Some leftists have criticized NoKingsDay2 as useless...

At the very least these protests are a reminder we are not alone and not the ones living in a reality founded on lies.

According to the book "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45", a big reason there was so little resistance to the Nazi regime was the lack of public demonstrations against it, and the fear of consequences to stand up, since so few others did.
Large public demonstrations like No Kings are likely a critical asset towards building public confidence to stand up to authoritarianism.

I agree with this take and have been making similar arguments, especially to those who didn't go because they didn't see it as useful for a leftist cause. Like, as if sitting at home waiting for the revolution to happen on its own is somehow a better use of your time.

2% is huge. Mobilizing that many Americans is a massive accomplishment, and if even a tiny fraction of that go on to join the local orgs they likely just discovered or otherwise help to build up their local community, unlearn individualism, or do what they can to ease their community's dependence on the global capitalist system, that's still a hell of a lot more than anything else that would have happened this weekend.

Like, there's this idea that some vanguard party is going to just take over the US and press the communism button and I really don't buy it. We're a very large country with a lot of people who've been propagandized since birth with neoliberal and individualist brain worms, and I think right now we really do need to be working to change that wherever we are currently living. That'll create the material conditions necessary for a national change.

yeah its funny how similar the message I see is from the right (which has no moderate level so is all extreme) and extreme left. not just this but many things.

Okay leftists, do something then.

Yeah, we have been. Antifa networks existed to track and dox Nazis way before 2016. Leftists fought Nazi skins in the streets in the 80's and basically saved the country from this happening once already.
In Seattle we organized a public records activism group that found SPD illegally using surveillance software, and identified a cop posting a bunch of Nazi shit on Twitter (who we got fired), and de-anonymized all SPD accountability records allowing us to identify a list of statistically deviant cops. Oh yeah, and some other leftist took that and built SPD.watch. We also organized free hand-to-had defense trainings. Oh, we also organized a community pantry that later expanded to feed houseless folks...then we organized a disaster preparedness committee where we bought a bunch of N95 masks and gave some presentations on smoke risk.
Oh... That was before the pandemic, so we actually had a few hundred masks to give to medic folks and houseless folks when the pandemic hit. You're welcome for keeping our medical staff safe. We were also the ones who organized that huge protest right after the Charlottesville attack.
We didn't have to organize a bail fund because anarchists did that years before. We also did have to organize independent media because anarchists had also organized that before.
That was almost all from 2016-2020 with like... 15 to 20 people.
All this is to say, we've been fucking busy. How about you?
Edit: the ask is literally just, "go prepare yourself and your neighborhood for crackdowns so you can keep protesting and escalate if needed" and "think about what winning could actually look like." Like... Do you know when people get arrested? We used to track that, bail folks out, and get them support when we could. If someone gets arrested, that can be a big burden. People can lose their jobs. Families can struggle. Are you going to raise money for legal defense? You gonna make sure those folks can pay rent? Are you at all prepared for shit to get wild, or are you just going to let the anarchists take care of everything? Do you have literally any plan beyond "I'm gonna show up with a sign sometimes then I'm gonna vote?"
- Sincerely, great work there! Let's all become leftists that do something.
You raise a good point

There are always provocateurs who want to give the police an excuse to crack down.

sounds like you don't actually understand how the police works. on an anarchist community no less
- You might want to learn a bit of history.
  Back in the day, the IWW had their own squads patrolling any march/demonstration. They were there to make sure no one threw a rock at a cop. Sometimes the trouble makers were locals who just wanted to bloody a cop and other times they were police stooges.
I think you'll find that the most common criticism is that the protests didn't really have an actionable point... Or an audience with shame and a conscience.
- trump not acting legally is 100% actionable. Its called impeachment. Congress not doing that is the reason for protests. This is not like the democrats negotiating for obama subsidies.