NO KINGS DAY 2: THE RISE OF THE TRUMP KINGDOM
One madman cannot be allowed to do as he wishes.
Foreword
The third round of NO KINGS rallies will be held across the country on Saturday, March 28, 2026. NO KINGS 3 sounds climactic, like the end of a trilogy. For me, it is the cause of panic, because this write-up of the October 18, 2025, NO KINGS 2 rally is as late as Jim Dave Vance’s conversion to MAGA Trumpism.
Composition of this essay stalled when I realized it captured a moment of gathering, not conclusion. I waited to post it for the resolution of the 2025 government shutdown and other crises for perspective. October was a horror show, which was why I settled on such a scary title, but then Democrats won massive election victories that November across the country, which led me to revise the piece with a hopeful frame, then Senator Dick Durbin and others broke ranks to shut down the shut down, which caused more pessimism. Still, I held off on publishing. I could not determine why I was delaying, but I felt like I was still waiting for something, that time would reveal the meaning of the day.
For the 2026 New Year, I thought this piece would rally the spirit of the #Resistance through the dark and cold months. But on January 3, Mr. Trump bombed Venezuela and captured its President Nicolás Maduro without congressional authorization. Four days later, masked ICE thug Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Good. Seventeen days after that, Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti ten times in the back. Then the United States went into war with Iran, killing its Supreme Leader and putting the world economy into trauma.
If NO KINGS 2 was meant to stop the rise of a Trump Kingdom, it failed, or at least, did not succeed at that. It did raise spirits, which sounds insufficient, like a participation trophy, but that was also an urgent work. Now that those spirits are summoned and shaped, there is much for them to do.
NO KINGS DAY Eve
On Friday, October 17, 2025, the eve of NO KINGS DAY 2, I was so zonked on melatonin gummies it felt like a holiday. I hoped the #Resistance fairy would be kind enough to bring us an undeniable cause for invoking the 25th Amendment and removing President Donald Trump from office. But then I became sleepless with horror watching Sinclair Broadcasting‘s “must-run” segment on the protest, wherein Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy “warned [the] weekend’s protests could turn volatile if radical elements like Antifa get involved.” I remember when he was a contestant on MTV’s The Real World—and as far as I am concerned, he should have stayed there.
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, “Antifa,” short for “antifascism,” was designated a “domestic terror organization” by liars fantasizing about the existence of a sophisticated criminal network stoking dissent because they cannot imagine that Americans hate them organically. Though what trope of leader fears antifascism?
House Speaker Mike Johnson, or “MAGA Mike,” as they call him in the club, said “Hate America” rallies would be comprised of “Hamas supporters.” What nasty shit. CPAC, not NO KINGS, is the group that calls themselves domestic terrorists, and Mr. Johnson has happily spoken there.
Some Republicans do want to hurt Americans. Governor Greg Abbott pre-emptively dispatched his National Guard to the NO KINGS 2 protests in Texas. Unless he was so gullible as to believe that was necessary, I assumed the intent was intimidation. Well, I was intimidated! Not enough to stay home, but I experienced bodily discomfort. Mission accomplished?
When this administration came into power, I knew ex-Fox News host and DUI Hire, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth aspired to recreate the shooting of student activists at Kent State University. In January 2025, I asked friends in the Maryland and Virginia Guard about this over Yuenglings. They verified that, if ordered, Guardsmen would never kill American civilians. But that was another age, and based on the number of times Mr. Trump has staged the United States Armed Forces in an adversarial posture against the nation’s citizens, I worried these assurances would be tested.
Why are “normie” Republicans so comfortable this close to the line of the Boston Massacre? Would they enjoy the worst? Otherwise, why flirt with violence? If elected members of the GOP seek domination over their adversaries, we must hope they lack the stomach to be suppressors. I am sickened by today’s Republicans, and I pray they hate themselves, too.
The first round of nationwide “NO KINGS” protests in June 2025 coincided with the so-called “grand military parade“ in DC Mr. Trump scheduled for his birthday. I feared there would be a “Tiananmen Square” moment, that Americans could die. Pre-dawn, far-right private security contractor Vance Boelter killed Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark Hortman, their dog Gilbert, and injured State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. A civil twilight indeed. I expected more bloody outcomes by the day’s end. Instead, the military parade featured squeaking tanks, out-of-step soldiers. Even Mr. Trump was so bored he fell asleep standing. While that was a relief, I was mistaken to think anti-climax was a victory. The president was embarrassed, but the nightmare continued.
Five million Americans that first NO KINGS DAY rallied against the GOP’s destruction of our constitutional republic, but what can defiance do uncoupled from power? Our one way out is with Democratic victories in the 2026 midterm election, if those elections are free or fair. But with troops, masked men, and blood in the streets, we should not presume freedom or fairness.
Before I became afraid, I had an outfit planned: black jeans, Doc Martens, “TRUMP IS A BITCH” t-shirt, leather jacket, fingerless leather gloves, sunglasses, and a wallet chain. The world would see me spit in the face of this evil regime. To my shame, I scrapped the look.
I saw “Antifa” once, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter rallies in DC. Antifascist street chefs cooked hot dogs on griddles, shared crock pots of soup, and wore all black, like a gothic street gang. If they were now being pursued by the state, it seemed prudent not to resemble them. Instead, I dressed like a Young Republican: khakis, a white shirt, a muted burgundy tie, and a blue blazer.
I packed, unpacked, and finally packed again safety goggles. Carrying protective gear seemed combative, but after I saw footage of smiling ICE agents pelting the giraffe-costumed musician Robby Roadsteamer with pepper balls because they disliked his YMCA cover “Trump was on the Jeffrey Epstein plane,” I prioritized my eyeballs over optics.
Rally
En route to DC the morning of the rally, I passed a Toyota Tundra with a Thin Blue Line license plate and Punisher skull sticker. No truck nuts, sadly. I prayed that guy was not planning to beat any hippie ass, because I got stuck behind an old white Chevrolet Astrovan plastered with stickers: “50501,” “Join the dark side, we have cookies,” “Save the Bay,” and “Bernie Sanders 2020.” Sadly, no “TRUMP IS A BITCH,” thanks to the Spreadshop censorship campaign that ruined our merchandise shop.
