, and no one should stand above the law. Every American can agree with that.
But listen closely and you’ll hear something deeper. The people leading these protests are not calling for liberty under law; they are calling for power that bends instantly to the will of the crowd. They want government to move with emotion rather than principle, with public feeling rather than truth. In their world, legitimacy comes from popularity, and policy changes whenever enough people shout.
They are not seeking to restore the republic our founders built. They are seeking to replace it with direct democracy—a system where emotion and numbers outweigh wisdom and process. They want a government that promises protection from every hardship and provision for every desire, a government that manages conscience, commerce, education, and morality alike.
The cost of that vision is the loss of a republic and the rise of a democracy of appetite. In a democracy, the majority rules. In a republic, law and conscience rule. In a democracy, rights come from the state. In a republic, rights come from God and cannot be taken away. In a democracy, emotion rewrites the law. In a republic, law restrains emotion. In a democracy, people live by permission. In a republic, they live by principle.
John Adams saw this danger centuries ago: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” He understood that when people vote for comfort instead of character, when they expect government to replace God and conscience, freedom collapses under the weight of its own desires. Athens proved it. Rome proved it. Every nation that traded responsibility for relief ended with rulers who called themselves servants.
The protesters cry, “No Kings!” yet what they truly seek is rule without restraint—a crown worn by the majority instead of by a man. They do not see that the republic they scorn is the very shield that protects their right to protest. If their vision prevails, that shield will vanish, and what replaces it will not be freedom, but feeling.
The answer is not silence or surrender. It is remembrance. A republic survives only when its people know the difference between liberty and comfort, between self-rule and self-indulgence. It endures when citizens govern themselves before demanding to govern others.
America does not need another revolution. It needs restoration—a return to the truth that law, not passion, must rule; that rights come from the Creator, not from the crowd; and that the only throne strong enough to sustain freedom is not in Washington, but in heaven.
Proverbs 28:2 — “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order.”