by Emil Amok Guillermo
Donald Trump let us know how he feels about No Kings.
Sure, he said Friday, he was not a king- certainly not an intellectual monarch.
But could he be a Top Gun fighter pilot worthy of a Tom Cruise?
On Saturday night, the White House on its official page retweeted an AI-generated video showing Trump in a bomber jet flying over protesters and dumping F-bombs.
That would be F as in “fecal matter.”
No s—t.
Public defecation? And he likes to make fun of San Francisco.
But this is the president’s official response. Is he just having fun, the same way that “South Park” shows him impregnating Satan?
After yesterday’s peaceful rallies, America deserves a better answer than an AI-generated video.
Surprisingly, CBS News, under the new leadership of conservative Bari Weiss, didn’t even mention No Kings on its main Sunday news show, “Face the Nation.” It’s another sign of how that network is turning from the Tiffany network into a dim Fox News Lite.
It didn’t even mention Trump commuting the disgraced Rep. George Santos. That’s a story about Trump rewarding his kind of felon, while going after innocents at ICE raids. But to not mention the rallies? The rallies were significant because it presented a picture of where we are as a country.
If you are a rally goer.
MY NO KINGS DAY
I chose to express my First Amendment right on stage.
I wore my protest sign in San Francisco as I performed in “The Amanuensis,” by Ishmael Reed in San Francisco. It’s a play that’s anti-racist and anti-white supremacy that targets Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus tales.
There’s no Antifa. Just Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue.
What was my protest sign? It was the cheap chic of my costume, a sequined jacket in tiger-skin motif from China.
A year or two ago, it could have been had for less than $30.
Today, with tariffs, the price was double.
Add that to the price of my vegan groceries like fake cheese and fake meat, and I might have a real heart attack.
No Kings Day allowed us to let it all out.
People used their First Amendment right with glee to let the president know how they feel about everything from autocracy to tariffs, to xenophobic immigration policies.
Instead of silent complacency, America was America again on No Kings Day.
Throngs of people–estimated by organizers to be more than 7 million strong in 2,000 plus cities and towns—expressed their dissatisfaction with the man I like to call CFDT34, for “convicted felon Donald Trump,34 counts.”
Look at the pictures of the people–all peacefully protesting–at all the marches.
VISUAL PROOF
Collectively, the rallies were bigger than any crowd Trump boasts about.
The rallies show what a country that gives its president just a 40 percent approval rating, and a disapproval rating nearing 60 percent looks like.
It’s an America that stands up to a bully and tells it like it is.
Mr. President, this is our country, not your private country club.
We do not like the direction you are taking us.
It was not a “Hate America” rally, like House Speaker Mike Johnson called it.
Nor was it made up of “terrorists,” “Hamas,” or “Antifa.”
One legislator, Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) denounced the rally because American communist and socialist organizations (among other groups) were associated with the protests. But we aren’t talking about the CCP. Or Putin’s party. Foreign entities. We’re talking about diverse Americans with diverse views, expressing their love of their country through the First Amendment and the Constitution.
In condemning the rallies it was Congresswoman Malliotakis, the Trump mouthpiece, who was anti-American in condemning viewpoint diversity at the rallies.
They were just people—regular folk from all walks of life—showing their dissatisfaction with Trump. But who now emerges to take the momentum and lead the 7 million?
That number is just a tenth of the votes Trump got last November. He won with a mere plurality of the popular vote, not a majority, 49.81 percent to Harris’ 48.34 percent, according to the American Presidency Project.
People at the rallies seemed almost as upset with Democrats for not having a real plan to offset Trump’s often illegal and unconstitutional actions.
We shall see how it plays in November in California if the measure to counter the GOP’s gerrymandering efforts, Prop 50 wins.
That would show that people on the streets can translate into people at the polls.
It’s a hopeful sign that even in an ailing democracy gaslit by a felon, we can still smell a king when we see one.
Emil Amok Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator, and stage monologist. He has written a column on Asian American issues and politics each week for more than 30 years. Contact: emil@amok.com
Registration is closed for Common Ground: Building Together conference and gala award banquet in San Francisco on January 24. A shoutout to our planning committee: Jane Chin, Frank Mah, Jeannie Young, Akemi Tamanaha, Nathan Soohoo, Mark Young, Dave Liu, and Yiming Fu.
We are published by the non-profit Asian American Media Inc and supported by our readers along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AARP, The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, The Asian American Foundation & Koo and Patricia Yuen of the Yuen Foundation.
Find additional content on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram ,Tiktok, X, and YouTube. Please consider interning or joining our staff. Don’t miss a single headline. Subscribe for free.
