Paul Kengor: The silliness of 'No Kings'

The first rule of launching a campaign is clever sloganeering. One might also call this marketing or “branding.” Many groups over the years have been very effective in that regard, from Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign to the LGBTQ movement’s “Marriage Equality” slogan to the enormously effective Black Lives Matter organization. Going further back, the American communist movement mastered such propaganda, with shrewdly conceived front-groups with names like the American League Against War and Fascism.

Among such storied company, the “No Kings” campaign stands out as a total loser, as fatuous nonsense.

If you want a slogan to rally people, you must pick something relatable, that people understand implicitly. For instance, who wouldn’t agree that the lives of Black people matter, or who wouldn’t oppose war and fascism?

The problem with “No Kings” is that the first response upon hearing it is: What are they talking about? Sure, it doesn’t take long to figure out that the organizers are roasting Donald Trump, but upon discerning the target, most Americans respond with a big, “Huh?” “Are these people saying that Trump is a king?”

For about 75% to 90% of Americans, that claim is absurd on its face.

Actually, it would be good to see survey data on the claim. Good marketing demands good data to know if a slogan is worth trying. For kicks, I typed into Google the question, “What percentage of Americans think that Donald Trump is a king?” and learned even AI doesn’t have numbers.

To be sure, large swaths of Americans on the political left think Trump is everything from a bigot to a “dictator.” They charge him with supporting “fascism” and “destroying democracy.” Kamala Harris even accused him of such.

But at least with those claims, perpetrators can play fast and loose with facts and prey on people’s ignorance. One could argue in circles about how to best define “democracy” and thus whether Trump is somehow unilaterally destroying it.

The “king” claim, however, is patently ludicrous on its face. Seriously, put aside your seething hatred of Trump and ask yourself, rationally and nonemotionally, how he’s making himself a “king.”

I’ll go so far as to say for the sake of argument that, even if Trump wanted to be king, he certainly couldn’t. Not with our system of separation of powers and checks and balances. Heck, Trump can’t even abolish the Department of Education. There’s something in the way; it’s called Congress. Our legislature holds veto power over the chief executive.

Call Trump an idiot, a playboy billionaire, a carnival-barker-turned-politician, a Mafia don from Queens masquerading as president, a narcissist, a braying jackass. But he isn’t a king.

What the political left has done with this litany of loud, reckless charges would be laughable if not so serious. Aside from the financial costs and inherent dangers implicit in large nationwide protests, there’s also an emotional toll that leftists are levying upon their own people. They’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when, after two terms of Trump, American democracy remains intact, a new “Hitler” hasn’t ensconced himself in the Oval Office and no self-crowned king reigns upon a throne at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In the meantime, their friends and allies live in fear of “King” Trump’s tyrannical reign — a fear stoked by unhinged ideologues who, four years from now, will owe fellow Americans an apology.