When people came together in peaceful protest against Tyranny in a small city in a remote corner of America
Two longtime friends protesting at the corner of N. 185th Street and Aurora Avenue/99 N. on the edge of Shoreline’s Town Center and Sculpture Park on the Interurban Trail. Edan’s on the left, his sign made from a pre-cut foam sheet he found in a neighbor’s garbage. Edan paraphrased from Patrick Henry’s famous 1775 speech in Virginia. On picture right is me, the author. A happy stranger took our foto with my iPhone. Instead of saying, “Cheese!” or “Smile!,” she said, “OK, say, ‘Fuck Trump!'” Saturday afternoon, 18 October 2025.
Note on watching videos here in the article: One must click on the link posted under “Video,” then click again on the second link as it pops up. Not able to openly embed as before. Hey, watching those videos is worth it!
Video 1:
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[1:07] ^^^ A video from the first No Kings! Day protests and rallies in Shoreline, Washington, on Saturday 14 June 2025. My wife Faithlyn was there walking along Aurora Avenue/99 and recorded this video. Although many Americans and their allies protested across Presidents’ Day Weekend back in February, this Saturday in June was a triple protest as it was also President Donald Trump’s 79th Birthday and the same day Trump threw his “big military parade” to ostensibly celebrate the US Army. The parade, with all due respect to our Armed Forces, was, unfortunately, an embarrassing exercise in the American President’s public, narcissistic, self-aggrandizement. So citizens held their own parades to reclaim their democratic republic.
Remember it was our citizens’ army of ragged revolutionaries who, with help from the French, won our independence from the British Empire. Those were difficult times, and the British almost won. The French had their own empire, of course, and eventually their own revolution followed by another empire. The American Revolution was itself part of a global conflict of overlapping imperial wars, revolutions, and civil wars called the Second Hundred Years War. It was a world war lasting 138 years, from 1688 with the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War to 1815, the end of Napoleon’s conquests and the War of 1812, to 1826, the end of the Latin American revolutions. Here we are in 2025, practicing nonviolence as we demonstrate against a wannabe dictator in a small city in the American Pacific Northwest.
I wasn’t able to participate in any of those June demonstrations as I was away at work. Had to work. Chose to work. My job was in outdoor adventure retail, and so usually worked weekends. Faithlyn, being a practical person, combined her peaceful protests with running errands and getting some exercise. Long ago during her youth, she interned under Coretta Scott King in Atlanta, Georgia, and studied nonviolent civil disobedience. Nonviolence is also a major pillar of the Anabaptist Protestant Christian tradition, and Faithlyn was raised Mennonite, part of the Anabaptist movement. This year, 2025, also happens to be the 500th anniversary of the birth of Anabaptism.
Today on Saturday the 18th of October, however, Faithlyn went to Vancouver, Washington, on the North Bank of the Columbia River, to meet with a group of Deaf people including an old friend out from Virginia. I had already taken the day off work to participate in No Kings! Day, however, so I rallied with my friend Edan. We chose to demonstrate near where both of us live in the north end of King County just above the boundary with Seattle. He actually lived in Edmonds, and my wife and I in Shoreline. Both are small satellite cities, spread out towns actually, in the beltways between Everett and Seattle, in the western portion of Washington. Edan and I have been friends for a quarter of a century. We first met in a workshop and training in Seattle back in October 2000.
We did not encounter any violence. The rally organizers were clear in their requests not to bring weapons nor anything that could be construed as weapons such as umbrellas. We didn’t expect any violence away from big, inner cities, and one never knows. Tensions have increased nationwide since the first No Kings! Day in June. Trump and some of his acolytes were clear in their own way they were eager from the President to invoke the Insurrection Act nationwide and even suspend elections. So left my Leatherman Wave multitool at home as it had sharp blades in it, tho I did carry two full bottles of water in the remote chance ICE showed up to kidnap anyone and spray us with pepper spray and tear gas. One water bottle was metal and could be used as a club in self-defense, and, no violence. Was not going to engage in any violence. Just take the blows if they came like the nonviolent Civil Rights protesters beaten by Alabama State Troopers and run over by police horses demonstrated incredible restraint as they sought to march peacefully across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma back on 7 March 1965. Had gotten too out of shape struggling with too many health problems to do any fighting anyway, or even run very far. I want to protest and demonstrate, not engage in violence.
