Progressive Thinking

Seven million Americans marched for democracy, and Trump called himself king. Respect has to be earned, and Donald Trump has never even tried.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - On October 18, 2025, nearly seven million Americans marched in cities across all fifty states, carrying handmade signs that read “No Kings,” “We the People,” and “You Work for Us.” It was one of the largest peaceful protests in U.S. history. Teachers, nurses, veterans, and families filled the streets to remind a man who thinks he is untouchable that America does not do royalty.

For one day, the country looked united in something that was not rage or fear but a shared belief that the Constitution still matters. It should have been a powerful moment and a wake-up call for any leader with a trace of humility.

Trump’s response? He mocked them.

Within hours, his social media team posted a slick video of him flying over the crowds wearing a gold crown and dropping piles of what looked like, well, let’s just say it was not confetti. The caption read, “King Trump watches over his people.” That level of childishness might get laughs at a middle school talent show, but from a sitting president it was disgusting.

This is the same man who insists we should “respect” him. Respect what, exactly? The arrogance? The cruelty? The constant need to humiliate anyone who dares to disagree? You do not get respect for ridiculing millions of peaceful protesters who exercised their constitutional right to speak out. You get laughed at and called out for what you are.

The King Complex

Trump does not want respect. He wants obedience. Always has. He demands it from his staff, his party, and now the entire nation.

Early in his second term, reports surfaced that federal job applicants were being asked to describe their “MAGA awakening.” That is not a job interview question. That is a cult initiation. Skilled civil servants are being replaced by unqualified loyalists who know how to flatter him but not how to do the job. When you replace competence with devotion, you are not running a government anymore. You are running a fan club with executive power.

The Protest That Popped His Balloon

The “No Kings” rally was not some fringe gathering of elites. It was a massive rejection of Trump’s growing authoritarianism. The people who showed up were not radicals or extremists. They were everyday Americans who still believe presidents are public servants, not rulers.

And that scares him.

He can handle criticism from the press. He just calls them “fake” and moves on. But seven million ordinary citizens standing up together is something he cannot ignore. The video he posted was not just immature, it was defensive. It was the tantrum of a man who cannot stand to see that he is not adored by everyone.

When Respect Becomes a Joke

Trump’s followers love to say we should “respect the office.” Sorry, but respect is not automatic. It is earned. You do not get it for winning an election. You get it by leading with integrity and serving the people who put you there. And you certainly do not get it by posting videos of yourself wearing a crown and dumping sludge on protesters.

Real leaders listen to the people who protest them. Trump mocks them. Real leaders unite their citizens. Trump divides and then calls it patriotism.

Respect is about character, not control. If Trump’s crown-and-droppings video proved anything, it is that character is still missing from this White House.

The Power Trip Continues

Since his reelection, Trump has treated public service as his personal playground. Job applicants are screened for loyalty, not skill. Civil servants who question him are replaced. Whistleblowers are punished. Even his closest advisers whisper about walking on eggshells because they know one wrong word could get them fired.

He pardoned dozens of people convicted in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. That was not mercy. It was a message to his followers that if they commit crimes for him, he will protect them. It was a reward for obedience, not justice.

He signed executive orders targeting immigrants and stripping citizenship rights, pretending it was about “protecting Americans.” What it really protected was his ego. When you build policy around fear and loyalty instead of fairness, you are not protecting a nation. You are feeding a dictator’s appetite.

No Integrity, No Respect

Respecting Trump because he won again makes as much sense as respecting a con artist because he pulled off another scam. Power does not erase corruption. His only consistent quality is inconsistency. He lies one day, contradicts himself the next, and blames everyone else for the fallout.

A man who mocks judges, insults women, demeans veterans, attacks the press, and undermines democracy does not deserve respect. You cannot tear down every institution that holds you accountable and then demand to be honored for it.

The Bottom Line

Seven million Americans marched to remind the president that this country does not belong to kings. In return, he reminded them why they had to march in the first place.

Trump does not want respect. He wants obedience. He does not serve the people. He expects the people to serve him. And when they refuse, he throws a fit and mocks them online like a bored teenager.

