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Why I Wish They'd Given "No Kings Day" a Different Name [1]
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Date: 2025-06-15
It's a great thing that yesterday was, in its way, a double victory. Huge and enthusiastic turnout for the "No Kings Day" celebrations, and Trump's Kremlin-like military parade a flop.
But there’s a problem with that name: 'No Kings Day.' As a message to the American public — -- those who are neither in the Trump cult, nor ready to take to the streets to protest Trump's usurping all powers to himself — the image of the 'King' misses the mark.
What do today’s Americans know about kings? Some got up early to watch King Charles III’s coronation. A few European countries still have ceremonial monarchs with no real political power. Maybe some have watched Yul Brynner in The King and I.
What they mostly DON'T have in their minds when they think about Kings is the outrage of those who wrote the Declaration of Independence with its long list of grievances against King George III for his tyrannical measures. ("The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.")
That was two and a half centuries ago. What Americans in these times have grown up hating is not 18th century kings but 20th- and 21st-century tyrants (like Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin).
So what kind of visceral reaction – of outrage and opposition -- does a phrase like ‘No Kings Day’ summon in today’s American mind?
Wouldn't it have been better to call out to the nation in the terms of the experience of our times: "No Dictators Day"? Or perhaps "No Tyrants Day."
Beyond that, there is nothing REGAL about Donald Trump. He shows no aspiration to be like the KINGS of history. He is a power-grabber-- a would-be despot who models himself on the bullies and authoritarians of our own time.
Denounce Trump for what he is trying to be, as well as for what Americans have learned to hate.
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