Roger Marshall got it wrong. ‘No Kings’ was peaceful. He should apologize | Opinion

Roger Marshall ought to apologize.

Countless Americans filled the streets of cities large and small on Saturday for “No Kings” protests against Donald Trump’s increasingly imperious presidency. There is a long history of anti-government demonstrations in this country — if you’re reading this, you probably remember the anti-Barack Obama “Tea Party” marches of the late aughts — and thanks to the First Amendment, you might even say such displays are part of the American birthright.

Before the weekend protests, though, Marshall went on TV and smeared the demonstrators for no good reason.

“This will be a Soros-paid-for protest, where his professional protesters show up,” Kansas’ junior senator told Newsmax. “The agitators show up. We’ll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully, it will be peaceful; I doubt it as well.”

Turns out he was completely wrong. He ought to say so.

Peaceful, patriotic protesters

There were two calumnies in Marshall’s comments about the protests:

First was the allegation that a billionaire such as George Soros was paying “professional protesters” to turn out. The sheer numbers of folks who showed up — in places like Boston and Chicago, but also in red state locales like Kansas City, Wichita and Cottonwood Falls — makes that particular assertion unlikely.

The folks carrying signs weren’t professionals. Mostly they were your neighbors.

They weren’t radicals, either. They were normal folks who see a president eager to send armed troops into American cities, normal folks who worry that our nation’s nearly 250-year-old democratic experiment is in danger of collapsing.

“I want the Republicans to know that we love America,” one woman told The Kansas City Star.

The protest was “a celebration of our democracy and our ability to be able to protest,” another told The Wichita Eagle.

Marshall’s second error was to suggest the protests would turn violent. Didn’t happen. Sure, there was an isolated scuffle or two between protesters and Trump supporters, but nothing so violent or widespread that the National Guard was needed.

The Americans who marched on Saturday weren’t violent mercenaries. They were peaceful patriots.

And Roger Marshall smeared them.

Calling out the ‘Hate America’ rallies

Marshall wasn’t the only Republican to tar the Saturday’s protesters. House Speaker Mike Johnson labeled them the “Hate America” rallies. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri dismissed the demonstrators as “leftist goons,” while his Show-Me State colleague Eric Schmitt darkly suggested the marches were “planned by some of the most powerful political forces in America.” Trump himself called the whole thing a “joke.”

Which makes it time for a history lesson.

I am old enough to remember when Democrats similarly dismissed the Tea Party protests in 2009 as the work of a few rich Republicans — a political performance that had nothing to do with voters’ lives or political reality.

Democrats looked pretty silly, though, when the GOP swept the next year’s midterm elections.

I am also old enough to remember a few years before that, when Republicans dismissed protests against the invasion of Iraq as the work of fringe socialist groups.

The problem? Those protesters were right about Iraq. Even Trump thinks so now.

The point here is that it is awfully easy to dismiss large-scale protests when you don’t like the message they’re sending, but also perhaps awfully short-sighted to do so. Recent history suggests you might be missing out on an important warning signal about the path ahead.

Marshall, who is running for reelection next year, might want to take notice.

His problem isn’t just that he was wrong. It is also that he ended up insulting his own constituents. Thousands of Kansans, likely voters, turned out for Saturday’s protests. Those are the folks he dismissed as potentially violent “professional protesters.”

Smearing your own voters isn’t smart politics, especially when you’re about to start an election campaign. For the sake of his own future — if nothing else — Marshall might want to apologize.

This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 1:18 PM.