Video 2:
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[0:18]^^^Edan & I drive north along Aurora/99 to find parking and join the protests. We’re on time, and many people are already out along the streets of the Shoreline Town Center and Sculpture Park.
The sign I made. Edan found his in the neighbor’s trash, but I paid a bit of dough for my foamboard. The yellow wasn’t bright enough (bright yellow is often best for highly visible signs) as the store was sold out of colorful posterboards. Perhaps I wrote too much on the board. Anyway, it was easy to hold. Glad it wasn’t too windy nor any more rain than occasional drizzle. And…NO KINGS! NO DICTATORS! NO WAR ON AMERICA! Amen.
The flip side of my foam board sign. “¡NO REYES!” means “NO KINGS!” in Spanish. Wrote that to honor ALL of our immigrants, legal and illegal (the immigration system is broken and must be reformed streamlined, not brutally enforced the way it is under Trump-Vance). The second phase is a reminder what kind of government America has evolved, however messy and flawed, since we declared independence from the British and their King in 1776.
Not enough room to write “Or give us death!” ¿LOL? Edan seeks to reclaim our fragile liberties, some of which took decades and centuries to expand to all Americans. Edan, a native of California and a descendant of immigrants, paraphrases from Patrick Henry from Virginia, my own former British colony and native state. Patrick Henry, a delegate to the Second Virginia Convention held in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, allegedly declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!” on the 23rd of March 1775. Historians debate his exact words, but the intent is clear. I grew up in the countryside not far from there, and visited the old church as a schoolboy on a field trip. Our liberties are under attack by a fascist cult movement, and we must muster the social responsibility to defend and further expand our natural liberties.
Speaking of our Revolutionary history… one could quibble over which date to put as the American Revolution began in April 1775 with independence declared in 1776. Intermittent, scattered protests and confrontations, however, both peaceful and violent, began as far back as the 1760s and escalated throughout the 1770s.
Video 3:
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[0:06] ^^^Peaceful but rambunctious protests in Shoreline. Much honking of horns. Many whoops and celebratory shouts. One pro-Trumper counterprotestor rode around those long blocks twice to flip off Edan with a middle finger. Most people, including us, were a bit raucous and smiling as the demonstrations quickly took on a festive air. We were concerned, however, about some angry pro-Trumper driving their car or truck into crowds of protesters including children gathered along the curbs and sidewalks of Aurora. Then Edan mentioned the possibility of someone getting so excited honking their horn and filming us while driving they would lose control of their vehicle and accidentally crash into people. I tried to practice hopping out of the way, but, alas, I’ve gotten too out of shape to hop far. Hey, where’s my inner spring chicken!?
Video 4:
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[0:17] ^^^Walking around the intersection of N. 185th and Aurora in Shoreline to meet other peaceful protesters.
Video 5:
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[0:22] ^^^Recording history! May it prove to make a difference even if doing so takes time.
Video 6:
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[0:21] Action from another street corner in Shoreline, Washington.
Edan and two mutual old friends from long ago. Recognize their allusion to The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian political novel later turned into an award-winning television series?
Meanwhile, across the country in Lynchburg, Virginia, my ex-wife Vie (formerly Gwen), protested against the Trump Administration with family & friends. They shared this foto of their sign. Nice, clean, clear, and direct. Twas inspired by Seth Todd, the inflatable green froggie guy dancing peacefully against ICE violence against his Mexican Latino community in Portland, Oregon. Todd had an ICE agent pepper sprayed thru the rear air vents of his frog costume on a Thursday night back on 2 October. A video of the incident went viral, and a meme was born. Historically, green frogs and toads have been symbols of revolt by both Right and Left wing groups. This time it’s a potent symbol of nonviolent civil disobedience and radical comedy highlighting the ridiculousness and cruelty of Trump’s despotism.
