No Kings, No War, No More Lies

Trump sells fantasy to farmers, chaos to the public, and escalation to the world while Americans turn out to say no.

Good morning! Today’s backdrop is hard to miss: the No Kings protests are being held in more than 3,000 locations across the country, a mass public rejection of authoritarianism, corruption, cruelty, and war. Organizers say this is the largest No Kings mobilization yet, spanning all 50 states and extending beyond the U.S. as well. Nearly every story in today’s roundup circles the same central fact: this administration governs like the law is optional, dissent is offensive, and every institution exists to flatter one man.

The clearest example is Iran, where Trump continues to run a war the way he runs everything else: by impulse, threat, spectacle, and fantasy. The New York Times describes a president lurching between triumphalism and frustration, issuing wild ultimatums, extending his own deadlines, threatening to bomb civilian infrastructure, then backing off just enough to calm the panic he created. He boasts that Iran has been “obliterated,” insists victory is near, and yet keeps changing the terms of success because the strategic reality refuses to cooperate. The regime remains in place, and the Strait of Hormuz remains a choke point. Energy markets are reeling and American casualties are mounting. Trump’s allies call that unpredictability a superpower, but it looks more like strategic attention deficit with missiles.

The Financial Times adds the economic dimension to that chaos. Marco Rubio is now warning that the war could stretch on for weeks longer than Trump had suggested, and markets are finally reacting to the possibility that this is not a short, tidy operation but a prolonged and dangerous conflict with real global consequences. Oil has surged, traders are pricing in deeper disruption, and analysts are warning that the damage is already spreading through energy, inflation, and growth. Trump keeps trying to present himself as both arsonist and firefighter, threatening escalation while pretending a diplomatic solution is always just one phone call away, but markets are no longer buying the performance. They are reacting to the much uglier possibility that this administration launched a war far easier to start than to end.

The Wall Street Journal sharpens that warning even further. While Rubio publicly insists ground troops will not be necessary, the Pentagon is reportedly considering a buildup that could put more than 17,000 American troops on Iran’s doorstep. That is not enough for a full-scale invasion, but it is more than enough for the kinds of “limited” missions that have a habit of becoming historical disasters: island seizures, beachheads near key shipping lanes, and operations to secure uranium stockpiles under fire. Military analysts quoted by the Journal are blunt that any such move would be dangerous, casualty-prone, and difficult to sustain. So once again, the public line is “no ground war,” while the actual military posture starts to look suspiciously like the early scaffolding of one.

Trump is still selling all of this as strength. At his little media gaggle, he delivered the fun-size version of the same rancid doctrine: a few seconds of vague concern for an injured friend, followed immediately by border fearmongering and boasts about Iran being “decimated.” That is basically the whole Trump worldview in miniature. Every issue is an invasion, every opponent is evil, and every use of force is proof of his genius. Every question becomes an excuse for him to cast himself as the last heroic figure standing between America and collapse. The performance is childish, but it is attached to an actual war.

He brought the same grimy formula to his South Lawn event for farmers. What was supposed to be an agriculture speech quickly turned into another Trump rally with tractors as props. He praised the White House, declared his love for farmers, insisted Democrats hate them, and reminded everyone that he had “just gave” them billions. He rolled out some actual policy measures: loan guarantees, renewable fuel standards, year-round E15, “Product of the USA” branding, but the point of the event was not really policy. It was political anesthesia. Farmers are staring down rising diesel costs, fertilizer shocks, and supply chain stress tied to the widening Iran war, and Trump needed to calm a constituency that is once again being squeezed by the fallout of his own swaggering economics and foreign policy.

That is the part he never wants farmers to sit with for very long. He still tells the fairy tale that his China soybean deal proved his trade war brilliance, but the truth is that it was a tiny bandage on a gaping wound. His tariffs helped hammer one of the most important export markets American farmers had, and the bailouts and partial trade reset that followed were proof of how much damage had to be contained. Once again, Trump created instability, branded it as strength, and then tried to pass off the cleanup as a miracle.

The cruelty machine keeps humming at the state level. Idaho has now passed what may be the country’s broadest anti-trans bathroom measure, and the bill is now headed to Gov. Brad Little’s desk for signature. It would extend bathroom restrictions into private businesses open to the public and impose penalties of up to a year in jail for a first offense and up to five years for a second. Even law enforcement groups opposed the bill, warning that it is vague, invasive, and effectively unworkable. That is the point of legislation like this. It is not about safety; it is about turning daily life into a gauntlet of suspicion, humiliation, and threat for trans people and for anyone who does not conform neatly enough to somebody else’s idea of gender. In Idaho, the party that never stops shrieking about “freedom” has decided the state should police who pees where in private businesses, with prison time attached.

Then there is the smaller, almost comic grotesquerie that somehow still says everything. A retired Oregon lawyer has sued the Treasury Department and U.S. Mint over Trump’s planned commemorative gold coin, arguing that federal law has long barred living people from appearing on U.S. currency. It is one of those stories that sounds ridiculous until you remember that this is precisely how authoritarian vanity works: not just through crackdowns and war, but through the steady conversion of public institutions into mirrors for one man’s ego. The administration’s basic position appears to be that a Trump coin minted by the United States somehow does not count in the meaningful sense that would make the law inconvenient. It is absurd, but it is also revealing. Even the national symbols have to be bent toward self-glorification.

Marz and I will be at our local No Kings event today, adding our voices to a national reminder that democracy is still ours if we will fight for it. On Monday, the harder work begins. Peaceful disruption cannot be a one-day burst of outrage; it has to become a habit, a discipline, and a refusal to let this administration keep normalizing cruelty, corruption, and reckless war. If we do not keep showing up, Trump will keep escalating, and more Americans will be put in harm’s way for the sake of his vanity and delusions.