Respect is earned through humility, honesty, and service. Trump has none of those qualities. What he does have is a gold crown, a fragile ego, and a desperate need for worship.

So no, I do not respect Donald Trump. I never will. And the next time he posts another video from his imaginary throne, I hope every one of those seven million Americans looks up, laughs, and keeps marching.

When justice turns into a weapon, democracy becomes the target. How the Department of Justice is being twisted into a tool for political revenge — and why it’s tearing down the rule of law in the process.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - Justice is supposed to be blind. Lately, it feels more like it’s winking. The Department of Justice has become the playground of power, where loyalty determines guilt, and revenge wears a badge. What once stood as a pillar of integrity now looks like a political hit squad dressed up in government suits.

Take James Comey. The man was out of the spotlight, minding his own business, when suddenly he’s hauled back into the headlines with an indictment for false statements about testimony he gave years ago. The timing isn’t just suspicious, it’s insulting. It screams of a political stunt, a grudge dressed up as a legal proceeding. It tells every public servant watching that if you cross the wrong person, they’ll eventually come for you, even if they have to dig up the body of an old investigation to do it.

Then there’s Letitia James. The New York Attorney General who had the guts to take Trump’s company to court now finds herself accused of bank fraud by the same Justice Department she once served beside. You can call it coincidence if you want, but it looks like vengeance to anyone with eyes. This isn’t accountability. It’s payback. It’s punishment for daring to hold power accountable.

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Weaponization Working Group” is the cherry on top. Supposedly created to root out political bias, it’s actually a weapon disguised as reform. It’s like hiring arsonists to investigate fires. Critics say it’s being used to track down Trump’s enemies, not to restore justice. Watching the DOJ investigate “weaponization” while actively weaponizing itself is enough to make you choke on the irony.

Trump has never been shy about using the Justice Department like it’s his personal law firm. He doesn’t hint, he commands. He publicly tells the attorney general who to prosecute, naming names like a mob boss giving orders. Comey. Letitia James. Adam Schiff. A “private” message meant for Pam Bondi accidentally went public, revealing what everyone already suspected: justice isn’t being served, it’s being ordered.

Meanwhile, ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising site, suddenly finds itself under investigation. Not the Republican platforms, of course. Just the one tied to Democrats. Selective justice is not justice at all. It’s manipulation dressed up as law enforcement, and it reeks of political theater.

Then there’s the FBI arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, a sitting judge who just happened to criticize the administration’s policies. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but when critics end up in handcuffs, it starts to feel like intimidation instead of law. This is what happens in regimes, not republics.

Behind the scenes, career employees at the DOJ who dare to push back against these political orders are being reassigned, demoted, or outright fired. It’s called “realignment,” which is a nice bureaucratic word for purging anyone with a conscience. The message is clear: toe the line or lose your job.

Every democracy reaches a crossroads where people have to decide what they’ll tolerate. This might be ours. When prosecutors become soldiers in a political war, the country stops being governed by laws and starts being ruled by fear. When truth becomes optional and revenge becomes policy, the justice system doesn’t just break. It turns against the people it was built to protect.

Lady Justice used to wear a blindfold to stay impartial. Now she’s peeking to make sure she’s not about to indict the wrong team. And the rest of us? We’re supposed to sit quietly and pretend we don’t see what’s happening.

But we do see it. We see the hypocrisy. We see the abuse of power. We see the transformation of justice into a weapon of retribution. It’s not just shameful. It’s dangerous. Because once the law becomes a tool for vengeance, it stops being the law at all.

If this is what justice looks like now, then it’s no longer justice. It’s just payback, and America deserves better.

Donald Trump scolding James Comey for lying is like Al Capone scolding someone for tax evasion. A Wisconsinite calls out the King of Liars for his world-class hypocrisy.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - Donald Trump pointing his stubby finger and screaming that James Comey is going to be indicted for lying is the political equivalent of a fox accusing a chicken of theft. Honestly, it would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetically transparent.