Even in Farmville, the town I was born in and then grew up on a farm outside of, had its NO KINGS! rally and march. This is from a screenshot of the rally organizers’ website.
More from the Farmville site. Also a screenshot cropped from the rally website.
Am nearly finished reading this intense, inspiring autobiography. Her descriptions of the debates within the Civil Rights community after Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama (March 1965) over violence versus nonviolence are riveting and eye opening.
From inside of the book cover where Mrs. King signed for Faithlyn. The old book, like its late author, has been through rough times and still persevered.
More people participated in the NO KINGS! Day events in October than back in June. Apparently as many as 7 million people protested, demonstrated, rallied, and marched across the United States of America this 18th of October, an estimated 2 million more than on the 14th of June. There were a few protests abroad as well. All of them were peaceful except a small confrontation at an ICE Detention Center outside Chicago, Illinois. Debates have already broken out how effective all of these demonstration were. Some on the Far Right and among the MAGA Cult even in Congress decried these as “Hate America” rallies and declared their participants as “traitors.” Donald Trump, the sitting POTUS, used AI to generate a nasty little video in which he, Trump, grins like the Devil while wearing a crown, pilots a fighter jet emblazoned with “King Trump.” As he flies over crowds of protesters massed in the streets below, he dumps endless feces and torrents of raw sewage upon their heads.
This man is the opposite of any Founding Father or any other proponent of liberty. Indeed, he seeks to destroy his own nation like dictators do. After all, this president, in his rambling speech to a captive audience of all of our top military commanders gathered from around the planet, declared war on his own country and suggested Democratic-run cities serve as training grounds for US Armed Forces. Trump and his wicked puppet “Hegsethio” made their banal, crybaby speeches on Tuesday the 30th of September 2025 in Quantico, Virginia. The anti-Woke MAGA crowd behave like a mob of animated sleepy heads. Zombies, anyone?
Did we protesters make a difference? Will we? If nothing else, gathering by the millions across our great and troubled nation united us in solidarity and in common spirit. We know we are not alone or just in a few big cities. Not everyone protesting against Trump’s wannabe dictatorship was a “Leftie.” A number of traditional conservatives also participated. So did many independents. Am myself an independent with my beliefs spread out across a spectrum. I dread civil war. I know too much history. People have no idea what a bloody rendering of our country and its many weapons of mass destruction, aging energy grids, and multiple complex systems would entail. None of us do. We may sing for all of us to give peace a chance and find ways to work together in spite of our differences, but success in our push to impeach and remove Trump and his circle of destroyers from power demands consistent persistence.
No Kings! isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats, Reds versus Blues, or Right versus Left. It’s a stand our imperfect union, our greatly flawed constitutional democratic republic is still worth standing and fighting for. The grand ideals of America and our numerous accomplishments far outweigh our tarnished history of invasion, empire, racism, slavery, sexism, capitalist exploitation, and environmental destruction. We look evil in the eye, then go forth and right our wrongs. In public, too. Yes, often such work takes time. We’ve come so far, and still there’s a ways to go even before Trump took power. We must reclaim our power as We the People.
Directly from one of the White House public socmed feeds posted after the protests. Trump & Vance think they’re being sarcastic, but the irony is too great. A screenshot from the public social media commons.
Screenshot of one’s protester’s sign from somewhere in the United States of America. This foto is from NPR & the public commons. If the sign was any taller, one could have started with the British imperial flag and “YOU LOST” alongside it. The sign’s message, however, is stark and clear with the power of threes.
William Dudley Bass
Saturday 18 October 2025
Tuesday 21 October 2025
Thursday 23 October 2025
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol
Also see:
NO KINGS, https://www.nokings.org/.
&
The King Center, https://thekingcenter.org/.
Copyright © 2025 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. The two copied & pasted screenshot images of a protester and his sign from elsewhere on NPR and of the social media post from the White House are public commons. Thank you.