Dispatches from the ‘resistance’ retirement home
My favorite greasy spoon was a little fuller when the kids and I unloaded into the parking lot for a breakfast out Saturday morning. Navigating to the door we passed a Subaru with homemade signs neatly stacked in the back seat next to a Tesla with a bumper sticker noting the owner had purchased the electric vehicle “before Elon went crazy.”
The “No Kings” protesters were on the move… but not before grabbing the early bird special.
Towns across Bucks and Montgomery counties hosted a series of protests this weekend — part of a globally coordinated demonstration against imagined monarchs. Since one was scheduled in my hometown, I figured I’d pop by and take a look. Here’s what I saw.
Putting the ‘age’ in ‘rage’
Protests have always been seen as a movement of youth and energy, but what I witnessed was more akin to outdoor group therapy for CNN viewers at or approaching AARP eligibility. By my estimates, at least 80% of attendees were members of the Baby Boomer generation.
Now this is not to say that our older neighbors have no role in our society or no voice in our politics, but for a political ideology that emphasizes diversity and representation as much as they do, this monoculture should be concerning. This disparity wasn’t lost on attendees — many had signs or indicated they were protesting so they could “tell their grandkids they did something.” Where were the kids and grandkids? Probably at soccer or enjoying the day.
To me, it seemed these Boomers — or Doomers? — are the dwindling supporters of the old institutional order, desperate to reenact the protest movements of their youth, once again placing themselves in the center of the national conversation. More than anything, they wanted to feel like they’re doing something righteous before heading home to post on Facebook.
‘No Kings’ as catchall
If you were looking for a coherent message, you came to the wrong place. The branding said “No Kings,” but the protest itself was what commentator Jarrett Stepman aptly termed a “progressive grievance buffet.” The signs were a chaotic jumble of every progressive talking point one could imagine. One person was mad about Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A few feet away, a grown man was dressed in a taco costume. Sandwiched between them was a poster denouncing Republicans as “fascist” next to someone urging everyone to “Love more & fear less” — a lovely sentiment, presumably directed at everyone except the fascists in the taco costume.
The only unifying thread, the one thing holding this disparate collection of anxieties together, is the one thing they cannot bring themselves to say plainly: They don’t think Donald Trump is a “king,” they’re just furious he’s president.
A king for me, not for thee
“No Kings” may have been a catchy phrase to lump all their political disagreements — each masquerading as a world-ending injustice — within, but the monarchal theme allowed for a chuckle at the cognitive dissonance of the modern Left.
Where, I wondered, were these champions of legislative authority for the last two decades?
Where were the “No Kings” signs when President Barack Obama, frustrated with Congress, proudly declared he had a “pen and phone” and proceeded to unilaterally rewrite the nation’s immigration laws by executive fiat? Where were these Jacobins when the media spent years fawning over the Kennedy “Camelot” dynasty? Where were they when President Joe Biden’s advisors acted like regents, or when the Democratic National Committee skipped the unpleasantness of a primary to hand Kamala Harris a coronation — I mean, nomination — without a single vote cast?
They were, of course, at home. Because ‘No Kings’ was never about the principle of reigning in executive power or ending governmental tyranny. It’s just a tantrum; an expression of pure, unadulterated partisanship. As X user Logan Dobson correctly diagnosed, this was never about principle. “Some of the protestors might say they want to abolish ICE or whatever,” he wrote, “but the truth is 90% of them are very fine with the existence of ICE so long as the President is a Democrat.” They “would not particularly care about the goings on of the government” if their guy was in charge. They would “simply trust that everything was fine.” They aren’t afraid of a king; they’re just furious that their guy isn’t the one wearing the crown.
The grass is real, the roots are not
What I saw in Bucks County was not a spontaneous uprising. The coordinated timing, the urgent text-message-list emails, the matching (if chaotic) themes… this was a pre-packaged, managed event produced by the protest-industrial-complex.
Much reporting has been done on the network of unions, NGOs, nonprofits, and billionaires funding this “organic movement.” While I’m not saying Mr. and Mrs. Jones got a check before packing up and heading home, it is clear that there is a financial and organizational stake in coordinating both individual events and their cumulative scope.
This isn’t a revolution; it’s a weekend chore slotted between brunch and a craft fair. “JOY IS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE,” the email blares. No, joy is what you feel when with your kids at the playground or watching your college football team win (both things folks could have been doing instead of lining streets with signs and extorting honks from terrified drivers). This is activism-as-a-hobby, “clap-tivism” where one is surrounded and urged on by agreeing partisans, a form of “group therapy for libs” as media commentator Stephen L. Miller has called this type of performative outrage.
Across Bucks County, thousands of your neighbors participated in a morning of pure fantasy, fighting against an evil king. But this isn’t a fairy tale, and the aging, middle-class white liberals aren’t the heroes braving the dangers to save the nation. This was simultaneous seething that the American people, in a free and fair election, chose a president they do not like. They were raging — not against tyranny — but against the simple, terrifying fact that America has stopped listening to them.
Publius Pax is a tenth-generation Bucks Countian, political consultant, and author.