This is the man who has taken lying and raised it to an art form. Forget Picasso, forget Mozart — Trump is the Rembrandt of falsehoods, the Shakespeare of bullshit. He lies the way most people breathe — automatically and constantly.

Let’s run the tape. It started with the size of his inauguration crowd — a lie so obvious the photographic evidence alone made him look ridiculous, but he doubled down anyway. Then there was the infamous Sharpie-altered hurricane map, a preschool-level stunt to cover up a mistake.

He called his call with Ukraine “perfect,” even as the evidence showed otherwise. And of course, the hush money to Stormy Daniels — first denied, then admitted, then denied again, as if we couldn’t keep track.

His pièce de résistance was the Big Lie itself, the claim that “the election was stolen,” the fattest whopper of them all, one that continues to poison our politics.

And then came his stump tours — the traveling circus of deceit — where he stood in front of adoring crowds and spun fairy tales about jobs magically flooding back, Mexico footing the bill for his wall, and windmills somehow causing cancer. It was pure theater — entertaining for the faithful, maybe — but there wasn’t a shred of truth in it.

Trump doesn’t do rallies. He does improv comedy where the punchline is always a lie.

And let’s not forget, his own fixer — Michael Cohen — went to prison for lying to Congress on Trump’s behalf. Cohen admitted he shaded the truth about Trump Tower Moscow to match Trump’s fairy tale version of events. Why? Because lying is the Trump family crest. It’s the only glue that holds his empire of grift together.

But now, Trump wants us to clutch our pearls because James Comey supposedly “lied.” Please. Coming from him, that’s like Al Capone demanding people pay their taxes on time.

It’s laughable. It’s hypocritical. It’s projection so obvious you could see it from space.

The truth is, Trump can’t survive without lying. It’s his oxygen. It’s his currency. It’s his brand. And yet he still believes he has the moral authority to wag his finger at anyone else.

If irony burned calories, Donald Trump would be thin as a rail.

So forgive me if I don’t take the King of Liars seriously when he pretends to care about “perjury.” The man has lied so much, he could probably perjure himself just ordering a cheeseburger.

Free speech dies when leaders get to decide what’s “acceptable,” and America is one tantrum away from making that mistake.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - Here’s the dirty little secret every dictator knows: the first step to power isn’t winning hearts and minds. It’s shutting them up. Hitler did it with book burnings and propaganda. Stalin did it with gulags. Mao did it with humiliation parades and “thought reform.” North Korea still does it by banning internet, jokes, and reality itself.

And now Donald Trump — thin-skinned, grievance-soaked, wannabe strongman — is trying to add America to the list.

### Free Speech Under Siege — Late Night Edition

When Jimmy Kimmel cracked jokes after the Charlie Kirk assassination, ABC yanked his show off the air faster than you can say “political pressure.” Affiliates blocked it, advertisers fled, and the FCC chair — a Trump crony — threatened action against ABC for not being “in the public interest.” Translation: say anything critical of Dear Leader Trump, and you’ll pay.

Stephen Colbert? He called it what it is: censorship. He even resurrected his old Colbert Report swagger to hammer the point home. And he’s right — because if comedians can’t mock politicians without losing their shows, we’re not a democracy anymore. We’re a dictatorship-in-training.

### Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook

Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t just dislike criticism. He wants it outlawed. He calls reporters “enemies of the people,” brands every tough question a “witch hunt,” and uses lawsuits as gag orders. Now he’s openly celebrating Kimmel’s suspension, drooling at the thought of silencing Colbert, and dreaming of the day when all media outlets carry only one story: how great Donald J. Trump is.

That’s not America. That’s Stalin’s Moscow. That’s Mao’s Beijing. That’s Kim Jong-un’s Pyongyang. And now, apparently, it’s Trump’s fantasy White House.

### The Shameful Choir of Enablers

And don’t kid yourself: Trump’s not pulling this off alone. Every Republican lawmaker, media executive, and trembling yes-man who goes along with this gag order is just as guilty. If you cheer when your guy silences a comedian, don’t pretend you care about the Constitution. You’re not defending America. You’re dismantling it.