The elderly couple was going into the District, too. I considered speeding past them, but I respect oldheads too much to tailgate them. Elders are the vital part of the pro-Democracy movement until Zoomers stop calling in-person protests “cheugy.” I wished to say, “Please, you hippies, rest. Smoke your medicine. Let the next generation stop fascists.” But I cannot offer that relief. We need every fighting soul.
From Merriam-Webster: “Cheugy is a slang adjective used to describe someone or something uncool or unfashionable, especially when seen as slightly cringeworthy or trying too hard. It’s mainly used as a jokey put-down of trends stereotypically associated with millennials.”
I struggled to find parking for the first time since the Big Balls Beatdown, after which the military occupation dampened the capital’s downtown activity. I squeezed into a spot, I exited the garage, then stepped on a shoelace, and yanked it so hard I could not fix it quickly. The knot and loop were deformed, so I squatted on the sidewalk to re-lace the whole boot. Not arduous, but a task that leaves a man exposed and immobile on the corner. I was a tightly tuned ball of nerves, and could not afford looseness.
I did not imagine myself a fearless defender of democracy. I was anxious, which was fair because the administration manufactured an atmosphere of terror. I would not capitulate. I could objectively measure the force levied against me, and resented it.
At 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, musicians played a banger called “Fall of the Trump Regime.” A colorful crowd gathered around them like a hurricane of human bodies. Fuck you, QAnon. We are the storm.
The rally stage had the Capitol as backdrop. Nearby, a banner of the glaring visage of Mr. Trump hung from the Department of Labor building. Big Dear Leader vibes.
A street party advertised as “Dance against DOGE” was on the corner. “Twist and Shout” played, followed by “Somebody’s Watching Me.” It had been used to mock speech-hating FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, and since then, it played everywhere.
Senators Adam Schiff and Cory Booker were somewhere in the crowd. Instead of making crazy stuff up, Mr. Johnson should have been with them. He and I will never understand each other, but I want him to see me before lying about me.
Someone with a megaphone announced: “Congratulations! You are ALL ‘Antifa.’” Was he friend or foe? Was that celebration or accusation? Did he mean we were heroes or terrorists? It is not radical to care whether morons command masked goons to terrorize the citizenry. Most Americans would rather not live in such a country.
As “proof” of his theory that I and 7 million Americans were hired agitators, the president complained that shady organizations mass produced “identical perfect signs.” Had he never heard of Kinko’s? Every suburb in America is littered with mass-produced signs for mattress stores going out of business.
Most signs were handmade and earnest. Nobody can counterfeit the snark of well-conditioned MSNOW liberals and #Resistance posters. Such memetic effort deserves eternal preservation:
· “Trump is the Antichrist,”
· “Trump drew a little girl for Jeffrey Epstein,”
· “Trump is a ra_ist,”
· “NO KINGS but Short Kings,”
· “Wake the fuck up. There are Nazis in the White House,” and
· “Divided we croak.”
One placard depicted Indiana Jones punching Mr. Trump, who was dressed as Hitler. One NO KINGS banner had as its handle a submarine sandwich-shaped balloon referencing DC folk hero Sean Dunn, who splattered a cold cut on armored Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore in the first days of the city’s occupation.
In solidarity with the Portland Frog, who had pepper spray shot through his air-intake by ICE agents, dozens of protesters came in inflatable frog costumes. It was clear everybody was having fun. I saw a gang of Squidwards, a woman “riding” a rainbow-colored chicken, a Yip Yip Martian beside a large inflatable pig in sunglasses, pink pussy hats, and T-Rexes dancing everywhere. Many attendees wore capes—American flags, Free DC, one inscribed “Sic semper tyrannis.” Why do I not own a cape? It could say: “Caesar non est supra grammaticos.”
I saw some “NO KINGS” handkerchiefs used as bandanas. I wanted one. If George Soros had supplied us with swag, as conspiracists allege, he neglected me. I would tuck it into the breast of my sport coat so that it was clearer I belonged to this throng.
One shirt announced, “History has its eyes on you.” Hamilton cringe will never die, I suppose, but nothing good has grown in its absence. A more contrarian message came from another shirt promising “Sunny days ahead.” We were in a lightless time, with little cause to expect brightening. Unbidden came the words of John McCain: “It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black.” I worried we were already in the too-late, that the bad time had already arrived and awaiting recognition.
Flags of all sizes waved across the crowdscape: American flags, Free DC flags, “Fuck Trump” banners, Palestinian, Pride, and Gadsden flags, and cosplayers hoisting the Jolly Roger from the anime One Piece on the DOL steps. That show is credited for toppling governments overseas, and youth movements have made it their icon, but it is 1140+ episodes long. I will never have time to watch it.
The crowd density was so great that I did not realize until after-the-fact that I had stood within ten feet of close friends. The same trees stymied both our eyelines to the stage.
Pastor Delonte Gholston opened the rally by declaring we were standing on holy ground. The assemblage cheered for his land acknowledgement. Finally, the revival of woke. Warmth washed gently across my face as that spirit of goodness touched us again.
James Carville would have malded if he had been there. He said after a DNC meeting in Minneapolis: “That land, what we did to Native Americans, is really well-documented. And it is a sad part of our nation’s history. Why are you bringing this up in an election?”
Mr. Carville imagines this is a rhetorical question, but I am sure any Social Studies teacher would have an answer, like “The stories of those who met similar villains may show us how they might be felled today.” That is why NO KINGS DAY 2 hammered in the grievances against the king which launched the American Revolution. In the Founding Fathers’ lives and times, of course there is some instruction in fighting for liberty against tyranny.
Mr. Gholston told a story from the Book of Daniel:
“There was a king in the land in those days, and that king’s name was Nebuchadnezzar. He was a narcissistic king. He was a prideful king. He believed that neighbors should turn against neighbors instead of loving neighbors. He believed in the occupation of territory and not the blessing of sacred land. And he told everybody in the land that they had to bow down and worship him. They erected a golden statue of him and put it on the National Mall—I mean, and put it in their land at that time. And those who were gathered there, those three sacred vessels of holiness, they refused to bow to that king.”
When Mr. Gholston said “Nebuchadnezzar,” the crowd booed. Their brains connected Mr. Trump with the Biblical despot instantly. Mine did not, because I forgot about Daniel. When the pastor named the brothers Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I thought they were Lord of the Rings orcs.
