The No Kings 3 protest on Saturday drew an estimated 9 million protesters at more than 3,300 events in all 50 states for what was the largest single-day nationwide demonstration in American history. There were people dressed up as Revolutionary War soldiers, Handmaids, posters depicting Trump as a Nazi, depicting him as a pig, depicting him with a penis for a face and the words “Small DICKtator Energy,” Ukrainian flags, trans flags,
The whole thing to me seems like a desparate cry for catharsis for Democrats. The Biden administration was a debacle on so many levels, perhaps the biggest single failure in US political history, that ended back to where it started, perhaps a worse place
The activities and displays I say were mostly benign, some ranging into offensive (re Barron Trump), antiSemitic (comparing ICE detention centers to Auschwitz and Buchenwald), but not a meaningful political message to be found. Just lamponing and hatred. Also, remarkably white and bimodal boomers and Gen Z.
2 ‘no Kings’ protests in a nation without a king sandwiched around another protest in favor of an actual King who kills tens of thousands of protesters is peak Woke . 🍿
I love your tolerant amused take and I think it's correct. These are dopey theater Boomers. They appeal to absolutely nobody but their fellow political LARPers and they convince no one. In the past they've deeply annoyed me but I think your attitude is healthier, and is accurate.
Of course the cringe costumes and dances are amusing and I’m sure there are some humorous signs amongst the idiotic ones but I don’t find this silly I find it decadent.
Decadence
Charlie Hebdo journalists mowed down
Chem weapons on Syrians
Iranians doing this get executed
Jimmy lai rotting in prison
Navalny tortured
Trump will hang this photo on his gilded walls and it won’t be smug it’ll be earned. These protests are smug and not much else.
Decadence
What a menacing king where you can assemble at this level and take selfies and that’s that
Trump’s narcissism in no measure exceeded biden’s or obama’s but that little inconvenience called checks and balances while disrespected routinely does do a reasonable job of preventing an imperial presidency
The protests simply give a human face to the polling. And after all, the administration's vision encompasses a society where protest is illegal and the law exclusively serves the regime. Until the congress is more afraid of its voters than trump and his administration, they will continue to favor capital over working citizens.
I am a retired surgical intensive care physician and trauma/cardiac anesthesiologist. My wife was a trauma and hospice nurse. So we are intimately familiar with death, especially untimely death. And we are used to losing our big battles. It is easy to throw up one's hands and decide to "live for the moment" since it's all just castles in the sand. Or one can decide that every gesture, no matter how small, matters. My wife and I protest every week. Because we still can, as you point out. Because my daughter and her son struggle to survive as she works 50 hours/week with no benefits. If not for us, they would drown in medical debt, as so many others do. As her friends do. Because hard working neighbors in my town who were brought here as infants are terrified of deportation to places they've never been. We protest for the folks slaughtered in Iran, and for the folks here that lay awake at night worrying that their kid's appendectomy will cost them their apartment (I've seen things like this). I know that you know this; and on the level of history, my wife and i are just grains of sand, and our efforts may well be futile. But in the meantime, protest is hope, and keeps us going in the community getting food to the needful and organizing political resistance. Your intellectualizing has its place, and your heart seems to be in the right place. We protest for the little girl in the red coat and all the others past, present and future, in the hope that we can save a precious few, or at least alleviate some needless suffering. You see, it's personal...
It would be a wonderful piece of performance art... or a venue for Boomers to get out and mingle. The hilarious thing is that the participants (and the legacy media) treat it as an actual political force. To me this just highlights how silly and perfunctory the idea of political activism has become in the United States. Most people (>95%) do their 'activism' online, and feel pretty great about it.
These poor, silly Boomers actually leave their houses (for which they should be commended). Unfortunately, they are involved in an issue about which they know almost nothing... because they have organized their entire lives to be insulated from poverty, crime, and the various effects of the low-trust society. They could learn about the realities on the street of course, but it's much more psychologically comfortable to persist in their pleasant delusions.
I wonder if they ever look around and wonder where the black folks or the working class men or the Hispanics are?
At what point do we call "No Kings" pure play propaganda? I am defining propaganda as a campaign, a continued effort not to call attention to an issue, or even inform on a policy, but to change a perspective independent of facts.
Operate on a theory that "No Kings" is purposefully opaque and obtuse. Its purpose is to gather emotional and social energy and direct it to a concept that our system of government is corrupt, or at least not what we intended to be. The movement makes no attempt to define the charges against a "king", nor does it recognize that the systems around that King enable it to be so, and have changed very little over the past several administrations.
It would propagandistic not to establish any points in fact, but to orient people emotionally to the idea that the current government is illegitimate and that changes need to be made. Again without defintion, no one stops to think "hey what changes are we talking about?", potentially "I'm not sure I'm on board with that kind of change". That comes later when people have been absorbed by the concept that changes necessary in any change would be beneficial.
The whole thing to me seems like a desparate cry for catharsis for Democrats. The Biden administration was a debacle on so many levels, perhaps the biggest single failure in US political history, that ended back to where it started, perhaps a worse place
The activities and displays I say were mostly benign, some ranging into offensive (re Barron Trump), antiSemitic (comparing ICE detention centers to Auschwitz and Buchenwald), but not a meaningful political message to be found. Just lamponing and hatred. Also, remarkably white and bimodal boomers and Gen Z.
