No Kings Day: The Coming Psyop
How both political networks are preparing to weaponise the same protest.
Tomorrow, America will stage two protests at once.
The first will happen in the streets — tens of thousands of citizens marching under the banner of No Kings Day, promising peace and democracy.
The second will unfold invisibly, through data servers, media feeds, and surveillance dashboards, where every chant, arrest, and video clip will be converted into leverage.
For clarity, this report uses the crude shorthand of “Left” and “Right.” The terms are imprecise — what we are really describing are two information systems. One is anchored in the progressive NGO and philanthropic networks that dominate legacy and social media.
The other revolves around Trump’s administration, its security agencies, and a tight constellation of populist channels led by Fox. The country’s political divide now operates as a media divide: two separate realities, each with its own funding base, data architecture, and moral language.
No Kings Day sits directly on that fault line.
The Democratic-aligned NGO machine, financed by offshore donors, has engineered the logistics, messaging, and moral vocabulary of the event.
The Trump government and its law-enforcement partners have built the surveillance and legal frameworks to turn the same event into evidence of disorder.
Each side needs the other: one to play the victim, the other to play the rescuer.
The protest is the stage. The psyop is what happens above it.
1 | The NGO–Party Nexus
IRS Form 990 filings and OpenSecrets data show that Indivisible Project Inc. reported US $12.6 million in revenue in FY 2023, MoveOn Civic Action US $7.8 million in FY 2024, and the ACLU Foundation US $185 million in FY 2024— funds channelled through donor-advised foundations such as the Tides Foundation and Open Society Foundations (OSF) (IRS Form 990 2023–24; OpenSecrets 2025).
OSF lists extensive U.S. “democracy and rights” grants during 2022–24, though the foundation does not publish a single consolidated national total.
Those grants underwrite a national logistics grid: legal-aid hotlines, protest-safety manuals, digital-security training, and paid communications staff. Indivisible’s organiser library includes press-basics modules and recurring trainings; chapters are encouraged to prepare press materials and livestream plans in advance.
MoveOn distributes protest kits and messaging assets — posters, downloads, and talking-point guidance — to maintain message discipline.
None of this is illegal or hidden. But the scale matters. The result is an event that appears decentralised yet functions with the coherence of a campaign launch.
The language of “peace” serves a managerial purpose: it secures donor confidence, satisfies legal counsel, and pre-loads the moral defence should any incident occur.
2 | The State’s Counter-Infrastructure
While the NGO network builds its narrative machine, the administration is preparing to manage the day through data. Since 2016, the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division has operated its Investigative Case Management (ICM) platform on Palantir software, renewed in recent years, with DHS signalling sole-source intent to maintain ICM through 2026 (USAspending.gov Contracts 70RSAT21P00000042 et al.; DHS industry notices 2024).
DHS privacy filings describe wide-aperture integration of federal, state, and commercial data sets into Palantir-based systems.
In parallel, DHS uses Palantir’s Gotham platform for real-time “situational awareness.” FOIA’d records and vendor materials show Palantir used alongside automatic-licence-plate readers, CCTV networks, and social-media alerting tools such as Dataminr in multi-agency “situational awareness” workflows.
These systems allow law-enforcement fusion centres to produce credible-threat bulletins within minutes. FOIA releases from 2020–21 show rapid, multi-agency civil-unrest briefings and cross-agency data sharing during protest surges. The same infrastructure remains active.
If No Kings Day produces unrest in even a handful of cities, those bulletins will provide the legal predicate for curfews, dispersal orders, and selective federal deployments. Each action will arrive dressed in bureaucratic procedure: a data-driven necessity rather than a political choice.
3 | The Information Divide
Perception management will decide which psyop prevails.
The legacy press — CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the broadcast networks — draws directly from organiser media pools and NGO press offices. Analyses of 2020 protest coverage show heavy reliance on organiser-supplied video and talking points during the first 24 hours, when outlets depend on pooled footage (Shorenstein Center 2021; Center for Community Change Media Review 2022).
