The Lincoln Logue | The White House Pays Itself While the People March Against Kings
The administration is collapsing the line between public service and personal profit as No Kings 2.0 hits the streets - and the message was louder than the first time.
The country felt louder than the government this week. Millions flooded streets from Manhattan to Memphis chanting “No Kings,” a defiant chorus against a presidency that governs like a throne. They were veterans, nurses, grandmothers, and federal employees marching without pay — citizens who have lost wages but not conviction. The White House mocked them with a smirk and a “Who cares?”, proof that apathy is now official policy. Tariffs drove prices up again while officials called it “patriotic sacrifice,” as if suffering were a civic duty. The protests looked less like resistance and more like national maintenance — a population doing the work its leaders abandoned. When loyalty is demanded and truth punished, rebellion becomes the last functioning branch of government.
At the same time, Trump tried to turn corruption into commerce. He demanded $230 million from the Justice Department for the crime of having been investigated — a payout that would come from an agency now staffed almost entirely by his former defense lawyers. “I’m suing myself,” he bragged, mistaking confession for comedy. It’s the political equivalent of insurance fraud: damage the country, then bill the taxpayers for emotional distress. Accountability has been replaced with compensation, the presidency reduced to one man’s grievance claim. The grift has become a part of bureaucracy.
Missiles struck boats in the Pacific, agencies stayed shuttered, and the last functioning machinery of state was propaganda. ICE agents were paid, social workers weren’t, and inflation rose on cue. America’s economy, its diplomacy, and its decency all now operate on credit — and the interest is coming due.
Welcome back to The Lincoln Logue. Let’s get into it.
Monday, October 20 — GOP Warned of Riots, Got Grandmas with Signs
▌The right prepared for fire and brimstone and got umbrellas, strollers, and signs that spelled democracy.
The “No Kings” demonstrations filled streets in every corner of the country, a movement too big to contain and too calm to condemn. Veterans, teachers, retirees, and furloughed workers marched shoulder to shoulder beneath banners declaring “We the People,” proving that outrage doesn’t need violence to have volume. For days, Republican leaders had fanned panic, warning of riots, looting, and “Antifa chaos” that never came. Instead, they got strollers, rain ponchos, and grandmothers dancing in puddles. Even as seven million Americans turned out, the White House shrugged and sneered — “Who cares?” — as if the sound of democracy was just background noise. The only thing un-American about the protests was how little the government resembled the country it is meant to serve.
The contrast was almost comedic. After predicting carnage, GOP pundits pivoted overnight, dismissing the peaceful crowds as “a bunch of old white people with too much time.” It was the political version of gaslighting — condemn the movement before it happens, then diminish it when it works. But the facts were harder to spin than the slogans: every state saw turnout, red counties joined blue ones, and even overseas protesters gathered outside U.S. embassies. Political scientists noted it may have crossed the “3.5 percent rule,” the threshold at which nonviolent movements historically prevail. The administration can mock the optics all it wants, but those numbers are what authoritarians fear most: proof that people still outnumber power.
What made the day historic wasn’t the attendance but the attitude. There was no central stage, no violence, no permission asked — only citizens practicing what they were told no longer mattered. The GOP’s attempt to paint dissent as disorder collapsed under the sheer normalcy of decency. They prepared for chaos and got community, for mobs and got marches. The White House can claim apathy, but the images said otherwise: a nation awake, unified, and unwilling to kneel. For all the talk of “law and order,” the protesters reminded everyone what order under law actually looks like.