Through the darkness of future past
the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds...
“Fuck Donald Trump.”
On the way to the subway station to go to my first protest march I had to walk through a parade.
I deserve an award.
I am not social. Nature and Nurture are equally to blame. It is simply a fact.
Personal space is the most important thing to me. But I am also a masochist. That’s why I live in New York City. And that’s also at least part of the reason that I finally went to my first protest, the NO KINGS demonstration and march in Bryant Park and along 5th Avenue on July 14, 2025.
I do not believe in bumper stickers.
I want to argue with bumper stickers.
It is important to me that bumper stickers know that they are wrong.
But…
NO KINGS?
Welp.
Ya got me.
Hard to argue with that one. It really is a clever way to frame the current moment around probably the greatest thing about America: NO KINGS.
So if you really want to make America great again, Donald, you really have to work on yourself first.
Is he really a King? Is he really a fascist? Not quite. But he is an authoritarian in a china shop and we find ourselves quickly, all too quickly slipping down those slopes.
When the going gets weird, memes are your North Star.
SO FUCKED UP EVEN INTROVERTS ARE HERE
When I got to the protest someone offered me a a bottle of water from their backpack.
“Nice try!” I thought, “Not today, saboteur!”
But this wasn’t someone sent to take me out of the fight. It was just another first time protester, who in preparation had almost certainly read somewhere that you should bring more water than you think you need and give it to other people who need it and all of this nervous energy about this protest tip made them try to unload 10 bottles in the first 5 minutes to anyone and everyone on a cool, drizzling day as we waited in line for the protest.
I love that.
If only more people were so concerned…
And they were.
There seemed to be a lot of first timers which made me feel more comfortable. And it is a testament to the degree of concern, a concern that isn’t just the normal worry about the other guys being in charge but instead a particular and particularly untethered other guy being in charge, doing the worst thing, in the worst way, at the worst possible time… all the fucking time.
The organizers made a point of the protest being a peaceful, permitted stroll of numbers, but it was still powerful in its size and the unified message of what I assume were disparate minds, strange bedfellows where the times made the strangeness an afterthought.
Standing At 42nd St. and 5th Avenue it was impossible to hear the person on the microphone ramping up the crowd, but the wave of cheers from Bryant park eventually rolled into us and most people hollered not knowing what they were cheering.
Chances are it was something in line with the accepted message, but you never know. We could have been applauding someone saying:
“ACTUALLY DONALD TRUMP JUST GAVE US A LOT OF MONEY! TURNS OUT FASCISM IS PRETTY GREAT! RULE OF LAW AND DUE PROCESS ARE GAY! GET FUCKED! DEADLY NEUROTOXIN WILL BE RELEASED IN 3… 2…”
“YEAH!!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!!”
I like to imagine… that it was actually a land acknowledgement apologizing for disrupting the tourists, the rightful owners of Midtown Manhattan.
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE
Democracy also looks like an umbrella spoke in the eye.
Do not take an umbrella to a protest.
This may not be the most important protest survival tip…
…but maybe?
Just before an umbrella spoke caught her eye, I caught the eye of a woman engaged in passive aggressive combat with an untrained, unlicensed umbrella user. She finally said something, which caused the person to move the umbrella, simultaneously dumping water on her head and going on the offensive against me. In bullet time, I rolled underneath the attack and before moving on to a Deumbreallaized Zone I joked to the woman, “Probably the most dangerous thing at the protest, eh?” to which she responded, “This is why I tell people not to bring them!”
Solidarity.
BORN TO DILLY DALLY - FORCED TO FIGHT FASCISTS
As we dillydallied down 5th Avenue, I couldn’t help but imagine Tom Wolfe using a selfie stick.
I couldn’t help imagining a lot of things.
It was very peaceful.
And I came alone so I didn’t have to worry about the welfare or social entertainment of friends.
So… I didn’t worry.
And I didn’t chant. I wanted to be counted amongst those protesting, but chanting never makes it out of me.
But no one seemed to mind.
We were all doing what we we could.
And what I could do was look around and find charm in the humanity of the cause.
Someone was chanting, “NO FASCISTS! NO PEACE! NO FASCISTS! NO PEACE!” before realizing that they had misheard and that they were supposed to be chanting, “NO FASCISTS! NO KINGS!” - “Peace” still in good standing it seems.
Two people in front of me were holding up cardboard protest signs, but to me they were just advertisements for COSTCO - not a bad ally for the day actually. There's a part of me that still believes the fronts of those signs were also just the COSTCO logo.
Everyone at some point or another was entertained by a scantily clad, horned dancer. But they did not seem to notice the dancer literally teleporting all over the protest, *BAMFING* all along 5th Avenue.
And then I thought to ask, “Where are we all going to eat afterwards? And who’s paying?”
Eataly would have been a good choice. At the end of the march, Madison Square Park an art gallery of protest signs, across the street the tourist trap Italian marketplace would have been ironically appropriate – it’s still pretty good food.
And just outside, on the median, no irony was wasted as disassociated demonstrators protested in support of Luigi Mangione. There’s an Eataly spokesperson opportunity for him somewhere down the road, surely.
I went inside and tried to find a cheesemonger I know, but it must have been his day off.
ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE
“If you want to reach a general audience, it’s not art issues that are going to compel them to stop on their way to lunch, it has to be life issues.” – Jenny Holzer1
The NO KINGS protests were co-organized by over 200 progressive groups projecting the unifying message of “FUCK DONALD TRUMP” which really has understandably united progressives with people of different political persuasions. It is importantly a broad focus, not booby-trapping themselves in the foot with other progressive causes.
This branding weaves the visceral worry of Donald Trump into something in the American fabric that most Americans still feel in some ethereal way. But that concern will almost certainly be lost when someone they like is set to succeed.
To some degree it will have to be lost. The next president elected in opposition to the current unabashed authoritarian bent will have to fix this administration’s abuses of power by — you guessed it — abusing power.
It will likely be some time before we see another such perfect storm of abuse as Donald Trump, but the throne of unchecked executive power will still be there, all too tempting to anyone lacking great responsibility.
I don’t know how we get that genie back in the bottle.
Do we just get someone to sign an executive order?
Democracy is the popular panacea, but a democracy is only as good as its restraints. Without them, democracy is often just a word for what you and your friends want. And depending on what you and your friends want and what you’re willing to do to get it, that democracy can end up looking a lot like a Mad King to someone else.
So I agree.
Fuck Donald Trump.
But for the long now… we should keep the spirit of NO KINGS in mind and in practice.
Waldman, Diane, Jenny Holzer, 2nd ed. Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1997, p. 31.