Wow! What a Feeling!
Reflections on the Massive No Kings Demonstrations
I think we can say definitively that we don’t want a king to govern us in the United States of America.
I thought we made that clear when a bunch of Bostonians dressed up in costumes and boarded British ships and dumped all their tea into the Boston Harbor, but then maybe that lesson was only drilled home for those of us who grew up going to public schools in New England.
Hundreds…thousands…adding up to more than five million people…showed up for the No Kings protests held across the country.
The rally in Tallahassee was scheduled to start at 10am, but according to one of my friends who helped to organize this demonstration, people were arriving by nine. They couldn’t wait to start singing, chanting, showing their patriotism with their hand-made signs. People brought American flags and Indvisible was giving them away (it was Flag Day, afterall). It was also the Army’s 250th Birthday, and at the demonstration in Annapolis, MD, they had an actor playing President George Washington who read our First President’s letter in which he announced that he was resigning from leading the Army when he assumed the Presidency. See: one of our grand figureheads, a founding father of this nation, understood that the Army and all the military needed to remain out of politics…and politicians didn’t need to blur those lines.
Huh. Interesting. Someone might want to…I dunno…make that more of “a thing” as our current president breaks laws and norms…again…by trying to take control of the state National Guard in California…and having the U.S. Marines patrol a four-block area of Los Angeles because people might break into a line dance.
Of course, the ulterior motive of this No Kings protest was to ruin the 79th birthday of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…a man who has put out images of himself as a king through the official White House press office….and who commandeered the Army’s birthday to make it all about him.
Again—one has to wonder about his cultish followers.
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson pegs the hardcore MAGAts at about 26 to 28 percent of the country. This group once upon a time identified as Tea Partiers and would don tricorner hats at Republican political rallies. Someone explain this to me ‘cuz I’m a native of New Hampshire, and I remember learning a LOT about the Revolutionary War. How can one call themselves a believer in the original protest and publicity stunt of the Boston Tea Party…and then celebrate this buffoon who wanted tanks and troops marching through DC for his birthday like he’s a king (or is it a Kim)?!
The truth is that the Tea Partiers were never real patriots. They never understood the meaning of the Boston Tea Party. They don’t know history because they probably found it boring when they were in grade school.
And the thing that they have overthrown is the Republican Party.
The Party of Lincoln is dead.
They unlocked the attic and allowed all of their crazy aunts and uncles out.
The people that used to be shouted down and run out of the room at Republican town hall meetings and Lincoln Day dinners are now the ones in charge and calling the shots.
And they want King DonOLD.
Instead of wearing the Red Coats of the loyalist British Army of the American Revolutionary War…they now proudly walk around wearing their Red MAGA hats of the tyrannical White Chrisian Nationalists of the American Culture War.
It is really sad.
And that’s why the No Kings events were such a relief.
When one lives and works in places where it feels as if we are under the thumb of MAGAts like the occupant and our governor of DeSantistan, it can feel pretty demoralizing.
But then when you see thousands show up to a protest…and stay through a pop up rain storm… when you hear the blaring of car horns…and semis pulling their weight and blaring their support as well…suddenly…some petty despot desperate for attention on his birthday seems like what he is: tiny. Small. A nuisance but not infaliable.
We can and we will beat this man because when we stick together and work together we will win.
One final more somber note. Some may think I buried the lede here but I do want us to remember the former Minnesota House Speaker Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were assassinated in their home early Saturday morning, as well as praying for Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were also shot by the same gunman but were not killed. As of right now, the gunman, who they believe is a 57 year-old security guard, is still on the loose. Concerning, since early reports were that the police found a list in his abandoned SUV of Democratic politicians this guy intended to shoot.
This news came as people were heading to No Kings protests, and most of the ones in Minnesota were cancelled.
In Florida, news of these shootings hit some of us very hard because of the inflammatory remarks made by the Brevard County sheriff, essentially threatening to shoot protesters if they threw bricks or attacked deputies or property. It was an absurd and unprovoked comment. So was the Governor’s statement reminding us that he thinks it’s OK for people in cars to run over demonstrators if they feel “threatened.” Both of them, as well as members of the current Washington regime, are the ones who keep encouraging violence because they don’t know any other way of being.
Every single protest against this administration…especially the ones in Tallahassee…have been peaceful.
Loud, but peaceful. And joyful.
And that’s how it should be. Because nothing is more fun than mocking the meanies and tweaking the noses of the tyrants.
I look forward to the next major action…perhaps a General Strike?