Mr. Gholston continued: “We won’t bow to any power that traffics in fear and division… to an empire or to a regime that believes in separating us by the documentation that we carry, or the faith that we witness to, or the people that we love, or the places that we come from, because our God knows the places that we are going.”
I am not religious—”irreligious” is more accurate—but that sounded reasonable and good. I wondered if this sermon would move the hardened hearts of MAGA evangelicals, and knew it would not. They had their own mean God, who bragged about his sword and how he would make a man’s own household his foes. It seemed clear which of the two faiths meant well.
“There is a simple principle that I learned from Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, who stood for decades against apartheid. And he simply taught us to look each other in the eye with a principle that we call the Sawabona principle. The Sawabona principle means I see you…. A people, a people who can see each other can remind each other of our collective sacredness. A people who can see each other cannot unsee it when our babies are being pulled out of cars on their way to be dropped off at school [or] masked ICE agents pulling up in our city and cities around the country. A people who can see each other cannot unsee… wickedness in high places [and] hypocrisy in the land.”
Are we a nation who will feign blindness? I could wear those phony khakis every day, keep my head down, lower my cortisol. It would be easier than using all my spare time to write angry newsletters. But I cannot unsee that the president is a petty gangster and a bullshitting moron who is looting and ruining this country. Knowing that harm, to look away would be complicity.
“I’m believing that there are people rising up all over this world who will not bow to hatred… corruption… hypocrisy… fear… suspicion… political violence… [or] a kind of religion that wants to be close to power but won’t empower anybody else.”
Me AF, though nobody has tried to make me bow. Mark Zuckerberg was #Resistancey during the first Trump administration, but then after Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory underwent a macho-man makeover and paid MAGA tribute. The billionaire Meta CEO possessed one of the planet’s most powerful technology companies, yet instead of combating Mr. Trump’s threat to “put him in jail” unbowed, he got on his knees and bent his head to the fucking floor. If something broke a man of his infinite means, it is hubris to assume I can resist it merely because I am a cooler dude than “the Zuck.”
Senator Chris Murphy spoke next and extolled his state of Connecticut:
“We were the first state to adopt our own constitution. In my state, we couldn’t wait to be self-governed. We couldn’t wait to throw off the yoke of control and censorship from us. Before any other state, before our founding fathers, we wrote down in Connecticut the simple words: NO KINGS.”
A yoke is a frame that fits across the shoulders of two oxen so that they can carry a plow or wagon, harnessing two things to work in tandem. I am not “yoked” by this administration because I do no work for them. But there are those who are made to do things.
“And I’m here today to share with you some unsurprising news. We are not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We are in the middle of an authoritarian takeover,” Mr. Murphy said. It hurt to hear. I looked to the sky and wished there was a God that might make things right again. But the world refused to change that day.
Near the Hahn/Cock statue—a big blue rooster— atop the National Gallery of Art were men in tactical gear with cameras, binoculars, and fixed counter-sniper platforms. They are not a novel sight in DC; it can be a fun game to spot their hiding spots. But after a year of dissidence, security apparatus may not be on The People’s side. I sensed the men’s covered eyes burning back on me. If the president gave the order, would their rifles aim at us? I had the persistent intrusive thought that it was at the mercy of a tyrant that we were permitted to leave alive.
“Our democracy is in peril, but it can be saved. But no one’s riding to our rescue. And I just want to be clear with you about that today. No one’s riding to our rescue. There aren’t establishment responsible Republicans that are riding to our rescue. The mainstream media isn’t riding to our rescue. There’s no oligarchs riding to our rescue. It is up to us to save us.”
Mr. Murphy neglected a critical detail. Democratic leadership cannot “ride to the rescue,” either, because they have no power to save anyone, even themselves. All we have left is the filibuster, and that could disappear with a simple majority of complicit Republicans. The voters need to come to the Republic’s rescue, if they can.
Mr. Murphy said that the president was “enacting a detailed, step-by-step plan to try to destroy all of the things that protect our democracy—free speech, fair elections, an independent press, the right to peacefully protest.” That is the state of our union.
The senator went on: “Trump does think that he’s a king… [but he] does not have the power to send masked men into our cities and pull off the streets our peaceful neighbors and throw them into the back of vans and into prisons. He never has that power.”
An oxen-driver cannot pull a wagon himself, either, but when he has his yoke handy, the wagon will be moved, no matter the cost to the beasts. Around that time, a bee set its attention on me. I respond to stings poorly, so I stayed and avoided irritating the insect before it departed. I will not give Mr. Trump the same courtesy.
Mr. Murphy meant to inspire, but when he claimed “every single one of us needs to understand that when we wake up every day, we have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to fight hard to protect that bold experiment” my legs and lower back ached. The obligation weighs on me before every breakfast, but when I express it, everybody tells me “not to overdo it,” “I can’t do it all by myself,” or to “chill the fuck out.”
I wondered about those old hippies. Come some decades, if this political drama were not done, would I become them?
Zeteo founder and former MSNOW host, the stern but delightful Mehdi Hasan, entered next.
“I am a journalist, I am an immigrant, and I am a Muslim. I am everything Donald Trump loves. I am the Trump trifecta. I’m also a bit of a socialist. But don’t tell Stephen Miller, he alarms quite quickly…. All week I’ve heard Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican members of Congress say this rally, the NO KINGS rally, is a hate rally. A hate rally. The people who can’t get through a single day without hating on late night comedians, and overweight soldiers, and Muslim politicians, and Mexican immigrants, and Palestinian refugees, and black women, and transgender kids, and peaceful protesters, and Mr. Fucking Potato Head, they are lecturing us on hate? Really?”
When put that way, I will never understand how this GOP can face the public without shame. They would be ridiculous men, if they were not monsters.
“I’m here out of love. I’m here because I love this country. I love America. I love the First Amendment. I love our democracy. I love our diversity. Yes, our diversity. And I am not willing to sit back and watch our glorious American multiracial, multicultural, democratic experiment, our constitutional republic, destroyed by the guy from Home Alone 2.”
I will never give Mr. Johnson grace, because he never apologized for his snide remarks about this rally. If I am cruel for inferring he is a pornography addict (why else would the Speaker’s son need to monitor his Internet use?), why should I apologize? He said worse about me.
