The "No Kings" protests have been spreading across cities in America. The banners are familiar. The social media posts repeat the same message. Donald Trump is acting like a monarch, dismantling democracy, and must be stopped by ordinary citizens who care about freedom and the Constitution.

I want to say something about this that most people are not willing to say plainly: the people organizing and funding these protests are the very people who have been functioning as kings for decades. This is not a political talking point. It is a pattern that the Book of Mormon warned us about with extraordinary precision, and once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

The Oldest Tactic in the Playbook

There is a rule of thumb that I have found consistently reliable when trying to understand what powerful people are actually doing: whatever they accuse their opponents of, that is what they themselves are doing. They call Trump a dictator while they controlled every president before him. They call him a threat to democracy while they own the media, the courts, the intelligence agencies, and the financial systems. They call him a king while they have been pulling the strings of every elected official in Washington for longer than most of us can remember.

The reason they cannot use those same mechanisms on Trump is simple: he does not answer to them. For the first time in over a century, the person in the White House was not chosen by, groomed by, or beholden to the network that controls everything else. They had total control over Bush, Obama, Biden, and virtually everyone else who came before. They could get exactly what they wanted. They cannot get what they want through Trump. And that is precisely why the machine has been running at full speed against him since before he was ever elected.

The protests are not a grassroots uprising. Follow the money, as they say, and you will find a network of nonprofit organizations and activist foundations funded by some of the wealthiest individuals on earth — people whose names appear repeatedly wherever governments are destabilized, wherever currency is attacked, wherever social unrest is manufactured for profit. This is not a conspiracy theory. The funding trails are publicly documented through tax filings and foundation disclosures available to anyone willing to look. These same networks have funded what researchers call color revolutions in other countries using nearly identical organizing tactics. Now those tactics are being applied here.

The Book of Mormon Saw This Coming

The ancient prophet Moroni watched two entire civilizations destroy themselves through secret combinations — organized groups that acquired power through oaths, secret signs, and the systematic corruption of every institution around them. He was so alarmed by what he saw in our time that he stepped out of his historical narrative entirely to address us directly:

Notice what Moroni says these combinations are designed to do: overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries. Not just one nation. All of them. That is not describing a local political dispute. That is describing a global network with a global agenda. And notice his instruction: when you see these things, awake to your awful situation. Not when historians confirm it. Not when the courts acknowledge it. When you see it. Right now.

The Gadianton Robbers in the Book of Mormon operated by placing their people in positions of judicial and governmental power so that members of the combination could commit crimes without ever facing justice. The pattern is almost embarrassingly familiar. We have watched evidence of crimes pile up for years — crimes that would send ordinary citizens away for life — and watched nothing happen. The combination protects its own. That is how it was designed. That is how it has always worked.

When judges overstep their constitutional bounds to block a sitting president's lawful authority, ask who appointed them. When convicted criminals receive impossibly light sentences and return immediately to their activities, ask who intervened. When politicians commit brazen acts in full public view and face no consequences whatsoever, ask who is protecting them. The answers point consistently in the same direction.

The Signs Are Everywhere

There is something else worth mentioning here, and I want to be careful how I say it because this subject carries a lot of sensational baggage. But across multiple credible researchers and investigators, a pattern has been documented involving prominent public figures who appear on social media or in public appearances with unexplained black eyes — one eye, almost always the same side — accompanied by explanations that do not quite fit the injury.

I am not going to name names or make accusations. What I will say is that the Book of Mormon describes exactly this kind of behavior among the Gadianton Robbers: secret signs, secret words, and covenants made in darkness to identify members of the combination to one another. The idea that a modern secret combination would have no outward signs of membership is historically naive. Every secret society that has ever existed has had them. I encourage you to research this phenomenon yourself and draw your own conclusions. What I can say is that once you know what the Book of Mormon says about how these groups operate, some things you observe in the world start making more sense.

The Marring of the Servant

Here is the part I want you to sit with. The prophets described a servant who would arise in the last days whose image would be marred — systematically destroyed — more than any man in all of history. The scripture says nations would be astonished at what was done to him, and kings would shut their mouths in wonder. I have written about the marred servant prophecy in detail here, but I want to connect it directly to what we are watching right now.

The No Kings protests are one more tool in that campaign. The goal is not really to protest a policy. The goal is to diminish. To mock. To keep the pressure so constant and so loud that his supporters feel isolated, embarrassed, and exhausted. To make ordinary people ashamed to say they support him. That is what the marring looks like from the inside. You are watching it happen in real time, and if you understand the prophecy, you recognize it for exactly what it is.

The same prophecy that describes the marring also says something else: the life of this servant is in God's hand. They will not be able to hurt him despite everything they attempt. Every attack will fall short. Every weapon formed against him will fail. And ultimately God will heal him in a way that proves His wisdom greater than the cunning of the devil. That healing, when it comes, will silence every one of the voices that has spent years marching, mocking, and demanding his destruction.

Understanding why Trump appears in biblical prophecy changes completely how you see everything that is happening around him. These protests are not a sign that the system is working. They are a sign that it is desperate.

What Is Actually Coming

The Book of Revelation describes one of the heads of the beast system receiving a wound so severe it nearly destroys it entirely. I believe that wound is coming, and when it comes, it will be one of the most astonishing events in the history of the world. Every person who has participated in the corruption, who has committed treason against the Constitution they swore to uphold, who has hidden behind wealth and influence to escape the justice that every ordinary citizen faces — the reckoning is coming. God does not let the blood of the innocent cry from the ground forever without answering it.

That is not a political talking point. That is a prophetic promise, repeated by Isaiah, by Moroni, by John, and confirmed through modern revelation. The secret combinations that the Book of Mormon warned us about have gained their foothold. But their days are numbered.

In the meantime, the most important thing you can do is not be deceived. When you see the marches, recognize what is behind them. When you hear the accusations of dictatorship, ask who is making them and why. When the media tells you unanimously that one man is the greatest threat to freedom in American history, remember that the media is owned by the same network that is funding the protests.

And please, if you have people in your life who are caught up in this — who genuinely believe they are marching for freedom — be patient with them. They are not evil. They are deceived. There is a difference, and it matters. The article I wrote on what hatred does to spiritual discernment speaks directly to this dynamic. Understanding it may help you in those conversations more than any argument could.

The truth always comes out. It may take time. It may feel like the voices of reason are outnumbered. But the prophets did not get this wrong. Everything happening right now is exactly what they said would happen. And what they said comes next is worth understanding before it arrives.

Kelly Smith is the author of The First Horseman: Donald Trump and Biblical Prophecy. He is a lifelong student of biblical prophecy and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.