We’re just over fourteen months into the second Trump presidency. During that time, the administration has crossed several bright lines in its assault on constitutional democracy. It has tried to abolish the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship by executive fiat. It has arrested legal residents for attending protests or writing op-eds. It has flooded American cities with federal agents in a show of force to punish uncooperative local politicians. When those agents have killed protesters in cold blood, it has doubled down.

And now, it is waging a deeply unpopular war in Iran — a war that Donald Trump started without even going through the usual motions of trying to sell the American public on the idea that Iran posed some grave threat that had to be neutralized.

A fair summary of all this would be that Trump has taken several long steps toward governing like a king, who only needs to be heard and obeyed, rather than as the elected leader of a constitutional republic. And Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies gave expression to the mounting public revulsion all of this has inspired.