“This is a president who says he wants to be a dictator, but only for a day…. He just went to see the Egyptian President Sisi, who is a military dictator, runs one of the most repressive regimes on earth. And he went there and he said, ‘I want to praise your fantastic leadership and your low crime rates.’ This is who he loves. This is the autocratic leader he aspires to be.”
Republicans once found Mr. Trump’s praise of dictators disqualifying. It was only in 2016 that Senator Ted Cruz refused to endorse Mr. Trump at the Republican National Convention, and reminded the delegates: “We have no king or queen, we have no dictator; We the People constrain government. We deserve leaders who stand for principle.” Perhaps that version of Mr. Cruz stayed in Cancun.
Secretary of State and sycophant Li’l Marco Rubio wrote: “In just the last few days, Trump has refused to condemn white supremacism and the Ku Klux Klan, praised dictators Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qaddafi, and proposed infringing upon the First Amendment of our Constitution. That’s all after he made fun of disabled people, said China was too soft on dissidents, demeaned women, and insulted war heroes. Trump doesn’t take many clear policy positions, but when he does, they’re just as scary.”
Mr. Rubio now considers cozying up to white nationalists, flattering dictators, threatening free speech, mocking disabled people, cracking down on dissidents, demeaning women, and sneering at veterans just fine. Perhaps he will take part in some of this, too!
And of course, Vice President Jim Dave Vance once called Mr. Trump “America’s Hitler.” Now, he serves that Hitler. I hate him most of all.
Mr. Hasan called out: “Let me say to every Republican and Conservative watching, aren’t you the ones who said no more big government, no tyranny in America? So, if you believe that, what are you doing, defending masked federal agents in unmarked cars, bundling people off of the streets, including American citizens, and disappearing them? How are you okay with that? … Come over to our side, the side of no crowns, no thrones, no kings. The side of freedom, of liberty, of the Constitution. The First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Twenty-Second Amendment, which says two terms means two terms. And if you’re not worried about Donald Trump trying to stay on for a third term, you should be. He’s literally selling merch.”
How could anybody of good conscience hear this and not come over to “our side?” Perhaps everyone who would, has—a depressing thought.
I fear Mr. Trump’s ambition to secure a third term less now. His feet are engorged, his hands are purple, the skin on his neck is worn and peeling away, he can barely walk, speak coherently, or stay awake in front of cameras. In another two years, at a yet more advanced age? It is more likely that infirmity ends this term than he can seize another. But we must crush him sooner, and this last deranged ambition of his makes a solid cudgel.
“We here today are not spectators. We are citizens. We are not bystanders. We are proud and patriotic Americans. And we Americans, We the People, will not allow our country to be taken over by demagogues and dictators.” I pray this resounds.
“Are you willing to be the Americans on whose watch democracy died?”
I am not, but we need more than me.
“We will out-organize them, we will out-vote them, we will outlast them.”
We must.
Deirdre Schifeling from the American Civil Liberties Union came out and praised America’s “250-year history of disagreeing in public.” “It’s not just our opinion that everyone is entitled to their beliefs without fear of punishment. It’s in our country’s Constitution,” she said, then asked: “Why is Trump trying? What is he so afraid of?”
Because of his uniquely distasteful character, people have talked shit about Mr. Trump his whole life. He behaves as a grotesque caricature but bristles at the scorn that attracts. Call it TDS if you must, but with my last breath, I will call him a lying, crying bitch.
“The best way to protect our freedom is to act free,” Ms. Schifeling declared, and if I were seated, I would have jumped to applaud. On the individual level, self-censorship is a way to be safe. As it spreads, the range of expression for all individuals becomes smaller. This is why I advised at the start of 2025 for Democrats to become disinhibited, say shit in the wildest ways they can, buy TRUMP IS A BITCH shirts, and talk loudly about politics in inappropriate places, like the checkout line of the grocery store. Only if we model the behavior of a free people will the nation know how free people act.
Sarah Parker, the executive director of Voices of Florida and 50501, implored us to “refuse to let this become our reality.”
“Democracy dies when we are silent. But democracy is reborn when we speak with courage.” Ms. Parker warned against “standing by while the country slips into the iron grip of authoritarianism,” though it is not an “iron grip.” Mr. Trump has weak grip strength, thanks to his chronic venous insufficiency, but we are asked to pretend and submit. Many do.
Afeni Evans from the DC Fair Budget Coalition declared: “The social contract in this country has been broken. Decades of movement, work, progress, and struggle have been wiped out by Christian nationalists who seek dominion over every aspect of our lives.”
That is right. Whatever features of this country that were upheld by norms, gentleman’s agreements, traditions, or kindness can no longer be assumed. How could I ever trust a Republican neighbor again? However this presidency ends, the terror only stops when we create a new covenant with each other. I cannot see how that is possible, unless half the country changes.
The crowd buzzed when the announcer cued the next speaker: “An American science educator, engineer, comedian, television presenter, inventor, keynote speaker, and author. He is a respected champion of scientific literacy, who has challenged opponents of evidence-based education and policy on climate change, evolution, and critical thinking… Bill Nye, the Science Guy.”
To my mortification, all around me people chanted: “Bill! Bill! Bill!” Mr. Nye is pretty cool, but no edutainment except for PBS’s Wishbone was THAT good. Mr. Nye easily explained the causes of the American Revolution to the audience. Perhaps if we could get him in a room with Mr. Johnson, the Speaker would understand why the country’s majority stares at his servility aghast.
“We are here for the same reason our ancestors gathered here in 1776. We want our government to run without a king,” Mr. Nye pumped his fist and chanted: “No thrones. No crowns. No kings.” Hell yeah.
“In 1776, our ancestors had enough. They declared independence from a king by means of a document stored safely right over there on Constitution Avenue in the National Archive. Although it was conceived 249 years ago, the Declaration of Independence describes a train of abuses connected with an absolute authority, a king with absolute power.”
Stored not only “right over there,” but in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, alongside the Constitution and Bill of Rights (“the BOR,” as I call them), down the hall from a 1297 Magna Carta and under bulletproof glass, and lowered each night into a bunker to protect it from nuclear explosions. Few objects exist on Earth that are as well-protected.