Because here’s the thing: free speech isn’t about protecting speech you like. It’s about protecting speech you hate. If Trump and his followers can’t handle a late-night joke without reaching for the censor button, they don’t want freedom. They want control.

### The Cost of Silence

History is littered with the corpses of societies that gave dictators the power to decide what people could say. Nazi Germany. Stalin’s Russia. Mao’s China. North Korea today. The pattern is always the same: kill free speech, kill the truth, kill the people.

Trump and his sycophants are running the same playbook — weaponizing outrage, bullying the media, and twisting government power into a gag order. And the rest of us? We either stand up now, or we watch the First Amendment bleed out on live TV.

New on *Don’t Blink!*: *Dictators Hate Free Speech — And Trump Wants to Muzzle It in America*. When Trump cheers censorship, it’s not about “fake news” or “decency.” It’s the same old dictator playbook. Read my takedown of Trump and the spineless enablers helping him suffocate free speech — and share it before they try to silence us all.

Republicans can’t condemn political violence while excusing the January 6 insurrection, worshiping Trump, and pardoning insurrectionists. Hypocrisy this deep isn’t just ugly, it’s dangerous.

LAKE GENEVA, WI - Republicans love to climb on their high horse about political violence. They point fingers at liberals, scream about “radical leftists,” and pretend they’re the guardians of law and order. But here’s the problem: you can’t wag your finger at Democrats one day and then kiss the ring of a man who incited an insurrection against the United States and then pardoned the people convicted of that violence. Sorry, folks — you can’t have it both ways.

January 6: The Insurrection They Pretend Wasn’t

Let’s not rewrite history. Donald Trump told a crowd to “fight like hell” and then sat back and watched as his supporters smashed windows, beat police officers, and hunted down lawmakers like they were prey. They stormed the Capitol with Confederate flags, bear spray, and gallows. That wasn’t “tourism.” That wasn’t “legitimate political discourse.” It was a violent insurrection against democracy itself.

Five people died. Hundreds were injured. Thousands were traumatized. And what did Republicans do? They downplayed it, excused it, or flat-out lied about it. Trump went even further — he handed out pardons to convicted insurrectionists like candy at a campaign rally. The “party of law and order” wants to unleash the very people who tried to overthrow the Constitution.

The Hypocrisy Olympics

Fast forward to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. A horrific act, no question. Violence should never be tolerated. But Republicans wasted no time weaponizing Kirk’s death, pointing their fingers at liberals, as if an entire political ideology pulled the trigger. Suddenly, they’re preaching about the dangers of political violence — as though they hadn’t been defending, minimizing, and even celebrating violence when it served their own agenda.

So which is it, Republicans? Is political violence unacceptable across the board, or is it only unacceptable when it happens to someone you like? Because right now, your message is clear: when it’s Trump’s mob, it’s patriotism. When it’s anyone else, it’s terrorism.

The Dangerous Double Standard

This hypocrisy isn’t just disgusting — it’s dangerous. By excusing January 6 and pardoning insurrectionists, Republicans have signaled to their base that violence is a legitimate political tool. But by condemning Kirk’s assassination with self-righteous fury, they’re admitting they know violence is wrong. They just don’t care when it benefits them.

You can’t have it both ways. Either political violence is unacceptable, no matter whose side it’s on — or you’re just lying to everyone, including yourselves.

My Take

Republicans don’t get to claim moral high ground when they’ve been wallowing in the muck. They don’t get to condemn political violence while worshiping a man who incited an insurrection, pardoned its foot soldiers, and promises to unleash it again. And they sure as hell don’t get to point their bloody fingers at liberals while their own hands are still stained from January 6.

If you want to stop political violence, start by cleaning up your own mess. Until then, sit down, shut up, and spare us the lectures.

New on *Don’t Blink!*: *Republicans Can’t Have It Both Ways*. They excuse the January 6 insurrection, worship Trump, and pardon insurrectionists — yet point their fingers at liberals after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Read my no-holds-barred takedown of Republican hypocrisy on political violence.