By Eric Chapman
During the nationwide “No Kings” protests on Oct. 18, 2025, streets across the United States filled with color and creativity. Protesters in cities from New York to Los Angeles opposed President Donald Trump’s perceived authoritarian streak, but instead of a serious confrontation, many events felt like a street carnival. Giant “We The People” banners flew above marching bands playing patriotic songs. Protesters danced in the streets and signed a mock Constitution.
Costumes were everywhere.
In Washington, D.C., people saw a starfish, a teddy bear, two unicorns, a rooster, and a pickle floating above the crowd. Inflatable frogs became a popular sight in Portland and Seattle. Some dressed as Lady Liberty in flowing green or as the president in crowns and stripes. The Guardian reported on Oct. 20, 2025, that the overall mood was cheerful, almost carnival-like.
Conservative leaders called the events “hate America rallies.” The White House press secretary dismissed them with a “who cares?” Trump’s campaign mocked protesters with an AI-generated video of a kingly Trump waving from a balcony. Right-wing commentators ridiculed the costumes. But for organizers, the humor was the point. The Nation wrote on Oct. 19, 2025, that people came dressed as inflatable frogs, dinosaurs, giraffes, and unicorns. Many came as Lady Liberty. The tone was irreverent and peaceful.
The costumes mattered. The “No Kings” pageantry didn’t appear out of nowhere. Costumes, masks, and playful reversals have long been used to protest. From the Boston Tea Party to the Yippies in 1968 and Occupy in 2011, carnival has given protesters a way to use laughter, symbols, and anonymity to challenge power.
During the Middle Ages, festivals periodically turned the social order upside down. In Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford University Press, 1975), historian Natalie Zemon Davis explains that these ritual inversions allowed the weak to mock the strong in brief, sanctioned bursts. During a Feast of Fools, clergy let lower-ranking members choose a mock bishop. For one day, costumes, masks, and parody loosened hierarchies.
Outside church, towns held rowdy processions. Historian Barbara Ehrenreich writes in Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Metropolitan Books, 2006) that such events let people break free from moral and social restraint. Revelers blackened their faces with soot and mocked local elites. Philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, in Rabelais and His World (Indiana University Press, 1984), called this a “world turned upside down.” He argued that laughter could temporarily erase social barriers. Costumes made it safe to speak freely.
That spirit of playful defiance carried into colonial America. The Pope’s Day parades in Boston mocked authority and often turned political. In December 1773, the most famous example occurred. Historian Benjamin L. Carp writes in Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (Yale University Press, 2010) that the men who boarded the tea ships disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians. The disguise was simple but intentional. In a small town where everyone knew everyone, face paint and blankets hid identities and sent a message. To radicals, “being Native” meant freedom from European aristocracy. To loyalists, it hinted at danger. The costumes served as both mask and symbol, blending mischief with rebellion.
The tactic worked. During the Hudson Valley Anti-Rent War of the 1840s, tenant farmers fighting the old patroon landlord system dressed as Calico Indians and disrupted auctions. In The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839–1865 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001), legal historian Charles W. McCurdy describes how farmers borrowed dresses from their wives, wore masks, and took on names like Big Thunder. The disguises shamed landlords, protected identities, and turned protest into theater. Eventually, New York abolished the rent system.
This strategy spread across American movements. In the late 1800s, labor pageants dramatized workers’ economic demands. Suffragists dressed as goddesses to embody civic power. Modern Tea Party rallies revived tri-corner hats and colonial garb to claim the legacy of the founders. Activists across the spectrum understood a basic truth: people remember images, not white papers.
The 1960s made theater central to protest. The Yippies became known for their outrageous performances. Historian Jon Wiener wrote in The Nation (August 24, 2018) that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin nominated a pig named Pigasus for president outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Police arrested both pigs and people, but the image endured. In 1967, antiwar protesters staged an “exorcism” of the Pentagon, marching as zombies and Uncle Sam. Groups like the San Francisco Mime Troupe turned demonstrations into street theater. The premise was simple: politics already looked like a play, so they might as well steal the show.
The approach reappeared at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999. In No Logo (Picador, 2000), journalist Naomi Klein noted that the festival atmosphere helped unify a broad coalition. Above the drummers and dancers, giant puppets floated. Environmentalists in sea turtle costumes marched beside steelworkers in hard hats. The Guardian reported on Nov. 30, 1999, that downtown streets filled with chanting, singing, and papier-mâché figures until police intervened. Art and humor drew crowds and confused authorities.
Carnival had gone global.
A decade later, Occupy Wall Street revived those traditions. The Guy Fawkes mask, popularized by the film “V for Vendetta,” became an emblem of anonymous protest. Jonathan Jones of The Guardian wrote on Nov. 4, 2011, that the mask symbolized festive citizenship — where medieval ritual met modern finance outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The Russian punk group Pussy Riot used bright balaclavas as symbols of defiance. Extinction Rebellion protesters appeared in red robes or as handmaids at statehouses. The imagery moved faster than any manifesto.
That lineage shaped “No Kings.”
Costumes strip away the solemnity of office. Distance and spectacle serve kings and presidents, but costumes return that power to the crowd. A royal portrait suggests permanence; a street king on stilts makes people laugh. Natalie Zemon Davis observed that laughter can quietly threaten authority. It humanizes leaders and emboldens the public. People listen more easily to a joke than to a lecture. As organizers from London’s 1999 Carnival Against Capitalism wrote in a CrimethInc. article (June 18, 2017), shared joy builds community and stands apart from the grimness of state control.
The same pattern appeared on the weekend of Oct. 18. The Associated Press reported that more than 2,600 rallies took place across all 50 states. AP’s national dispatch described the carnival scenes: marching bands, massive Constitution banners for signatures, and inflatable costumes. A Washington, D.C., participant said it felt good to find a community — “These are my people.” The Guardian estimated that millions participated nationwide. Even critics amplified the imagery by sharing photos of frog suits and handmaids.
Crowd counts differed, as they often do, but both organizers and media agreed that turnout was enormous. Critics complained that the humor trivialized politics. Yet this reaction was familiar. Before the Revolution, British loyalists mocked colonists with feathers. Before losing their rents, New York landlords mocked the Calico Indians. Power rarely recognizes the danger in laughter until it spreads.
The pattern is unmistakable. Medieval festivals mocked priests. Colonists dressed as Mohawks to challenge empire. Tenant farmers hid behind calico to dismantle feudalism. Yippies turned politics into improv. Seattle marched with puppets and turtles. Occupy offered a smiling mask. “No Kings,” with its frogs, Lady Liberty, and enormous Constitution, fits perfectly in that lineage. Carnival has always been a way to say we are unafraid and we are not alone.
That’s why the costumes mattered in 2025. They were brave and critical at once. They protected the shy and gave the bold a stage. They set a tone families could embrace. They made a visual argument stronger than any speech. The president’s team replied with a fake royal video, proving the point. Power lies in the show — and this time, the crowd held it.
When authority depends on awe, a good laugh can be a small revolution. The protest carnival turns the world upside down to make it right again. That might be what loosens a crown if it makes people happy along the way.
Eric Chapman is a corporate marketing analyst in Howell, Michigan, whose writing explores the edges of American life. His poetry draws on surrealism and the New York School, while his essays map roadside America and vanishing history. He’s also an amateur photographer documenting the Midwest’s disappearing landscapes.