After the Guard occupied Washington, DC, I started carrying my pocket combo Declaration-Constitution-BOR, as if for self-defense. It is remarkable to contrast the grievances against the king with not only Mr. Trump’s actions but his whole philosophy of governance and evil vibe.
“Their king had refused to honor the law. Their king had refused to let lawmakers be elected. The king had made court judges dependent on his will. They cited the king sending ‘swarms of officers to harass our people.’ Their language referred to ‘cruelty and faithlessness scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous of ages.’ Their king was trying to ‘render the military independent and superior to civil power.’ Our founders even censured King George for cutting off trade with all parts of the world. Did these actions sound familiar?”
I am begging the Democratic National Committee to make YouTube ads of this man.
“In short, the founders believed their king was, in their words, ‘totally unworthy to be the head of a civilized nation.’”
“Enabled by this president, a group of confederates has worked together to undo many of our traditions and understandings of fairness and of citizens’ rights.”
“Understandings of fairness and of citizens’ rights” sounds like an abstract harm, but the miseducation of conservative chud and crank youth is a civic wound that will kill our Constitution. Withholding funds from universities to force them to change curricula, deporting immigrant students with unpopular opinions, prosecuting political rivals and critics, firing U.S. attorneys to avenge criminals, manipulating media coverage, today’s Young Republicans think these are “tools in the box,” not egregious uses of power.
Unless we want Generations Z and Alpha and beyond to be “like this” and subject us to annoying “New Right” bullshit for another 50 years, we must make this unviable, or these students of extremist MAGA Trumpism will mistake harassment and intimidation as clever “hacks” and “cheat codes.” I am reminded of 2021-2022, when #KiaBoys exploded on TikTok. Teenagers shared videos showing how certain Kia and Hyundai models could be stolen. Footage showing the subsequent joyrides set to music like “Shake yo Nay Nay” went viral, and police departments across the U.S. reported nearly 1,000 percent increases in Kia and Hyundai thefts. If abuses of power are profitable, the #MAGABoys will show no more restraint.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, bragged about the size of the crowd. “From up here, you cannot see the perimeter. There are so many people who want to fight for our democracy and say NO KINGS. And what I’ve just been told, that in New York City, there are more people in Times Square than there are on New Year’s Eve.”
Nearly 7 million Americans participated in NO KINGS Day 2 demonstrations, 2 percent of the total population. One in 50. Is this very big or very small?
Ms. Weingarten said: “We in the labor movement are fighting for a democracy and a voice in it so we can secure a better life for all working people. All of God’s children. Better wages, affordable health care and childcare, good schools for children, and a secure retirement. Tell me, what is radical about all of that?”
If you contrast these normal goals with the Republican rhetoric towards them, the disparity is grotesque. To contort reality so meanly, it seems obvious Messrs. Trump, Johnson, et al. hate the Americans who do not bow to them.
“We want the president to spend his time solving our country’s problems, not settling scores with political opponents. We want a future that is based on fairness and justice and the rule of law, not chaos, corruption, or cruelty.”
It was interesting to compare Ms. Weingarten’s words with Mr. Trump’s awful second inaugural address. Without touching the Bible, Mr. Trump pledged to: “Bring back accountability and honesty to our institutions and fairness to our systems of justice. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents or punish citizens for their beliefs. We will not allow that to happen.” That was a fucking lie.
Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter led the crowd in a DC statehood chant, and snapped me awake from “gotcha” collecting. Referencing Louisiana v. Callais, Mr. Albright said “the Supreme Court heard a case that could put the final death blow to the Voting Rights Act,” which “could eliminate black representation for black communities,” and allow the elimination of at least 19 congressional seats currently protected by the VRA.
Mr. Albright warned the 2026 midterms could be rigged to “create a permanent one-party rule, at the expense of black voters in black communities. But like so many other issues that are rooted in anti-blackness, that sickness won’t just stay within a black community—it affects this entire country.”
That is my nightmare. Jim Dave Vance said that he wants “no unity” with Democrats; Mr. Trump has said he hates them—hates us! A major cause of the 2025 government shutdown was the GOP’s refusal to negotiate with Democrats. Again in 2026, Mr. Trump will not talk with the opposition. To get their desired nationwide one-party rule, Republicans need us delegitimized as well as defeated. Well, I dream the same for them. I have been accused of “dooming” when I say this to moderate friends, but we cannot wait for those outcomes to be concluded before we acknowledge that the president pursues them.
Jay Brown, Chief of Staff at the Human Rights Campaign, warned of that same dystopia: “Freedom looks like… the freedom to live, and to be, and to raise our families as we see fit. But this president, he has a darker vision for America. One where our families are told how to parent their children. Where doctors are forced to forego their oaths to do no harm. Where the government is ripping families apart and hurting our people. They’re cutting billions of dollars from HIV prevention and treatment. They’re banning our books. They’re firing teachers who use a student’s nickname. And they’re firing gay workers who put a pride flag on their desk.”
Peers of mine skipped the NO KINGS 2 protest, and stayed home, stuck to the straight-and-narrow, and seem intent to do so for the whole second Trump term because they have children. Mr. Trump’s economy sucks, and his servants are vindictive. My once-brave friends—one sported a mohawk into his twenties!—will not risk their jobs by being liberals in public. This is a rational anxiety, and I begrudge no parent prioritizing their families, so the burden falls on us to ensure that, in a decade, those young can vote, or choose their religion, marry their loves, speak freely, and access vaccines, modern medicine, and an education. Those whippersnappers better do the same for those who come after them.
Nee Nee Taylor, executive director of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and co-founder of Free DC, “charg[ed] [the audience] to be on the front lines.” While I had been chiding my friends for staying at home with “cozy games” and Netflix, I had not expected to be challenged too. She said: “When I see you tomorrow, when I see you next month, when more of our rights are being stripped, and when more of our Black bodies are put in cages, don’t watch from the shadows. I charge you… We will not end because the day won’t end when the stage comes down and the cameras leave. The fight for our collective liberation is not contained within the presiding eye of media attention today…. Ask yourself: where will you be?”
I wanted to say that “I will be ready to go whenever / wherever / You’ll never have to wonder / we can always play by ear,” even after Mr. Trump is gone, but that may not be true.
