so what?

actions and consequences remain unclear

I received or saw a long list of messages and posts yesterday about Saturday’s third “No Kings” event. According to The Guardian, which is not directly involved, 9 million people assembled across this country to register their discontent with current policies and leadership. Two hundred thousand alone assembled in the Twin Cities.

Occasionally, posts commented on pro-Trump counter-protesters on the periphery of gatherings. I suspect MAGA supporters decided confrontations were not worth their time, but that is unclear since many have engaged in their own demonstrations.

Most of the reports celebrated the signs, the numbers, and the vibes. Driggs, Idaho, with its population of just over 1900, got a lot of press for its protest, indicative of perhaps a shift in even the most traditional MAGA bastions. The crowds across the country showed, as noted in a substack forwarded to me yesterday, “A Republic Has a Pulse. And It’s Getting Louder” (CAUTION: anyone who accesses the site will encounter saucy language).

So what?

As the long-departed humorist Will Rogers purportedly said: “I am not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat”.

The aforementioned Guardian asked the question on its page yesterday: and?

My husband and I had lunch with a dear friend and former colleague about six weeks ago. Inevitably, in this era, the discussion devolved into politics. His wife pointed out that our friend was frustrated by the focus on the polling, which showed that merely 38% of the country supported the POTUS as of the morning we met.

Our friend looked at both of us with a penetrating glare, reminding us that this poll was abstract, since liking someone did not mean much in practice.

Whoa.

Yesterday, in response to the excitement of Saturday, this savvy analyst cautioned about a similar popular discontent with a past individual politician. Specifically, he recounted the 1972 anti-Richard Nixon vibes.

Richard Nixon was a polarizing figure in U.S. politics from his early years in Congress in the late 1940s. He annoyed President Dwight Eisenhower throughout their two terms in office but remained on the ticket. John Kennedy, likely with support from Mayor Richard Daley’s political machine in Cook County, thwarted Nixon’s attempt to step into the presidency on his own in 1960. Then Nixon lost the California governorship race two years later.

When he won the 1968 Electoral College vote in a three-way race against Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, Nixon was a figure of derision whom many liberals found as distasteful as the racist Alabama governor Wallace. Nixon’s first administration only further galvanized those who opposed him, setting the stage for anti-war support for South Dakota Senator and World War II hero George McGovern in 1972.

The Vietnam War was widely unpopular by that juncture. Nixon’s actions against protesters and those who opposed him on any policies were considered appalling by many who sought to rein in presidential power while returning the nation to its broader participatory roots. Hundreds of national efforts, most notably at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, sought to demonstrate how unpopular he and his policies had become.

Yet, Richard Nixon won the 1972 election by pulverizing McGovern. 60.7% of national voters chose Nixon over McGovern, despite antipathy toward the war and Nixon’s prior behavior, resulting in Nixon winning 49 of the 50 states in the Electoral College. Nixon’s reelection stands as the single greatest wipeout in Electoral College history, despite claims others might make to their successes.

Our friend reminded me in February, then again yesterday, that opposing someone without saying who one supports is a fool’s errand.

The “No King” rallies may well foreshadow major problems for the POTUS, but they could also be a blip on the screen. The midterms, for example, are still seven months away, with the 2028 general election almost eons away.

Public support matters but each party must act upon that support instead of just basking in it. Forty percent, more or less, of the country continues supporting POTUS a month into the Iran war and fourteen months into the implementation of several controversial policies.

It’s easy to focus on the 60% who say they oppose him but what would that mean in practice?

Winning any election matters, of course, but the mid-terms are only a small, targeted electorate in a locale, whether county, city, district, or state.

The Chief Executive controls the major muscle movements for the country which is why we tend to arrogate such importance to an individual in that position. From the position, enormous power and consequences flow on the priorities the Executive chooses to pursue—or discard.

Republicans have their guy. While not everyone likes him or his policies, a huge percentage of Republicans do.

Democrats are more diffuse, which is problematic when an election comes down to two individuals. Democrats, in other words, are not where their opponents are.

More specifically, however, who are people and policy preferences coalescing around?

No one, best I see (or I suspect my friend sees with his hindsight front and center).

Gavin Newsom is a source of hope for many because of his experience but he runs the state with the biggest population in addition to the reputation of high taxes and other challenges.

Andy Beshear of Kentucky has proven to be a more moderate figure, but can he win the hearts and minds of enough of the population to make a dent in MAGA’s hold on so many voters?

Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee is making the rounds again, emphasizing clean energy, but his 2020 campaign flamed out before it caught fire.

