“No Kings” — Bolsheviks and Jacobins in a Modern Day Revolution
On Saturday morning, I attended a “No Kings” rally at River’s Edge Park in Council Bluffs, one of many similar events being held across the country today.
The events come as political violence escalates nationwide, with the latest example in Minnesota, where two state lawmakers and their spouses were shot, two of them fatally, in what appears to be a politically motivated attack. According to officials, the suspect had “No Kings” fliers in his vehicle.
At the rally this morning, there was abundant imagery referencing 1776, but the number more frequently seen on attendees’ signs was “8647,” understood as a coded call to assassinate President Trump. This connection seemed evident with another attendee, who dressed as the Statue of Liberty and carried a replica of Trump’s severed head as a prop.
In this context, the “King” to which protesters likened Trump was not King George III but rather Tsar Nicholas II of Russia or Louis XVI of France. One woman held a sign that specifically said this. "So you want to be a monarch?" it read. "Choose your removal: France 1789, Russia 1917."
An even starker connection emerged when a speaker asked the crowd to observe a moment of silence for the lawmakers shot in Minnesota. During this moment, one woman shouted, “Off with his f***ing head!”
While the rally decried “fascism” in many colorful (and often vulgar) ways, a far more troubling trend seems to be on the rise across the country—an open and vocal call for political violence. As groups like Antifa attempt to rebrand themselves ahead of the next election, their followers increasingly resemble the Jacobins of France or the Bolsheviks of Russia far more than American patriots.