After the elections of both Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, I took time to rest, catch up with friends, watch television, and write novellas about cool guys who smoke cigarettes and talk about existentialist philosophy, not politics. Even aware of the destruction today’s GOP aims to bring to everyone in the world I love, I was claimed by indolence in 2009-2010 and 2021-2023. Remembering this, I felt the mortification Republicans deserve.
Keya Chatterjee, co-founder of the Free DC movement, said: “DC needs to be free because what we are doing here today, right now, would not be possible otherwise. This president wants to silence dissent. He wants to silence protest. He wants to do that everywhere…. President Trump and his allies lie about this very event that we are attending right now. He tried to get us all to stay away from here. Nowhere that it is more important than here in the capital of the country. We know what authoritarian rulers do. Authoritarians try to prevent dissent in the capital. They want to control capitals. They have tried to control capitals through the history of time and space”—was she including Coruscant?—”because controlling a capital is a way to control a nation and a way to prevent the transfer of power. This president is no different from those before him, and we saw that on January 6th, right? … Today we are in our third month of military occupation by armed forces from multiple other states in DC. There are gangs of federal agents who are attacking our communities.”
It shocked me that the occupation of DC lasted so long. Soldiers still patrol our streets in March 2026, even though most of the country has turned their attention to the newer occupations in, for example, Minneapolis, Portland, and Chicago. It sometimes slips my mind, too, until I see Guardsmen in fatigues outside Dunkin’ Donuts pretending to stand lookout.
“Every single time they attack us, if we respond, we grow stronger. Every time they attack us, we grow more united, we grow our people, and we grow our resolve—and we learn what it takes to take them down.” Ms. Chatterjee’s hopeful note felt earned.
My friends who stayed home may presume that if they bunker down, things will shake out eventually and be fine in the end. Not so. We are waiting for them to show up. NO KINGS 1, 2, and soon 3 have been the largest mass mobilizations in U.S. history, but we must be bigger still.
Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, husband and wife, cofounders of Indivisible, took the stage together, as they often do. Like a high priest and priestess of the #Resistance, or perhaps stepparents, I appreciate their efforts but find them to be more accurate than impressive, on-the-nose but building the right sets and saying the right words. If the ranks of Indivisible swell large enough, we will win.
Ms. Greenberg opened with a call-and-response: “How many kings do we have in America?”
Zero, the crowd answered, though some must have wondered if “one” was more technically correct.
“We are in the middle of a sprint by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, their MAGA cronies, to consolidate power and bully American society into submission. They have come for corporations and millionaires, for law firms and universities, for media and civil society. They are ripping families apart, and they are shredding our Constitution while they line their pockets in the biggest heist of all time.”
We see it, yet it continues each day. I would quibble with the word “sprint”—it suggests after one more burst, the enemy will tire. I feel more fatigable.
Ms. Greenberg described the method: “They go on the attack. They make demands. They claim powers they don’t have. They bully, and they threaten to retaliate, and they see if anyone will push back. And if nobody pushes back, they win.”
That is why I am so pugnacious. If “they” win, nobody can blame me for not pushing back.
“I need you to hear me. It’s a lie. It’s always been a lie. And the greatest danger we face is not Trump. It is how we, as a society, respond to this bullying, to this chilling effect. If we preemptively obey, if we shrink back, if we make ourselves small, if we do what they want in advance—then they win.”
As a society, we never really developed a coherent response to bullies. Stopbullying.gov advises slinking away and looking for someone else to save you:
1. “Look at the kid bullying you and tell him or her to stop in a calm, clear voice. You can also try to laugh it off.”
2. “If speaking up seems too hard or not safe, walk away and stay away. Don’t fight back.”
3. “Talk to an adult you trust.”
4. “Stay away from places where bullying happens.”
None of these are applicable when the villain is the federal government. I prefer the advice I got from my father: “Punch that bitch right in the nose. Let him know that if he fucks with you, he’ll also hurt.”
Ms. Greenberg stole my line: “I’ve got something to say to Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, who spent all week smearing regular Americans. There are nearly a dozen protests happening across your district today. And since you’ve not been doing your job for over a month now, I bet you’ve got time to stop by.”
I was annoyed someone else landed this zinger first, because it pisses me off that Mr. Johnson, one of the most powerful men in America, refuses to watch, listen, or learn what the other half of the country he ostensibly represents thinks or feels.
Mr. Levin asked who had been at the first NO KINGS Day. The crowd cheered. “No, no. I don’t think y’all were there,” he said, with a teacher’s smug laugh. “This was a quarter of a millennium ago—1775. They called it the Continental Congress. They didn’t have the branding we did. But it was the first NO KINGS Day protest.”
Do not get me wrong—the comparison is precise, but this bit might have landed better earlier, before a dozen other speakers made approximately the same analogy.
Mr. Levin described the Founders as people who “brought themselves together in opposition to this would-be monarchical ruler who was steamrolling the American public. He was occupying and invading American cities. He was terrorizing American communities. He was picking out his favorites and persecuting his political enemies.”
I note that some of the Founders were great anonymous shitposters. Their newsletters were made on presses instead of Substack, and their noms de plume were more Latinate, but the tradition is the same.
“So, what did our fellow Americans do? They put together a NO KINGS rally to give us a Constitution.”
Good. Perfect. But on the nose.
Mr. Levin: “You know who doesn’t want us to make any demands? This regime. The tech fascists, the billionaire backers—they want us lazy and pliant and docile. They want us alone and afraid and powerless. Are we powerless?”
“No,” the crowd answered.
“Are we alone?”
“No.”
Afraid though? I am absolutely scared of these psychos. If I see a guy in a MAGA hat on the same corner as me, I cross to the other side of the street.
Mr. Levin ticked off victories as proof that pushback was working:
· Elon Musk (“remember that guy?”) kicked to the White House curb like a dog after a “Bad Blood Breakup.”
· ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! was back on the air after only a few days, despite Mr. Carr’s effort to collect a scalp.
· The regime had been “quaking in its jackboots at the thought of 200,000 people in DC, outside the Capitol.”
The last was inference, but the best explanation for the propaganda campaign Republicans and their aligned media had launched.
