This Is What Democracy Looks Like
My close call with a Marxist agent of chaos on No Kings Day...
I. We talked about going to Chicago where I was born, or to downtown Madison where we live, but mobility issues kept my wife and me from attending one of the larger No Kings rallies. So on Saturday, Oct. 18, we drove a few miles to join the protest in Middleton, a town of 20,000 or so whose motto is “The Good Neighbor Community”—a town whose claim to fame is the National Mustard Museum.
On Saturday morning, as we were getting ready to go, I received an email from one of the organizers of the Middleton event, whom I’ll call “Evelyn.” For reasons you’ll understand, I trembled as I opened it. On Friday, the Speaker of the House— Mike “I Have Jesus on Speed Dial” Johnson—warned us about people like her. He said that a No Kings rally would be an “anti-American hate party” organized by the “pro-Hamas and Antifa people” of the “radical left” with “Marxists on full display.”
Please sit down and buckle up. Here’s exactly what Evelyn wrote as it appeared in my inbox: “I am almost blown away by the response to this call for action. More than 150 people are signed up to participate! We’ll need to divide into four groups, so please look for me when you get there. I’m short, about 5’1”, 70 years old and will have a cane, or maybe two, or possibly a red rolling walker (aka a rolator) due to chronic Lyme disease. I hope to find time to make a sign that says ‘Host,’ and I’m trying to attach a photograph of me to this email, so you know who you’re looking for, but I'm not sure how to do it. I guess if you get a picture...great! And if you don’t...that’s just the way it is.”
II. Knowing that we were soon to come face-to-face with a well-trained Marxist agent of chaos like Evelyn, my wife and I summoned our courage and sallied forth to Middleton, where we found a place on the sidewalk amid a growing crowd of protestors. Soon, something like 450 people were lined up at a busy four-way light, where cars honked approval nonstop for the three hours we were there.
The crowd grew so fast and self-organized so smoothly that Evelyn never got a chance to split us into four revolutionary cells. But I ran across her as she looked for the bullhorn a friend had promised to bring her (a bullhorn that never showed up). I’m ashamed to say that fear made me shake Evelyn’s hand and thank her for bringing us together—I did not want to get crosswise with a Marxist.
Now I’m trying to make up for my cowardice by getting a message to Mike “Just Jesus and Me” Johnson, who clearly misunderestimates the threat that MAGA faces from people like Evelyn. In all my years of counter-espionage for the CIA, I’ve never seen a more effective cover than hers. She looked for all the world like a garden variety American citizen, and an endearing one, at that.
III. OK, thus endeth the snark, with a deep bow to the real-life “Evelyn” who is now one of my heroes. The truth is that I came away from No Kings Day with the certainty that one Evelyn holds more promise for the future of America than a gaggle of goons gone gaga for MAGA.
I’m talking about crypto-fascist goons like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegeseth, Tom Homan, Mike Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Karoline Leavitt, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, Kristy Noem, Kash Patel, POTUS, J. D. Vance, Russell Vought, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Who are these whited sepulchers, and how much were they paid for their mortal souls?
For the folks in “The Good Neighbor City,” the problem with POTUS and his Cabinet is clear: those people would not make good neighbors. They’d sell your Mom and Pop store to a hedge fund, fire Mom and Pop, then tear down the east wing of your house to build a gilded ballroom for their $100,000-a-plate galas.
But good neighbors are easy to find among the millions of Americans who came out on Oct. 18 to say NO to MAGA. 2,700 No Kings protests were held that day in big cities and small towns across all 50 states, all of them alive with esprit de corps—and not a single violent episode among the more than 7 million participants.
To put it simply, there are a lot of Evelyns in this country. I’m talking about people with personal struggles who still care about others; people free of guile and paranoia who can spot con artists a mile away; people who can laugh at themselves and at unclothed Kings; people who love their country with a simplicity that touches my heart. These folks don’t hate anyone. But in the immortal words of Lyndon Baines Johnson, they “know the difference between chicken salad and chicken s _ _ t.”
IV. I came away from No Kings Day with a renewed conviction that the classic American virtue called “common sense” is still alive and well, and will ultimately bring MAGA down.
It’s no accident that Thomas Paine used those words as the title of his hugely popular 1775-76 pamphlet, issued in support of the original No Kings protest. In a country of only 2.5 million people, Paine’s 47-page essay sold half a million copies. “Written in plain language, not elite political discourse,” as one account puts it, “Common Sense transformed public opinion from resistance to outright revolution in just months, paving the way for the Declaration of Independence six months later.” As Paine wrote, “Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, most improper to defend us.”
God knows what Paine might write today, when the power that endeavors to subdue us sits inside the White House in the person of a man who has declared his hatred for his political opponents, who has said he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution, and whose favor goes only to those who swear allegiance to him. I’m guessing that Paine’s rhetoric would have been less gentlemanly and more like LBJ’s.
V. “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing moving at different speeds,” said Clive James—which is why the laughter heard at No Kings rallies across the U.S. last week is worth celebrating. That laughter came not only in response to a raft of clever jokes, such as “I Am Your Aunt Tifa!” It came from the joyful realization that we who oppose MAGA are not outliers, but are joined to millions of our fellow citizens who aspire to be good neighbors, at home and abroad.
In March of 1958, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton had such a moment of joy when a medical emergency took him out of the cloister into town: “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut … I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of self-isolation in a special world… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.”
I thought of Merton as I stood at a street corner in Middleton on No Kings Day, remembering the rest of his Fourth and Walnut account: “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. … If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.”
Too much to hope for? Probably. But I’m deeply grateful for a No Kings rally that helped restore my conviction that we shall overcome—and that everyday virtues like common sense, neighborliness, and a sense of humor will help lead the way.
[NOTES: The latest newsletter from Indivisible, one of the No Kings sponsors, urges folks to write about their Oct. 18 experience to keep the spirit of protest alive. If you’re so inclined, please feel free do so here. My 10 books are HERE and HERE. The Center for Courage & Renewal is HERE. I post on Substack every Friday, as time and energy allow. Free as well as paid subscriptions will always have access to everything I post.]
You and your story give this Northern Neighbour great hope. Dear American friends, Elbows up! You shall overcome and Canadians will support you.
My “Evelyn” moment came at a “Hands Off” protest in the spring, when I helped a woman who was much more elderly than myself, to step safely down the curb from the sidewalk to the street. She explained that she borrowed the seated walker from her sister to be able to attend the rally. Her courage and determination inspired me. Parker, I’m continuing to address my “Sacred Ache” moments with your wonderful quote about hope.