Like a few million other folks, I showed up at the local No Kings protest. We were all there for the same fundamental reason: because Comrade Donald Trump and his cadre of Nazgûl have been merrily shitting on…well, everything that’s good and promising and hopeful and decent about the US.
People are pissed off about SO MANY things Trump has done (and intends to do). The attacks on immigration, science, trans rights, healthcare, civil liberties, the environment, due process, Gaza (and Israel and Iran and and and), veteran’s benefits, free speech, the national debt, the January 6th pardons, everything about January 6th, the assault on education, the assault on libraries, the assault on the very concept of Truth.
But one thread tied all the anger and frustration and resentment together. A deep, abiding rage against Donald Trump as a person. Not only for the horrors he’s inflicted on the United States, but a profound loathing for him as an individual. As I wandered through the No Kings crowd, I kept seeing this same sentiment. Fuck Trump.
People really hate this motherfucker and they hate him personally. They hate him for what he’s done, they hate him for what he wants to do, and they hate for him who he is. Which, I suppose, is only fair, considering how many people he hates for who they are. Trump has a singular talent for both hating others and being hated.
Why do people hate him so? Because he’s a liar, because he buried one of his many wives on a goddamn golf course, because he’s betrayed the United States, because he’s got truly godawful taste in everything, because he’s cheated on every wife he’s had, because he’s massively ignorant and unaware of it, because he’s a liar, because he’s fucked over every person and contractor he’s ever worked with, because he’s an unrepentant racist, because he hates women, because he loves autocrats, because he’s a liar, because he’s a coward, because he’s never owned a pet, because he’s a narcissist, because he pretends to support the military but believes they’re losers, because he’s a liar, because of his stupid fucking red hats, because he’s a phony, because he’s put incompetent people in positions of power, because he insults everybody who disagrees with him, because he’s a vindictive prick, because he’s a liar, because he’s rude, because of his stupid fucking hair, because he encourages his followers to be violent, because he hates immigrants but hires them to work for his resorts, because he’s shit all over the Arts, because he’s a liar, because he’s cruel and enjoys inflicting harm on others, because he pretends to be a Christian without having an inkling of Christian charity, because he’s a sex pest, because he’s committed many many crimes but has never been held accountable for any of them, because the people who like him are all massive assholes, because he’s a fucking liar.
I’m sure I’ve skipped a few dozen other reasons why people hate him. But I think you get the point. People sincerely hate Trump.
But there was another guy at the No Kings event. Bearded guy, dressed all in black, sitting on a granite railing. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “Hate Will Never Win.” I hope he’s right. I genuinely hope hate won’t win. But I also hope the hatred against Donald Trump will get people to stand up for themselves and for others. I hope it will get people to push back against his authoritarianism. I hope it will get people to vote. I hope it will get people to hold Trump accountable for all (or at least some) of the horrible things he’s done to this country.
And then I hope we can let go of that hate.
gregfallis.com 
I love the pictures. I’m curious whether you a) disclosed that you’d be using these photos on your blog and b) whether anyone expressed concern about being identified. One thing Trump has been good at (yet another reason to hate him) is sowing fear. I’ve heard some speculation about government agents targeting dissent, but it could be just fear.
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Those are valid questions. I’ll answer them in reverse order. B) no, nobody expressed any concern about being identified. It was a public event and I suspect anybody who feared retaliation would have just stayed home. Most of the people there–and especially those who were carrying signs–expected to get attention. That’s WHY they were carrying signs.
And A) no, I didn’t inform anybody I’d be using the photos for a blog. There were app. 7000 people at the event; it would be impossible to get specific permission from all of them. In any event, there’s no guarantee of privacy in a public event. Photos of specific people (rather than group shots) also involved conversation with those people. I spoke with a LOT of people there, only a few of whom I photographed. They knew they were being photographed.
The entire point of No Kings was to make a BIG public statement that we do not support Trump or his ‘policies.’
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thank you for defending our democracy
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“Defending democracy” is something I often say ironically. When somebody learns that I’m a veteran, they’ll usually ask what I did in the military. My response is usually something like, “I basically just defended democracy.” When I left home for the rally, I said “Is there anything you want me to pick up at the market after I’ve defended democracy?”
But the thing is, going to protests like No Kings actually IS literally defending democracy. So is voting. Hell, so is writing political shit on this blog. Expressing a political opinion–and I mean almost ANY political opinion–in public is defending democracy.
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I hate him for many of the above reasons and I don’t even live in your country. But I specifically hate him because he’s single-handedly borked the economic markets, which has already had a serious effect on the very small amount of superannuation that I have to live on from now until I kick the bucket.
I’m watching all the protests, and I’m in full support of course, but I keep on wondering how many of those people who turned up actually voted for the idiot? Is there any sense of that? Or are we just seeing the half of people who didn’t want him there in the first place? Because, you know, that’s the problem, right?
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There’s no way to know who among the crowd had voted FOR Trump, though I suspect at least a few of them did…and regretted it. There were a LOT of self-identified military veterans there (including me). As a group, veterans tend to be more conservative (not including me, obv.), but the vets at No Kings were all massively pissed off at the way Trump has treated the military.
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“but I keep on wondering how many of those people who turned up actually voted for the idiot? Is there any sense of that?”Far better for those who voted for him to realize their mistake and do something about it than to keep it to themselves.
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Somehow my login is messed up and I don’t know how to fix it! Ugh! Anyway….
“Born loser: Inside Donald Trump’s troubled life”
starts off:
“I must admit, if Trump wasn’t such a power-hungry demagogue, a danger to democracy, a sexual predator, racist, sociopath, pathological liar, bully, and impulsive and unstable megalomaniac, I might feel sorry for him….”
Born loser: Inside Donald Trump’s troubled life | Opinion
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There’s a lack of compassion in our world that’s accompanied by so very much anger or rage. I myself have been angrier over the last few years — perhaps in large part in relation to the Internet ‘angry algorithm’ sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
However, we, at least as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior; and if enough people do this and perform truly humane acts, positive change on a large(r) scale may result.
Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram, of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
… Still, it could be that the human race so desperately needs a unifying fate-determining common cause, that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack is what we have to collectively brutally endure in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
Humanity would all unite for the first time ever to defend against, attack and defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and perceptions of differences, both real and perceived — especially those involving race and nationality.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. [Then again, I was told that one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.]
Yet, maybe some five or more decades later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including those of scale: the intercontinental, international, national, provincial or state, regional and municipal. And again we slide downwards.
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The sad fact is, the human race actually IS facing what SHOULD be “a unifying fate-determining common cause.” Climate change. But we’re not only NOT unifying against it, much of the world (including the US) is actively denying it’s a threat.
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