Then Mr. Levin turned on Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post, Mark Benioff of Salesforce, Daniel Ek of Spotify, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. The crowd booed and a chant of “shame, shame” spread through the assemblage.
“I ask businesses, universities, churches—which side are you on?”
“Whose side are you on?” was the tagline to the Marvel Comics 2006 to 2007 crossover Civil War, which pitted hero against hero and ended in the death of Captain America. It makes me edgy. I would be satisfied if churches and businesses just sat it out.
Mr. Levin grinned. “We had a little bit of extra time in the program, and a guy in Vermont with some ideas about this wanted to come up.”
The crowd erupted into “Bernie” chants. Senator Bernie Sanders entered to music. I like him, but I was never one of the “Brothers of Bernard.” In the 2016 primary, I lent my passion to the doomed Martin O’Malley campaign to stay away from the Clinton versus Sanders drama. He is a good man, with incredible charisma born not from polish and practice but his convictions, yet I disapprove of the decade of internecine fighting he inspired. Still, he fights.
Mr. Sanders sneered at MAGA Mike: “the Republican Speaker of the House, called these rallies ‘Hate America’ events. Why does he have it wrong?”
“Hate America” is a bland slur, honestly. Totally without meaning or flavor. Back in my day, they called us the Blame America First Caucus, an insult that has teeth because it attacks a real impulse the antiwar people get sometimes. “Hate America”? I love America. I hate these Republican sons of bitches, and they hate me, too.
Mr. Sanders is right and Mr. Johnson has it wrong. The speakers said, explicitly and repeatedly, that they were there out of love. The rally was so adoring of the American Revolution it would have made a Social Studies teacher blush. Mr. Nye walked through the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Levin added us to the 1775 Continental Congress spirit, the crowd cheered for land acknowledgments, for the First Amendment, for the Constitution, for DC statehood, for the Voting Rights Act. Across time, I could hear the ghost of my hellion past sneering at me for being somewhere so achingly patriotic.
But why does Mr. Johnson have it so wrong? Mr. Sanders was kinder than me to ask the question. I was being an asshole by assuming Mr. Johnson was innately mean and stupid. Perhaps there is an answer to the “why.” Until we discover it, I will presume faith.
“We’re here because we’re going to do everything we can to honor the sacrifices of millions of men and women who over the last 250 years fought and sometimes died to defend our democracy and our freedoms.”
Mr. Sanders said nothing I had not already heard that afternoon. But he enunciated so clearly it rattled my bones. Many of the men in my family are buried in military cemeteries. To put it graphically, if this regime finalizes control of America, then they will own my father’s bones, and my grandfathers’. I hate that.
“And today, in the year 2025, in this dangerous moment in American history, our message is exactly the same [as 1776]. No, President Trump, we don’t want you or any other king to rule us.”
Even as a child, I was afflicted with oppositional defiance disorder. Nobody rules me. Schoolteachers hated the punky little donkey, but now that flaw is my lodestar.
Mr. Sanders quoted President George Washington as having called self-government “an experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Mr. Sanders enumerated the ways that experiment was in danger:
1. A president who “wants more and more power in his own hands and in the hands of his fellow oligarchs.”
2. A president who “claims that peaceful protests in Portland, Oregon or Chicago, Illinois is an insurrection and calls in the U.S. military,” then “threatens to arrest the mayors and governors who resist them.”
3. A president who deploys “masked agents working for ICE breaking down doors, throwing people into vans without due process.”
4. A president who “sues and intimidates the media.”
5. A president who “threatens to arrest or imprison political opponents,” including the Attorney General of New York, a sitting senator, and the Governor of California.
6. A president who “undermines freedom of thought and dissent at our colleges and universities” and “attacks law firms that oppose him in court.”
7. A president who “threatens to impeach judges who rule against him.”
8. A president who “ignores Congress, refuses to spend money that Congress appropriates, and takes away money from states who voted against him.”
9. A president who “demands we redraw congressional maps to ensure that his chosen candidates win future elections.”
10. A president who “illegally fires tens of thousands of federal employees.”
These motherfuckers.
Mr. Sanders also reminded us of Qatar Force One, the $400 million plane Mr. Trump accepted from the Qatari royal family in exchange for God knows what favors. Maybe our current war with Iran, for continuity’s sake? By 2026, who remembers that? At the time, it was the largest scandal of any administration, a clear violation of our Constitution’s sacred emoluments clause. Now, it is trivia.
“Let us be clear. This moment is not just about one man’s greed, one man’s corruption, or one man’s contempt for the Constitution. This is about a handful of the wealthiest people on earth who, in their insatiable greed, have hijacked our economy and our political system in order to enrich themselves at the expense of working families throughout this country.” Then he pointed his finger: “I am talking about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the other multi-billionaires who were sitting right behind Trump when he was inaugurated. Remember that?”
The crowd booed.
“I am talking about the insanity of one person, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 52 percent of American households.”
Whenever Mr. Musk’s name surfaced, the reaction was Orwellian. Two minutes of hate, every time. He is more reviled than even Mr. Trump. There are those who say that Starlink and SpaceX should be seized and nationalized for our national security. Probably, but they should also be taken as restitution for the damage he did with DOGE alone.
“My fellow Americans, we rejected the divine right of kings in the 1770s. We will not accept the divine right of oligarchs today.”
I’d wear that on a T-shirt.
Mr. Sanders pivoted to the economic toll of what I call “the Big Bitch Bill.” “As a result of Trump’s big beautiful, disgraceful bill, which made massive cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, 15 million low-income and working-class Americans are going to lose the health care they desperately need to stay alive.” Of those 15 million, Mr. Sanders said, 50,000 would die unnecessarily every year. Fifty-thousand lives, dead not dramatically but off-camera because of cuts to their insurance. It takes one small virus to kill—a nick of the wrong razor, inhaling the wrong air, drinking the wrong water. That this country voted to trade those unlucky 50,000 for some tax breaks for some people is a sin.
“One trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1 percent. That, my fellow Americans, is what this shutdown is all about.” Mr. Sanders closed with a vision of what could be. The loudest cheers of the day came when he called for ending Citizens United. He is right—it has to end.
I hate the name Citizens United—Mitt Romney once said, “Corporations are people, my friend,” back when he was not a friend. Does he still agree with that? Unlimited donations from amorphous entities are free speech, I guess, but after Mr. Musk paid people with oversized checks to vote Republican, it has lost the benefit of the doubt.