Senators from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, and New Jersey, Cory Booker, represent change, along with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez: symbols of a new generation. Some more traditional Democrats folks who cringe at the idea of Ocasio-Cortez as a symbol of the counter-productive because she is a leftist New Yorker in the eyes of much of the country eschews. The United States, based on 2016 and 2024, does not appear modern enough to entrust the country to a woman, but how about two East Coast male senators (one of whom is African-American)? I am not sure.

By the way, what is the unifying theme for “No Kingers” besides objecting to the POTUS? Polling indicates a huge majority of the country opposes the expanding war in Iran, but will that topic endure? Do all liberals think immigration restrictions are horrible? Perhaps, but I am not sure.

My point today is not to say that the enthusiasm of the 9,000,000 was misplaced; it is simply not sufficient to harbor Trumpism’s defeat. The Republicans, I hasten to add, biggly learned that lesson in the 1970s and 80s.

For those needing a further reminder, the highly insecure Richard Nixon denied any part in the June 1972 break-in of the Democratic Party’s offices in the Watergate complex. He followed that with an elaborate obfuscation campaign to cover up the multiple criminal activities carried out on his behalf. When it became clear he would face Congressional impeachment two years later, and popular support cratered to just over 20%, Nixon became the only president to resign so far on 9 August 1974 rather than face such public ridicule and retribution.

Three months later, Democrats swept the floor in Congress, allowing for the “Watergate Reforms” (some of which are the root of our problems today, as actions create consequences) and a “Watergate Generation” which has largely left the stage fifty years later. Hillary Clinton, after all, got her start in many ways not as Bill’s consort in Arkansas but as a prosecutor on the Watergate hearings.

Republicans, however, steadily went to work. Motivated in many ways by the 1973 anti-abortion backlash to Roe v Wade, millions became involved in school board politics and county board races. Republicans put forward candidates for virtually every seat at every level of the U.S. political system, despite losing many races.

They cultivated an incredible bench of potential candidates across the nation, including in Democratic bastions such as California and New York. This will sound silly considering the outcome in 2016, but don’t forget the Republicans had fully half a dozen serious candidates for the presidency. However, they lost the messaging battle to Mr. Trump in that race.

Republicans also invested seriously in the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation as loci for thinking. Democrats created institutions as well, but never as many nor with the same level of financial support.

Democrats also awaited Hillary’s anointing, stunting the same sort of candidate cultivation that Republicans worked through methodically. I had a terse but telling conversation with a beloved late relative in 2014 that turned out to be prescient. I commented that our relative didn’t talk much about the 2016 campaign, which surprised me as politics were in this woman’s blood. She calmly noted that Hillary would be the candidate. I responded that she was unelectable nationally, based on what I was seeing. Our relative did not respond, as she was so sure I was misinterpreting the country. I fear too many others had been looking at things as she had for too long before it cost the Democrats a generation or more of potential viable opposition.

Perhaps we are too splintered to continue as a nation, but I reject that idea. I also acknowledge my savvy friend’s criticism of the idea that “No Kings” marchers or even 60% of the country opposing the current White House is sufficient to guarantee change.

But a functioning representative system requires options the voters can pursue. Single-party countries rarely succeed in the long term. Democrats, should they care to return from the wilderness, have a lot of work to do. It must be patient, step-by-step efforts rather than one-and-done victories in the area around Mar-a-Lago.

Democracy really is not merely a spectator sport, you know.

I welcome your thoughts on this or hearing where you see the current conversation proceeding. I don’t have a monopoly on knowledge, but this matters to every one of us as well as the generations we hope to succeed us.

Thank you to the subscribers who support this effort. Each of your subscriptions offer me broader access to a wide swath of information. Annual subscriptions are $55 while a monthly is $8.

It was a splendid, if chilly weekend in the Chesapeake. SpaCreekHarry, however, thought it a terrific Sunday to sunbathe again. Can you blame him?

And our first azalea bloom appeared yesterday. Woo hoo!

Be well and be safe. FIN

Fabiana Cineas, ”So you went to a ‘No Kings’ protest. Now what?”, TheGuardian.com, 29 March 2026, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/mar/29/no-kings-protest-next-steps-activism

“Share of U.S. respondents indicating they approve, disapprove or are not sure of their opinion of President Richard Nixon between January 1969 and August 1974“, statistica.com, retrieved 30 March 2026 at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1337440/us-president-approval-richard-nixon/

Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson, “How popular is Donald Trump?”, NateSilver.net, 29 March 2026, retrieved at

How popular is Donald Trump?

“Well fuck me with a democracy sausage”, 29 March 2026, retrieved at

Well fuck me sideways with a democracy sausage.

“Will Rogers Quotes”, retrieved at https://www.azquotes.com/author/12553-Will_Rogers/tag/politics