United States and Canada Overview: September 2025

Demonstration trends

This section provides key figures on demonstration events, which includes incidents categorized as "Protests," and "Violent demonstrations" as recorded by ACLED. For more information on event and sub-event types, see the ACLED Codebook

United States: Demonstrations decline amid relatively small “day of action”

The Rage Against the Regime protests organized on 2 August saw dozens of demonstrations across the country show opposition to the Trump administration and support for a panoply of progressive causes, including support for migrants. These demonstrations took place across at least 28 states, with Florida, the site of the controversial Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center, hosting the most of any state. A judicial order to close Alligator Alcatraz issued on 21 August has survived legal challenges, leading the administration to begin to empty the center.¹

This spike in protests was part of a larger pattern of demonstration activity in the United States that has evolved since Donald Trump took office. His administration has seen regular widespread “days of action,” in which coalitions of organizations have mobilized hundreds or thousands of demonstrations across the country to show opposition to Trump, as well as support for progressive causes. Among the previous days of action were Good Trouble Lives on 17 July, No Kings on 14 June, May Day on 1 May, Hands Off! on 5 and 19 April, Tesla Takedown on 29 March, and the original 50501 demonstrations on 17 February. Taken by themselves, these eight days of action constitute more than a third of the total demonstration activity in the United States in the seven months from February to August. 

In August, demonstration levels in the United States decreased by nearly 40% compared to the previous month, largely because Rage Against the Regime was one of the smallest anti-Trump days of action so far in 2025. It especially paled in comparison to the largest day of action, No Kings, which saw nearly 30 times more demonstrations. 

Radical group trends

This section provides key figures on far-right and white nationalist groups.²

United States: Extremist activity reaches five-year low

Last month saw extremist group activity drop by over a third compared to the month prior. As a result, August saw the lowest number of events involving extremist groups in over five years. This nadir in extremist activity represents a steady decline since 2023. Multiple factors could explain this decline in extremist group activity, from a possible shift to more clandestine organizational tactics to failures of group leaders to mobilize and recruit.³ Others have suggested that extremist groups may feel less urgency to organize as they see their beliefs reflected in mainstream politics (for more on this trend, see this ACLED report).⁴

Amid this decline, some groups have remained conspicuously active. The brazen neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe organized demonstrations in two state capitals last month, performing Nazi salutes and parading with Swastika flags through the streets of Concord, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis, Indiana. In Concord, members of the group brawled with a bystander who approached them, hitting him with pepper spray and punching him, before fleeing. This marks the group’s first recorded use of violence since their first public demonstration on 11 March 2023.