King Donald the First: Fuck That

The run-up to No Kings Day has seen a crazed wave of hysteria from a right wing shrieking about Hamas, Marxists, Huns, Orcs, Barbarians at the Gate with the sinister portent, "You'll see the hate for America all over this thing." What the. We think we'll see millions of people - also frogs, chickens and a detained giraffe - who support health care, free speech, our neighbors, and the right to oppose becoming an authoritarian hellhole. DeNiro: "We're all in this together, with liberty and justice for all."

Organizers vowing, "No Thrones, No Crowns, No Kings" are predicting the largest, one-day demonstration in U.S. history, with people in 2,500 towns and cities across the country celebrating the First Amendment's guarantee to "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The original No Kings protest took place 250 years ago, Robert DeNiro noted in a sober ad for Indivisible , when Americans decided they didn’t want to live under the rule of King George III; they declared their independence and fought a bloody war for democracy, which since then has proved "often challenging, sometimes messy and always essential." As to today's would-be king, he said, "Fuck that." Indeed.

The messaging around the new No Kings from hundreds of groups organizing it has been strikingly consistent, calling on people to “engage in the work of democracy." The Human Rights Campaign blasts "an authoritarian regime that’s forgotten who it serves," charging us to "stand together in the belief that America belongs to its people." Authoritarians, they note, require division to carry out their agenda: "They need people to stop trusting each other, to stop talking to each other, to make us forget who we are, we, the people, demanding a country that makes good on its promise of freedom. And there is nothing more American than that." Despite the abuses and intimidation, the task is "to remind those in power who they answer to. This is our country."

Over time, the right's frantic bloviating and fear-mongering have escalated along with the reasons to protest - health care, shut down, masked thugs, broccoli prices. But its basic tenets have stayed the same: Only GOP speech is protected, not yours. If you oppose them, you're a terrorist, probably paid. The only legit American is one who thinks and looks like them. And they can viciously lie, provoke, insult, harass, dissemble or demonize you as communists, fascists, pedophiles, vermin all they like, but Democrats are the ones "inciting violence." Thus on Saturday, will they recoil from what smug, obsequious, despicable fraud MAGA Mike calls "the hate America rally," and no wonder. Damn, little Christo-fascist dude, what would Jesus say?

"I have had it with these people," Mike sputtered a few weeks ago on "the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, antifa people" planning to gather and "playing games with real people's lives...I can’t believe they’re actually doing this." (The next thing you know, they could be cutting health care..) This week, it was an “outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes,“ again with "pro-Hamas supporters," "antifa types," "Marxists in full display (who) don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic,” which of course include the foundational truth that we have free speech and no kings. The hypocrisy went even more over the top when Thug-In-Chief Tom Homan inveighed about "hateful rhetoric," darkly warning "there will be bloodshed."

Scott Bessent,vowed he'd investigate the event's "networks of terrorist organizations" as “the farthest left, hardest core, most unhinged in the Democratic Party.” Pundit Scott Jennings charged Dems "care more about criminals than victims...more about illegal aliens than American citizens. And if you speak up or push back? We saw what happened to Charlie." (OK, but we're still gonna need to see those Epstein files.) The most insane bullshit spewed from Press Barbie, who after seeing an interview with Zohran Mamdani sneeringly told Fox News it shows Democratics' main constituency is “made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals." Whereas Repubs are "standing up for law-abiding Americans." Just fuck off, Barbie.

"The White House says outrageous things to make you hate your neighbor," responded Tim Walz. "Your neighbor isn’t the problem. The White House is." Hakeem Jeffries slammed Leavitt as "sick" and "out of control," linking her claptrap to a surge in hate speech evidenced by recently leaked, racist, sexist, Hitler-loving sewer talk from Young Republicans. "They are ripping the sheets off in plain view," he said. "This is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration." Bernie Sanders on their "Hate America" drivel: "Really? Because people are defending the Constitution (and) are not going to let (you) turn this country into an authoritarian society? The right to protest is what America is about. You are not going to stop us."

Their choice of slurs are "classic authoritarianism," says anti-fascism expert Stanislav Vysotsky, "playing to a base that is rabid for violent retribution against their enemies." The name-calling instills us-vs.-them fear of dissent, dehumanizes opponents as an existential threat, helps justify a violent crackdown, and in this case is carefully calibrated to fit into Trump's demented decree outlawing "Antifa," which is still not a thing, as "a domestic terrorist organization," which is also not a thing. "I don't think it's that complicated," said Indivisible's Ezra Levin. "The one thing an unpopular authoritarian regime is scared of is mass, organized, peaceful people-power." "When people rise, kings fall," notes Michael Moore. "There are more of us than there are of them."

There've been glitches. As part of a look-over-here-what-Epstein-files-campaign, they're having a 250th anniversary celebration for the Marines, including a "live-fire Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration" at Camp Pendleton just as No Kings is underway, along with a "beach bash" and “vanity parade” Gavin Newsom calls "an absurd show of force"; he did convince them to cancel a planned shutdown of a major highway that would've caused chaos. And L.A. Mayor Karen Bass urged protesters, as The Onion noted, "not to engage in violence and give (the regime) an excuse to inflict all the damage thhttps://www.salon.com/2025/10/16/portlands-protest...ey have been inflicting (since) day one of Trump’s term" because "you wouldn’t want them abducting people in broad daylight and deporting them."

Up to Friday night, the right's feverish smears kept coming: There would be "mobs of radicals," the "anarchists and pro-Hamas wing," "terrorists" to be treated "just (like) Al-Qaeda or ISIS." Unexpectedly, some of the most powerful rebuttals to their ridiculous bunkum has come from Portland's now-iconic, blow-up, often-dancing animal creatures: Its Portland Frog, new comrades from the Oregon Frog Brigade - "The Few. The Proud. The Web-Footed" - the longtime Portland Chicken, and various dolphins, roosters, sharks, T-rex and other anti-fascist critters relying on their inherent absurdity and their town's legacy of staunch anti-authoritarianism to make fools of the masked, armed, awkward, camo-swathed thugs accosting them "in this uniquely chaotic moment."

The creatures are serious about their absurdism. Seth Todd, 25, the somber OG Frog, sees it as "a strategy" to dismantle the narrative of violent protesters and ICE's strongman cosplay: Guns pointed at black-clad, scary- looking activists play differently drawn on a boogeying, oversized, silent frog: "Nice body armor, but (you'll) look stupid trying to take down an inflatable frog." Jack Dickinson, 26, the "chicken" Noem bravely stared down, has a graduate degree in economics with a focus on game theory, read most of Project 2025, and likes using "whimsy" to combat bullies: "What they rely on is fear." "At some point, I just I tied my own fate to that of the movement," he says. "The place this is going (is) such a departure from the world I thought (of) as a kid, I would much rather do anything I can to prevent that world from happening."

Other heroes have stepped up. The giraffe-suited comedian Robby Roadsteamer was singing Rod Stewart songs of peace and love outside ICE when three camoed jerks, rifles at the ready, detained him; a GoFundMe has raised over $115,000. Kermit, the timeless leader of The Frog Resistance, has re-surfaced with a new take on his classic Rainbow Connection: "Why are there so many/ Trump thugs in ski masks/ and why do they have to hide?” And a little-known Irving Berlin song from 1941 has re-emerged; it was sung by Al Bowlly, killed in London by a German bomb sent by the subject of the song just weeks after it was released: "When that man is dead and gone/We'll go dancing down the street..." Speak up, stay safe, hold onto hope.

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