Liberalism started as a philosophy to oppose monarchies. While watching protests, I saw a sign with a John Locke quote on it and it clicked for me.

This whole campaign of No Kings is total philosophical cooptation of the burgeoning revolutionary energy and redirecting it to liberalism. At first I thought the slogan was catchy but stupid - we’re not at risk of a king.

But seeing the quote made it click. No Kings is something both American liberals and American conservatives agree on, because they’re all philosophical liberals. By focusing the energy of the moment against “kings”, it at once directs the energy towards an already solved problem (there are no kings in the USA) and it directs the attention of the energized towards liberal concepts.

That level of sophistication, to me, is additional evidence that this is a dead end movement that we need to break out of or risk being herded into a cul-de-sac.