Dear Normies: Time to Stand Up

On Tuesday, Politico published excerpts from a private group chat of “young” Republican leaders using every color in the slur rainbow and cheerleading for the gas chamber. As far as news items go, it hit the trifecta for the “And you’re surprised by this?” crowd.

It is not surprising that these specimens of the master race look like Microsoft clip art for “Internet Neckbeard 2003-2008.” Nor is it surprising that a movement with nothing to offer young people but a reward structure for racism — and 150-year-old jokes about watermelon — keeps producing people like this, three generations into its creation. These retrograde bigots are the least common denominator of crudity, victims of their own myths, shouting names into the dark and attacking anyone who’d walk into it. 

These are, in other words, the people we need to frighten this weekend. 

The latest No Kings rally will be held across the country this Saturday afternoon, Oct. 18. If the last was any indication, it doesn’t matter how remotely you live in East Jesus County, or if your town’s ratio of council members-to-citizens approaches one. There’s probably a gathering reasonably nearby. And if the bleating from The Man Who Would Be King and his courtiers is any indication, the thought terrifies them. 

The Speaker of the House tore his brain away from an intrusive mental loop of raw no-holes-barred thrusting to condemn it as a Hamas action. The party very concerned with antisemitism is elbowing the nation in the ribs and accusing the people in the streets of being underwritten by an international Jewish financier. Treasury Secretary and America’s Tariff Sales Leader of the Month Scott Bessent got so darn panicked trying to tie the rally to a Democratic shutdown strategy, he adopted the politics that inspired the Declaration of Independence. “No Kings,” he’s said, repeatedly, “equals no paychecks.”

To borrow from sports talk, if the preceding No Kings protest in June didn’t set the record for the largest single-day demonstration in American history, it’s at least in the conversation. It’s in the all-time pantheon of crowd sizes — the inner-ring Protest Hall of Fame. I love Tesla Takedown, but when is Tesla Takedown’s Tesla Takedown? — it’s No Kings. It’s going to be huge. Just ask its subject.

Almost everything the Trump tyranny is currently doing meets fascism’s definition of structural overreaction paired with the illusion of action. They cannot, for instance, conjure up enough actual criminal noncitizens to justify Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s illegal militancy, so they tow videographers behind them in the hopes that enough shaky cam can Greengrass a sense of danger into five cornfed assholes powerbombing an abuela. But the No Kings overreaction, which so clearly anticipates a loud public response, so aggrandizes the enemy that it’s hard not to see an anxious awareness of the depth of their unpopularity.

Under ordinary circumstances, this wouldn’t be necessary. The “Times” gave No Kings the kind of wall-to-wall coverage it usually reserves for Israeli war crimes or a Republican administration illegally wiretapping Americans before an election. Which is to say, understated. The same outlets that proclaimed the tea party as America’s new reality in 2009 — despite being more astroturfed than a Houston Oilers highlight reel and goosed by millions in earned media coverage on Fox — mostly registered this summer’s No Kings event as something a handful of soccer moms did to get out of the house. It was just super. It’s great to see them keeping busy.

A party and movement that’s still ascendant shouldn’t need to crank the messaging dial this hard to preemptively smear No Kings, especially not with Fox News, CNN and CBS all in the tank and already doing the heavy lifting. Any event this truly horrible would feel worse for being a surprise anyway, so why spoil it? Their insistence only calls to mind other entertainments that Republicans insist are bad for you, like sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. If they’re warning you this much about it, the message ought to be clear: You’re going to have a good time.

Naturally, one imagines that the leftish media readers who found this piece have some experience with protests (and this column is not a guide). But I’d like to address those who don’t, the friends who found this link on their Facebook page. Because you, Mr. or Mrs. Normative Suburban American, are extraordinarily important. You are the people who conservatives will insist these protests do not represent. With the greatest possible affection, you are the normies, and as the embodiment of the norm, you are the people whom state violence claims to protect from these protests. As such, you are the people whose presence makes everyone else’s attendance safer. You should be there, because when you are, in the eyes of the guys in body armor ringing the event, it makes everyone else seem like they should be, too.

It’s important to be aware of possible dangers, but that shouldn’t inhibit you from going. Not only because the drive to and from the event will be the most dangerous thing you do all day, but because, again, No Kings is going to be a good time. In fact, a lot of protests are a good time. They’re great for people watching. Many of the signs are funny. If you’ve ever wondered where to find interesting and pleasantly slightly off-kilter people like yourself who you know must lurk in your town or city, a protest like this is a good place to start. Meeting people whose beliefs are mostly similar to your own is fun, especially if you can bring them back to other parts of your personal life. And, like most events that are dependent on crowd energy, more people participating translates to more enjoyment. You can show up to things like this while brunch-drunk in a giant sun hat and just vibe.   

That last part might be the best thing you can do. In a better world, the Democratic Party is woven into the hearts of neighborhoods everywhere through years of family-friendly events that get people out of the house and doing interesting things for free, building community by habit and accident. Even if their own history in this regard were unpersuasive, the ubiquity of the Federalist Society is a constant reminder of this power. There are many arguments for its success over the last 40-something years, but the shortest and maybe the truest explanation is three words long: free good food. You can worry about getting permits for a decent taco truck for the next one; for now, bring snacks to share.

Don’t worry about not having a frog costume. What the country needs most now is not improv. It needs more pairs of hands to clap. It needs more souls. It needs more people willing to stand up for democracy long enough to let the protesters who were there yesterday and the day before sit down just a dang minute. In the most flat-front terms, the easiest thing you can do, Mr. Normative American, is show up in a pair of chinos.

The Trump administration wants you — and the National Guardsmen they are calling up — to think that the average No Kings attendee is a young militant with a Molotov cocktail and blue hair, whose mother and grandmother you can only envision shaking their heads and saying, “It’s such a shame.” Anything, really, to keep from focusing on the fact that the more traditional blue hairs — senior citizens who have gone yellowish-white in their old age and are overdoing it on the color correction — have been in the streets for months.

In that spirit, then, go and be a vision of normal — a vitally protective vision of normal in crowds easily marginalized as agitators. Clap along if you want. Sing and chant along if you want. Or just take a long slow walk reading signs, placidly Bellini-buzzed and smiling. What the right people on your side need to see and what everyone standing against us needs to see is the same thing. You, there.   

If they’re going to be scared of you anyway — if they’re going to use that as a pretext to abuse you anyway — you might as well own it and give them a reason. (The same goes for a vocally vengeful Democratic Party.) If you’re wondering where to start — and like a lot of things you know you need to do, starting can be so very hard — this Saturday is a good place. 

The people of color, the young activists and the grandmas are always there. What’s needed are the people who will always be the most terrifying to them: Moms and dads with their kids and grandkids, having fun, with purpose, like this is a normal and necessary American tradition, which it is. Moms and dads and kids who could either be coming from or going to the Bass Pro Shop or the Apple Store. Moms and dads who could have stepped out of the consciously Neo-Aryran imagery of a Department of Homeland Security tweet about preserving our blood and soil — who are the very picture of legitimate authority to Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and Young Republicans fascists in text chat — telling them that the answer is, in fact, no. And that it will continue to be no, and will only get louder.