Seven million people say no to kings

I attended the No Kings protest in Livonia, MI on Saturday. I saw very little of it and had no sense of the size of the crowd because I was at a table encouraging people to sign petitions for a ballot proposal to remove corporate money from Michigan politics. This work is to get the proposal on the 2026 ballot. I’m sure we pulled in over 200 signatures and our table was usually quite busy. I did watch a lot of people pass my table. I also heard a great deal of honking from cars showing solidarity with those on the sidewalk – the afternoon was a noisy one. Some of the attendees had cute signs, though I couldn’t pay a lot of attention to them. There were several signs saying they reject the nasty guy for free, refuting the claim that we were all paid to be there. I did note a shirt that said, “Aunt Tifa” and heard about another that said, “Gran Tifa.” I wasn’t able to get a photo of one that I liked. A friend was able to share her photo of it.

A new form of protest is inflatable animal costumes. That began when a person in a frog costume danced in front of ICE agents. Of course, the idea quickly spread. I saw several inflatable costumes of several animals. Kaili Joy Grey of Daily Kos posted photos of No Kings events around the country and invited people to share their photos in the comments. My favorite signs from those photos: A takeoff on The Cat in The Hat

I do not like your lying ways I do not like your hate for gays I do not like you grabbing rump I do not like you Mr. Trump

If Kamala was president we would all be at brunch. Peaceful resistance NOW is easier than hiding a family in your attic LATER. My Sunday movie was Egoist, a Japanese film based on a novel by Makoto Takayama. The story is about Kosuke who has a job in fashion (scenes of him actually working are few) and does quite well but he wears designer clothes as armor and to say he’s no longer from his birth village. His mother died when he was 14. His gay friends suggest Kosuke is getting out of shape and should get a personal trainer. They recommend one. That trainer is Ryuta and getting in bed with Kosuke takes very little time. Ryuta’s father left the family when he was a teen. He dropped out of high school to support his mother and continues to have a several jobs. So there is a rich man, poor man dynamic. Ryuta is reluctant to accept Kosuke’s generous gifts. Even so feelings develop. Ryuta takes Kosuke to meet his mother and she recognizes they care for each other very much. Kosuke begins to have the mother he lost. When the film description includes the words, “When tragedy strikes...” one keeps waiting for that to happen. I don’t want to say more. I’ll only say that Kosuke, though he doesn’t give up his designer duds, he no longer uses it as armor. This one is good enough to recommend. I have one mild complaint of the movie. In most scenes instead of a camera on each of the participants in a discussion there is a single camera that swivels back and forth among them. That’s a lot of camera movement. Back to the No Kings rally. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Monday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included several photos of the event in his home city. One that I like is a guy wearing suit of armor holding a sign, “If we’re going back to the Dark Ages, better suit up.” In my reading I followed a link to an article in the Durango Hearald written by Christian Burney with story and photos of the protest there. My favorite line is from the sign of a woman in a frog costume, “United we ribbit, divided we croak.” In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers who worked with The Xylom to estimate the turnout for all of the 2,700 No Kings rallies:

Our median estimate is that 5.5 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 8.7 million people. We provide an “estimate” and not a “count” because we are making predictions of turnout in protest sites where official records are still missing. Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.

Aaron Blake of CNN:

President Donald Trump and his allies have spent weeks painstakingly trying to manufacture an image of an irredeemably violent American left. ... The Trump team and its allies suggested that the rallies, which are likely to draw millions of people, will essentially be chock full of antifa, terrorist sympathizers and even terrorists themselves. It’s baseless and ugly, yes. But it’s also highly suspect strategically. The GOP rhetoric surrounding this and the Democratic base more broadly has grown remarkably pitched.

But no violence by the No Kings participants was recorded. The little violence reported was traced to those protesting the No Kings events. In the comments is a cartoon by Guy Richards Smit of an ICE agent handcuffing a small girl. The agent says, “It might be comforting for you to know that, on the inside, I’m also a terrified little child.” A meme posted by exlrrp shows what the nasty guy thought of No Kings.

In a late night Saturday post, Trump shared his official response to the historic “No Kings” protests by posting an AI video depicting himself as a King literally dumping his own shit on protesters heads.