Fox News, conversely, will amplify the administration’s line. Nielsen-based tallies show Fox capturing around 60 percent of cable-news audience share in Q2 2025 (Nielsen Media Research 2025). The same footage of a burning vehicle will air on both networks under opposing captions: Democracy Defends Itself versus Mob Rule in the Streets.
The asymmetry is structural. The Democratic ecosystem holds editorial breadth across legacy media; Trump’s camp holds vertical integration across his base. Each needs the other’s distortion to justify its own.
4 | Mutual Exploitation
The NGO-Democratic apparatus requires confrontation that is visible yet containable — enough tension to appear historic, not enough to appear criminal. The administration requires disruption vivid enough to terrify moderates and validate expanded enforcement powers. Each side’s overreach becomes the other’s evidence.
The pattern is predictable. Left-aligned comms teams will highlight peaceful marches in New York and Washington; the administration’s briefings will emphasise isolated vandalism in Minneapolis or Portland.
By evening, the Justice Department will cite “inter-state coordination” as grounds for investigation, while organisers use the arrests to raise funds for “defending democracy.” The same imagery will finance both narratives.
5 | Palantir’s Position
Palantir stands to gain regardless of which narrative dominates. Federal spending databases show large, recurring Palantir awards across DHS and DoD since 2018, including nine-figure, multi-year obligations (USAspending.gov Recipient Profile 2025). Its software forms the backbone of HSI operations and is being integrated into FEMA and CBP systems.
FOIA-released records and watchdog reporting show Palantir systems embedded in ICE/HSI workflows, including cross-referencing arrest data with immigration datasets (Project On Government Oversight and Just Futures Law FOIA releases 2022–23).
Whether that data is used to prosecute “agitators” or to justify new civil-rights safeguards, Palantir’s product remains indispensable. It is the infrastructure of visibility — owned by a private vendor, rented by the state, and increasingly immune to political change.
6 | What to Watch
Funding disclosures — track 2024–25 grants from OSF, Tides, and allied foundations to Indivisible Project Inc., MoveOn Civic Action, and ACLU Foundation (OpenSecrets & IRS filings).
Procurement renewals — watch for DHS modifications to Palantir’s ICM and Gotham contracts in Q4 FY 2025.
Language drift — observe how “peaceful” evolves into “largely peaceful” or “domestic threat” within official statements and headlines.
Emergency authorisations — any DHS or DOJ orders citing “credible threats” before incidents occur will indicate pre-coordination between fusion centres and narrative desks.
7 | The Real Test
No Kings Day will not decide who governs. It will measure how far each network — political, philanthropic, or law-enforcement — can manipulate the boundary between legitimate protest and controllable threat.
The NGO system will demonstrate its ability to manufacture moral authority on demand. The administration will demonstrate its capacity to translate protest into policy justification. Both depend on the same infrastructure: donor capital, predictive data, and compliant media.
The United States now conducts politics as a managed feedback loop between spectacle and suppression. Each side requires the other to prove its necessity. The protester and the police officer, the donor and the contractor, the anchor and the algorithm are all components of a single system whose first loyalty is to itself.
That is the psyop already in motion. On 18 October the streets will provide the theatre; the institutions have already written the script.
Sources:
IRS Form 990 (2023–24); OpenSecrets.org (2025); USAspending.gov Contracts 70RSAT21P00000042 & 70RSAT22C00000036; DHS Privacy Impact Assessment (2023); DHS/FPS Civil Unrest FOIA Releases (2020–21); Harvard Shorenstein Center (2021); Center for Community Change Media Review (2022); Project On Government Oversight / Just Futures Law FOIA (2022–23); Nielsen Media Research (2025 Q2).
Do you get out with people much?
"Democracy Defends Itself versus Mob Rule in the Streets"
Well, any sane person knows this whole "No Kings Day" is a direct ATTACK on democracy and IS mob rule in the streets.
Civil war is becoming a reality before our very eyes.