No Kings and the Meaning of Leadership: Why We’re Talking Past Each Other
Watching the recent “No Kings” protests, I couldn’t help but notice how divided our interpretations of leadership have become.
Many of the demonstrators appear older, liberal, and deeply frustrated — not just by policy, but by a perception of power. Yet when I look at what’s actually happening, I see a president doing exactly what he was elected to do: restore order, enforce laws, and project strength abroad.
As the founder and CEO of Civiltalk, I personally tend to side with President Trump on results — particularly when it comes to stronger law enforcement, tougher border control, and re-establishing deterrence abroad. At the same time, I feel a deep responsibility to maintain balance and encourage open dialogue on all sides. That’s the tightrope I walk daily: recognizing effective leadership while promoting the civility required to talk about it honestly.
A President Fulfilling His Mandate
Under President Trump, ICE has focused on deporting criminal illegals who, by definition, have violated our laws and often contribute to crime in our cities. The administration closed a border that had been overwhelmed, reversing policies that effectively allowed record numbers of illegal crossings. For the first time in years, the federal government has targeted fentanyl pipelines from China through Mexico and Canada, a crisis killing tens of thousands of Americans annually.
On the world stage, Trump has strengthened deterrence, not by starting wars but by ending them — brokering peace deals in the Middle East, cutting off funding streams to Hamas and other Iranian-backed groups, and neutralizing threats to American ships and allies. These actions don’t reflect monarchy. They reflect decisive leadership, using the authority granted by the people to uphold security and the rule of law.
The Protesters See Something Else
Yet to many in the streets wearing costumes and chanting “No Kings,” these same actions symbolize something darker: authoritarianism. They see the rhetoric as divisive, the executive power as unchecked, and the use of enforcement as a moral failure rather than a legal necessity. In their eyes, strength looks like domination; enforcement looks like cruelty; deterrence looks like imperialism.
Many protesters also believe Trump is breaking or bending laws, though when pressed, it’s not always clear which ones. When you look deeper, most of the claims tend to fall into a few broad categories:
Executive overreach — using presidential authority to direct the Justice Department, deploy the National Guard, or bypass Congress on funding and immigration.
Interference in judicial processes — statements about ongoing investigations or politically motivated pardons.
Foreign and domestic influence concerns — alleged misuse of government resources or classified information.
To date, most of these claims remain disputed or unresolved, not proven in court. Yet the feeling that norms are being violated fuels their protests.
The Other Side of the Coin
But it’s also true that many Trump supporters believe the other side has broken the law — or at least abused power — for years. They point to:
Failure to defend the border — allowing millions of illegal crossings, which they view as a violation of the president’s constitutional duty to protect the nation.
Weaponization of federal agencies — using the DOJ, FBI, or IRS to investigate political opponents, target Trump, or shape elections.
Foreign policy double standards — funding Iran even while it backed terrorist proxies, and turning a blind eye to corruption in Ukraine or China when it involved political allies.
Interference in elections and suppression of speech — coordination between government officials, media, and tech companies to control narratives.
Supporters of Trump see these actions — under both the Biden and Obama administrations — as clear violations of trust, if not the law itself. To them, the selective prosecution of Trump while ignoring these issues confirms that justice has become political.
So, we end up with two sides, both convinced the other is breaking the law — and both certain they are defending democracy.
Two Definitions of Democracy
That’s where America keeps colliding:
One side defines democracy as representative consent — the people elect a leader to act decisively on their behalf.
The other defines it as institutional restraint — every decision must be filtered through committees, moral narratives, and media approval.
Both interpretations contain truth. But when we stop acknowledging the legitimacy of the other’s concern — when strength is mistaken for tyranny or compassion for weakness — the conversation collapses.
Unity Before Diversity
This is also where our national conversation on diversity has lost its grounding.
Diversity is not a strength without unity first.
Without a shared mission, vision, and purpose — as Americans and as humans — diversity becomes fragmentation.
Unity doesn’t mean uniformity. It means agreeing on what holds us together: the Constitution, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and mutual respect.
When we put unity before diversity, we remind ourselves that our differences have meaning only when anchored to something larger than ourselves. A nation cannot celebrate variety if it no longer agrees on the values that make variety possible.
In my role at Civiltalk, I see this truth every day. We can only build understanding across diverse perspectives when we first establish a sense of unity — a common purpose that allows disagreement without disdain.
Why Civility and Emotional Intelligence Matter
This divide — between strength and compassion, law and empathy, diversity and unity — is exactly why we created Civiltalk.
Our mission has never been about silencing disagreement. It’s about helping people express it intelligently:
tagging their emotions,
recognizing bias, and
distinguishing feeling from fact.
Emotions are not the enemy of reason; they’re the entry point. The protesters feel fear of authoritarianism. Supporters feel anger at chaos and lawlessness. Both are human. Both can coexist in the same conversation — if we practice civility. When we stop talking past each other and start naming what we feel — fear, pride, frustration, hope — we begin to reclaim what unites us as Americans: a belief that our voices matter, our laws matter, and our humanity matters most.
A Call to Listen
So maybe the question isn’t whether Trump is a king. Maybe the question is whether we have forgotten how to listen to one another — to see that opposing feelings can still lead to shared purpose.
We don’t need fewer arguments. We need better ones — rooted in respect, truth, and the courage to stay civil when it’s hardest.
As the leader of Civiltalk, I invite you to join me in that mission — not because we all have to agree with one leader or one policy, but because we must agree on how we engage with each other as citizens and as humans. That’s what Civiltalk stands for: not agreement, but understanding.
Because the future of our democracy won’t be decided by who yells loudest… but by who chooses to listen first.
Written by Keith Fox, Founder and CEO of Civiltalk — a platform dedicated to strengthening emotional intelligence, civility, and ethical AI use across education, business, and public life.