The audience roared for guaranteed health care, for tuition-free public universities, for a living wage, for a guarantee that “never again will American taxpayer dollars be used to starve children in Gaza or any place else.” Lazy pundits say that Democrats must be “for” something, not merely “against” Mr. Trump. Sounds like we are “for” a lot; we have dreams of a better world. But they are meaningless until this techno-feudalist patrimonialist neo-monarchist Christian nationalist whatever the fuck you call it is gone.
“And now let me raise a question that I’ve been asked over and over again. Bernie, great ideas, but how are you going to pay for them? Great question. Thanks for asking.”
I closed my eyes, and felt the spell break. Yes, eating the rich is part of defeating the dark kingdom they have built. But I fear this is an ideological, not purely a class war—if the administration suddenly presented a more generous safety net, their violence would still be wrong. Mr. Sanders’s economic philosophy and morality are entwined as tight as a DNA helix, but I want to keep aspirational policies, which democracy-loving allies might debate, separated from the existential ones.
Here, I use the word “existential” to mean questions of whether or not we would exist in one year, or another two. Mr. Trump’s defenders, ever willing to beclown themselves, claimed the thematic premise of NO KINGS Day 2—that their Mandarin Mussolini seeks the power of a royal—was preposterous. Their “evidence” is that he was lawfully elected and we are allowed to assemble at all.
To the former—obviously, Mr. Trump is not literally entitled “king,” but look at how he has turned the Oval Office into Versailles. If you enter a bar bearing the classic sign “No long-haired freaky people,” a stolid bald man would be ill-received if he revealed a big, fat marijuana blunt tucked behind his ear.
And to respond to the latter, Mr. Trump would stop protests if he could. I infer that from his suggestions that protesters should be beaten, arrested, shot, hit by cars, et cetera, and his frequent characterization of nonviolent demonstrations as riots. Over that weekend, the president posted an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown, piloting a fighter jet, and dumping gross mountains of feces on NO KINGS Day 2 protesters. This is not behavior characteristic of a leader who cherishes our First Amendment, or has any decency.
If a magic button exists that, when toggled, bans protest in the U.S., it remains unpressed not for any principle, but because it has yet to be located. Mr. Trump’s enablers must ask themselves, if ordered by their boss, would they press it? No MAGA Republican who smeared Americans on October 18, 2025, can convince me that, disagreeing with what we had to say, they would defend our right to say it. So, fuck them too.
Mr. Cruz, who happily let Mr. Trump call his wife ugly and crazy, suggested rally attendees were “fake.” The president called us “small and insignificant.” MAGA Republicans ignored our words and numbers and said we did not matter, and they govern this way, too. Our opposition exists in the real world. Why deny that? Perhaps it makes it easier for them to be inhumane if they ignore the humanity of others.
Republicans will be destroyed by the same tactics. As their movement eliminates its enemies, it will make new ones of its friends. Conservatives saw former colleagues—Bill Kristol, Joe Walsh, John Bolton, John Kelly, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, even former Vice President Dick Cheney—”unpersoned.” Are true believers certain they will never disagree with the president about anything? In which case, they plan to exercise no agency forever. Those who imagine that they would accede at every opportunity should resign from leadership—resign immediately!—and never seek any position of responsibility again.
I hate to be “trolled” by Mr. Trump’s AI slop, but I take this insult personally. If he fantasizes about using a fighter jet to dump excrement on everybody at the NO KINGS 2 protest, and I am in attendance, then he is talking about taking a shit on me, too. In which case, he deserves that which he wishes on others.
In the weeks after podcaster Charlie Kirk’s assassination, it was intimated that using too-harsh language against your political opponents is “inciting violence.” By his standards, then, did the president incite violence against me and the 7 million Americans who assembled across the country?
Mr. Trump’s presidency seems mid-transfiguration into a kingship. Two days after the NO KINGS 2 rally, Mr. Trump destroyed the East Wing of the White House so he could build a 90,000-square-foot golden ballroom—some Marie Antoinette bullshit.
It was also reported that Mr. Trump planned to “settle” his tort claims against the DOJ for “damages” stemming from his indictments. Mr. Trump was so “traumatized” by a police search (which was not as invasive as one a weed dealer would receive) that he demanded the United States government give him $230 million. He bragged that, as president, he can “make[] the decision,” even commenting: “It’s awfully strange to make a decision where I am paying myself.” We are being looted so that the president can have a palace.
I agonized that day over whether our constitutional republic already stopped functioning. Under Mr. Johnson’s speakership, the House of Representatives went out of session for 54 days, during history’s longest government shutdown (so far). Mr. Johnson refused to negotiate to end the shutdown. I thought the Congress would never reconvene, and all we had left of our government was the Executive Branch, which claims unlimited power the Constitution does not grant, and a feckless Judiciary which insufficiently restrains it. The GOP calls it absurd to claim that Mr. Trump is acting as a king, while simultaneously they work as his servants. Our framers, in their wisdom, never imagined that our governing bodies would abdicate to allow one madman to do as he wishes.
Epilogue
Our democracy continues, though the White House is permanently scarred from the demolition. It is unglamorous, but we must survive and limp to November, then January, and soon enough we begin a reckoning. It will be a long year until then.
When I re-read this rally report, today we have more to be angry about, more to fear, more to protest on March 28. The federal government is partially shut down again, masked ICE thugs continue to maraud, the president went to war on his whims, the Treasury is still being looted, the U.S. was declared insolvent, and Mr. Carr is still a censorious ass. We are in worse than the same place.
I notice my brain keeps constructing a false framing. It treats that autumn 2025 as “the good times,” when the #Resistance was still a carnival, when we had costumes and fun before the darkness arrived. That was not so—the rally and even its silliness was a response to an America that had already gone pitch black. Despite the Republican talking points about our Trump derangement, our reflexive distaste for this president’s bullshit was wholly justified. If I saw any error at the rally, it was that Mr. Trump’s reality is worse than any hell we can imagine.
I hope this report encourages people to attend the NO KINGS 3 rally this Saturday. I am occasionally asked to explain the purpose of these protests, but that should be self-evident. Fucking show up and be counted.