King Nothing

As foretold, I went to the No Kings protest yesterday. 

I was going to go even if it rained - and all night and morning before, it POURED. For my run group, I was one of four people to actually show it was raining so hard. Again, it's just water - and I had a very decent run, so I was ok. 

As you saw in my 12 of 12, I did indeed get supplies for a poster, and while I thought the print out wouldn't work out - it was great actually.  It was larger than most posters people brought and I got stopped dozens of times by people asking if they could take a picture of it. I was happy to oblige. 

One I know was taken by UPI and ended up in their reel, but I'll be interested to see (if I ever find out) where others will pop up. 

I was extremely pleased with the turnout. I'm bad at guesstimates, but I'd go with 5,000-ish. Hell, in my conservative hometown 20 miles away they had 700. That even seemed outrageous. I'm not sure that place has 700 democrats, let alone all of them showing up in one place at one time. 

Maybe people are pissed. Maybe even some republicunts.

As for the CLE protest, it was peaceful (allegedly only one person arrested for disorderly conduct), somewhat well organized, though any speeches given would have been like Aragorn addressing the troops at the Black Gate.  Unless you were in a certain part of the first row, no one heard a thing. They didn't have adequate PAs.    ......nor did they have port-a-potties. Like.....any.

I mean, I didn't need one, but when you have 5k show up.......and you organized this thing.....I have to believe some DID need one. Hard to believe Cleveland gave them a permit (should they have applied for one?) without that kind of thing tossed in there.

Oddly, I think, there were zero counter protesters. If there were any, I saw none of them, heard none of them. That said, I did bring my ID in case there were outbursts and arrests. The George Floyd protests are still vivid:  burning cars, fights, fights with the police

I won't even say people just got along. They were all there for the same reason. No one was overjoyed to have to be here, they / we were there as a necessity. There was frustration and anger. No Kings was not - nor meant to be - a smiley happy affair. Of course, smiles were had. 

Below are some of the good signs. I'm sure I've missed many.  These are almost in no particular order. 

.....almost. 

See?  It came out ok, no?

One lady came up to me and goes, "......but are you, really?"   It took a minute, but my shirt was a purposeful choice for the rally. 

I joked that Fred Armisen was at the rally. My sister laughed and said, "it DOES look like him". So I followed and took a few shots. 

I later found out - from a friend of a friend - the Rock Hall was having an SNL 50th Anniversary exhibit that opened later last evening. So, he probably didn't look like Fred, because it probably was Fred. 

Song by: Metallica