I had to wrestle down my social anxiety to do it, but we (my husband and I) went to the No Kings rally this weekend.
Selfie!
I’m so glad we did it. It wasn’t a protest as much as a hangout. People gathering with costumes and signs to say, “We’re not okay with this. And we’re not afraid of you.”
You know New Orleanians are going to be creative.
CNBC was correct to name it a street party vibe. It certainly was in New Orleans. Drums, music, crazy costumes. Kind of a festival vibe, but a serious festival. Deep play. Play for now, but it will turn serious if needed.
My favorite inflated animal costume: the Axolotl!
Almost seven million people turned out to say “No kings in America.” Ordinary people like me, you. Us. There were no serious incidents nationwide. In New York City and Washington, DC, there were no injuries or arrests arising from the protest. There were no gun incidents.
Old farts can rant about the “radical violent leftists” of their youth. Half a century ago. Things have changed.
Progressives, leftists, Democrats are not the violent ones in this moment. Not the gun nuts. Not the ones who spawn shooter after mass shooter.
Now, it’s the Christian Nationalists, the militant white supremacists. Ultra-right and ultra dangerous.
I rant. The march made me — us — feel good. Feel hopeful. We’re not alone in seeing how crazy this all is.
No Kings!
Let’s hang onto that feeling and let it fuel our resistance until the next big action. The next will be even bigger.
When I was a kid my dad taught me about Zeno’s Paradox. It’s a physics thought experiment from classical Greece, about time and movement. If every step you take toward your goal halves the distance, and every step halves the remaining difference – then how do you ever reach your goal?
MAGA’s behavior is like an Inverse Zeno’s Paradox – instead of halving, every step doubles down, and the end is not nowhere, but Armageddon.
For the last 48 hours we have been treated to a constant stream of red-faced MAGAs on social media scream-crying about how they’re “going to kill all us motherfuckers” for Charlie Kirk’s death. Ranting, choking, calling for civil war. Just unhinged. Jesse Waters on FOX said “they are at war with us now,” meaning the left, before the shooter was even identified. FOTUS went on Fox and raged, the President of the United States, raged about killing “leftists.” Red America unanimously decided, absent all evidence, that Democrats were to blame and they would be punished.
But the call was coming from inside the house. Kirk’s killer was a Groyper – a white supremacist, Jew-hating Nick Fuentes fan. Not trans. Not left. Not a Democrat. A white, Mormon, ultra-MAGA gun nut. Imagine that.
But there will be no gut-check for MAGA. No come-to-Jesus moment. They will not stop to reflect on their behavior. They refuse self-examination. Since the truth is not to their liking, they will pretend this never happened, and next time it happens (because it will) they will double down, becoming even more hysterical. More violent. Acting it out.
It’s the tactic they take from Dear Leader: never admit error, never retract, never reflect — always double down. Increase the noise, the outrage, the wild accusations. That’s how narcissists work. Self-reflection feels like annihilation to them because their self-concept is so brittle, a gilded shell over a howling emptiness.
Lot of narcissists in MAGA. Authoritarian parenting creates them.
But this isn’t a thought experiment. This is real life. Escalating conflict every time you’re challenged does not lead to good order. It leads to chaos and violence. Reverse Zeno’s Paradox.
If you “double down” every time with political action, eventually you get to detonating nuclear bombs.
Most of MAGA are Christian nationalists slavering for Judgment Day anyway. Nuclear holocaust is not a bug to them, it’s a feature.
I’m angry that MAGA as a whole, from the President on down, can conduct this anti-social, un-American behavior and receive no correction, either from within or without. No think pieces about de-escalating the rhetoric. No humble TikToks. Jesse Waters isn’t going to get fired like Matthew Dowd. No, indeed.
So I’m doing it. MAGA, you need to check yourself. Your hysteria, your racism, your violence. You all claim to be such chest-thumping patriots, but your revanchist anger is what’s destroying this country.
For the rest of us – they won’t of course. If anything, this episode has shown what genuinely terrible people hard-core MAGA are. So we have to step up and do it, hold the line against extremism. Remember what I said yesterday. Refuse the spectacle. It’s eating us alive.
Atlantis Fallen 