The reaction is embarrassment that our president would post such a video. Of course, there are a lot of cartoons about it. Another meme posted by exlrrp is about the White House press secretary:

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the launch of a large-scale investigation to find the person behind “No Kings.”

To which exlrrp added, “time for everyone to stand up and say I am George Soros!” Or, as another suggests, the person behind No Kings is the nasty guy. Without him there would be no need to protest. Emily Singer of Kos reported on the reactions to the day by the nasty guy and others. He described the event as very small and very ineffective. No, it was not small. And since he was rattled by the size, it was effective enough. Republicans tried to defend their comments that the event would be violent. Or – the fun one – they claimed the participants were on a day trip from nursing homes. Seems that shortly after the nasty guy’s poop video came out there appeared photos of work on the White House Ballroom. In particular, photos of demolishing part of the East Wing. On Monday DRo of the Kos community has photos and tweets in reaction. This demolition comes after the nasty guy said the work would not “interfere” with the existing building, “near it but not touching it.” A sample of the reaction. Form Joseph Fink: “taking an actual wrecking ball to the White House is a little on the nose as far as metaphors go” Kevin Kruse:

"Yes, yes, it *is* sad that you lost the family farm, but have you heard about the big beautiful ballroom that President Trump is building at the White House? It's going cost a quarter of a billion dollars! Yes, billion, with a b. ... What? ... No, you can't come see it. What a stupid question."

There is a reminder that the destruction is breaking the law. Not that the nasty guy worries about such things. On Monday there was still debate about how much of the East Wing was being demolished. This morning host A Martínez of NPR spoke with White House reporter Tamara Keith, who said:

A White House official not permitted to speak on the record tells me the East Wing is being brought down, modernized and rebuilt as part of the ballroom project. President Trump has wanted to build a ballroom at the White House for more than a decade. But this demolition is taking a lot of people by surprise because when the project was announced in July, President Trump downplayed the impacts.

See the nasty guy’s comments above. The The National Capital Planning Commission is supposed to have a role in this but the nasty guy appointed chair Will Scharf. He conveniently said the commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over demolition. Besides, the commission is shut down with the rest of the government. Keith said that the construction is being paid by corporate donations is “a giant ethical red flag.” Today DRo reported that the White House is saying the entire East Wing is to be torn down, with demolition completed by this weekend. DRo included a tweet by Jon Cryer:

If this had happened during a Democratic presidency Fox News would be 24 hours of nonstop “AMERICA DESECRATED!” headlines.

And Republicans in Congress would have started impeachment proceedings. Comments of the ballroom architecture and its architect were supplied by davidkc of the Kos community. The architect is James McCrery, who specializes in religious buildings and describes modernist buildings as “ungodly.” Peter Eisenman, McCrery’s former mentor, described the ballroom plan as “bonkers.” And Christopher Hawthorne says the plan suggests...

not so much a bloated classicism or an effort to turn Washington into Mar-a-Lago north, although it is both of those things, as a blueprint for making concrete the notion that the White House has turned in some fundamental sense into a retail outlet, a place where access and influence are nakedly bought and sold.

Are we going to need to tear down that ballroom after the nasty guy vacates the place and we work to restore the country and government? Added to all of this yogipohaku of the Kos community wrote that since the East Wing was built in the 1940s it is full of asbestos. Is proper asbestos remediation being followed? Who will pay when the mesothelioma lawsuits go to court? Why isn’t Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, wearing a mask? And scott3460 of the Kos community wrote:

Putin’s tentacles are almost certainly in the construction of this new Ballroom. God only knows what sorts of technology will be embedded in to the White House after this construction in done. It must all be razed to the ground the afternoon of the next Inauguration. Tin foil hat conspiracy? Maybe, maybe not.

In Tuesday’s Cheers and Jeers column, Bill in Portland, Maine posted new lyrics to a famous Gilbert and Sullivan song. The first verse:

I am the very model of a modern fascist potentate, I gin up fear across the land and viciousness I advocate, I tweet my fingers to the bone and cable news I dominate To tear you down and smear your name and fill your world with spite and hate My propaganda is the very best that I can propagate I love Vlad Putin like a son, for he's my greatest surrogate When I slam 2020 you will hear me bellow "cover-up!" And whip my crowds into a froth by leading chants of "Lock them up!"