Donald Trump’s “No Kings” sewage video is no joke

On Saturday the No Kings protests against President Donald Trump s authoritarian actions took place in more than locations across the United States An estimated million people participated dwarfing even the size of the first event in June making it the largest single-day of protests in American history But instead of addressing their concerns Trump mocked them On Sunday he shared an AI-generated video inspired by Top Gun the iconic movie starring Tom Cruise It even used Danger Zone Kenny Loggins song from the film which the singer demanded be scrubbed The fake video depicts King Trump complete with a crown piloting a plane and unleashing what appears to be human waste on No Kings marchers Since the president couldn t stop the marches he chose to descend into the sewer and not just with the video Trump and other MAGA Republicans predicted violence and mayhem during what was referred to as a hate America rally There was none Republican Govs Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Greg Abbott of Texas mobilized their states National Guard in anticipation of possible violence They were not needed Trump and his mouthpieces including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson R-La slurred No Kings as anti-American and hate marches They claimed No Kings was poorly attended and filled with paid protesters In reality the millions of people who participated in the No Kings marches were completely exercising their constitutional rights In a functioning democracy massive population protests would send a loud clear signal to the president and his party that they need to recalibrate their positions and behavior to maintain backing and avoid being voted out of office or at least to do a better job of persuading the inhabitants to join their side In a functioning democracy massive community protests would send a loud clear signal to the president and his party that they need to recalibrate their positions and behavior to maintain backing and avoid being voted out of office or at least to do a better job of persuading the constituents to join their side But America is no longer a functioning democracy Norms about legitimacy and governance increasingly do not apply Trump is an aspiring autocrat who is rapidly expanding and consolidating his power He views populace opinion as largely invalid embracing instead a maximalist view of presidential power and authority where he is the personal embodiment of the state The vox populi the chorus of citizens opinion should be silent and ignored unless it is praising him and his MAGA movement In autocratic and illiberal systems leaders consider demonstrations and street protests to be illegitimate at least when the aims of the protesters go against the leader s aims mentioned political scientist Susan Stokes director of the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago Democratic leaders don t love demonstrations against their policies and actions but they tend to hold back on repressing the protests arresting protesters whose actions are lawful or using aggressive crowd-control techniques Related Massive No Kings protests short-circuit MAGA s mockery Stokes compared Trump s behavior to that of Recep Tayyip Erdo an They turned the same less-lethal weapons against anti-ICE protesters as did the Turkish authoritarian In response to the No Kings protests they were less violent but still tried to delegitimize the protests accusing them of all sorts of treacherous commitments Trump s scatological video was predictably popular among his supporters On Monday Johnson heaped praise on his tactics The president uses social media to make the point he declared You can argue he s perhaps the majority of effective person who s ever used social media for that Trump s video was immature and gross But it was also deeply dangerous It revealed how the administration and its agents use spectacle and absurdity to reinforce authoritarian control The video showcased the president s taste for mediated destruction and gonzo governance reported media and communications scholar David Altheide His regime seethes contempt for millions of Americans who took to the streets in opposing his dictatorial cruelty The target the graphic sewage and the meaning are clear You are all crap worthy only of the weaponized poop stream on your heads The gross humor has reached millions of Americans who oppose Trump Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Trump s message Altheide revealed was clear also offers this warning Any person institution organization or entity that opposes Trump and his MAGA movement are outsiders beyond the pale symbolic waste the majority vile who can be deported or otherwise dealt with In a press availability aboard Air Force One on Sunday the president doubled down I looked at the people They are not representative of this country The president s AI-generated videos and images have been potent propaganda tools for him to emotionally train and condition the American general into a state of exhaustion confusion and nihilism where they no longer know what is real This behavior also reduces serious political and societal matters to digital memes jokes and ephemera compromising reality testing and making truth itself unknowable Russian President Vladimir Putin has used similar methods to disorient and pacify the Russian constituents The intention is obvious After a conditioning period the only certainty and reality that remains exists in the form of the Great Leader Trump has repeatedly warned his MAGA followers to not believe their lying eyes to only trust him that he possesses great and secret knowledge He alone can fix it And yet Trump s popularity is slipping Polls show that more Americans fear for democracy s future under his leadership But the Democrats shouldn t celebrate too soon they are also unpopular We need your help to stay independent Subscribe the present day to help Chauncey DeVega s journalism Since Trump returned to office a multitude of centrist and liberal political observers as well as the mainstream media have been wish-casting They imagine the American people as a sleeping giant that will inevitably rise up against Trumpism and restore democracy But the truth is dissonant as Stokes pointed out We live in a strange country in which the ruling body acts as though it s an autocracy while a great number of in civil society act as though we are still a democracy she revealed One way to keep the democracy vital is to exercise our rights If we act like we live in a country in which rights to free speech and free assembly are protected then we help keep these rights alive If we stop exercising our rights they will like muscles atrophy The No Kings protests show that resistance to Trumpism is growing But rallies are just a first step without sustained action hope is hollow Sir Winston Churchill famously declared that You can inevitably count on Americans to do the right thing after they ve tried everything else As despair and justified rage fuel authoritarian fake populism both here and abroad Churchill s words ring painfully true Read more about this topic Mike Johnson exploits the shutdown to hide the Epstein files Barack Obama tries to rally Americans to defend their democracy How Kristi Noem became the face of Donald Trump s police state The post Donald Trump s No Kings sewage video is no joke appeared first on Salon com