2 ‘no Kings’ protests in a nation without a king sandwiched around another protest in favor of an actual King who kills tens of thousands of protesters is peak Woke . 🍿
I love your tolerant amused take and I think it's correct. These are dopey theater Boomers. They appeal to absolutely nobody but their fellow political LARPers and they convince no one. In the past they've deeply annoyed me but I think your attitude is healthier, and is accurate.
Of course the cringe costumes and dances are amusing and I’m sure there are some humorous signs amongst the idiotic ones but I don’t find this silly I find it decadent.
Decadence
Charlie Hebdo journalists mowed down
Chem weapons on Syrians
Iranians doing this get executed
Jimmy lai rotting in prison
Navalny tortured
Trump will hang this photo on his gilded walls and it won’t be smug it’ll be earned. These protests are smug and not much else.
Decadence
What a menacing king where you can assemble at this level and take selfies and that’s that
Trump’s narcissism in no measure exceeded biden’s or obama’s but that little inconvenience called checks and balances while disrespected routinely does do a reasonable job of preventing an imperial presidency
The same protesters who wanted to use blunt-force government power to force people to get a toxic vaccine they didn't want or need.
Hipocrisy. Histrionic. Hyperbolic.
They need to take their trust fund and go buy some perspective!
Grow up fer crissakes. You want your kids to know you were this stupid and an asshole to boot?
The protests simply give a human face to the polling. And after all, the administration's vision encompasses a society where protest is illegal and the law exclusively serves the regime. Until the congress is more afraid of its voters than trump and his administration, they will continue to favor capital over working citizens.
I am a retired surgical intensive care physician and trauma/cardiac anesthesiologist. My wife was a trauma and hospice nurse. So we are intimately familiar with death, especially untimely death. And we are used to losing our big battles. It is easy to throw up one's hands and decide to "live for the moment" since it's all just castles in the sand. Or one can decide that every gesture, no matter how small, matters. My wife and I protest every week. Because we still can, as you point out. Because my daughter and her son struggle to survive as she works 50 hours/week with no benefits. If not for us, they would drown in medical debt, as so many others do. As her friends do. Because hard working neighbors in my town who were brought here as infants are terrified of deportation to places they've never been. We protest for the folks slaughtered in Iran, and for the folks here that lay awake at night worrying that their kid's appendectomy will cost them their apartment (I've seen things like this). I know that you know this; and on the level of history, my wife and i are just grains of sand, and our efforts may well be futile. But in the meantime, protest is hope, and keeps us going in the community getting food to the needful and organizing political resistance. Your intellectualizing has its place, and your heart seems to be in the right place. We protest for the little girl in the red coat and all the others past, present and future, in the hope that we can save a precious few, or at least alleviate some needless suffering. You see, it's personal...
It would be a wonderful piece of performance art... or a venue for Boomers to get out and mingle. The hilarious thing is that the participants (and the legacy media) treat it as an actual political force. To me this just highlights how silly and perfunctory the idea of political activism has become in the United States. Most people (>95%) do their 'activism' online, and feel pretty great about it.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-euphemism-treadmill
These poor, silly Boomers actually leave their houses (for which they should be commended). Unfortunately, they are involved in an issue about which they know almost nothing... because they have organized their entire lives to be insulated from poverty, crime, and the various effects of the low-trust society. They could learn about the realities on the street of course, but it's much more psychologically comfortable to persist in their pleasant delusions.
I wonder if they ever look around and wonder where the black folks or the working class men or the Hispanics are?
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-the-nice-white-ladies
Peter Vescey and Mort Drucker said it best... lots of people appear to want Sacramento out of the NBA
“Small dick…”
I have to laugh at the morons (including the South Park guys) who repeat this idiotic hoax.
Men with the confidence of Donald Trump do NOT have a small penis.
These imbeciles do society a service by revealing themselves in these asinine gatherings.
Misandry is par for the course of liberalism. That’s why you liberals lost the election, and now you throw temper tantrums.
Warren G. catching some strays
At what point do we call "No Kings" pure play propaganda? I am defining propaganda as a campaign, a continued effort not to call attention to an issue, or even inform on a policy, but to change a perspective independent of facts.
Operate on a theory that "No Kings" is purposefully opaque and obtuse. Its purpose is to gather emotional and social energy and direct it to a concept that our system of government is corrupt, or at least not what we intended to be. The movement makes no attempt to define the charges against a "king", nor does it recognize that the systems around that King enable it to be so, and have changed very little over the past several administrations.
It would propagandistic not to establish any points in fact, but to orient people emotionally to the idea that the current government is illegitimate and that changes need to be made. Again without defintion, no one stops to think "hey what changes are we talking about?", potentially "I'm not sure I'm on board with that kind of change". That comes later when people have been absorbed by the concept that changes necessary in any change would be beneficial.
I'm sure Harding did a few good things as well. We could play the Worst President game all day. 😏
Libbing out feels so right currently.