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THIS YEAR, FLAG DAY IS ‘NO KINGS DAY’  
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Marc Edelman
June 5, 2025
Barn Raiser [[link removed]]

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_ From big cities to small towns, citizens will declare “no” to
authoritarianism on Donald Trump’s birthday _

In February, the official account of The White House posted a mock
TIME magazine cover that showed Trump wearing a golden crown. In place
of the magazine’s name was “TRUMP” and below the words, “Long
live the king”, (Image adapted by Barn Raiser).

 

“Nah, he wouldn’t really do that.”

I’ve lived in the Upper Delaware Valley for five years, first in
Pike County, Pennsylvania, and now in Sullivan County, New York. My
county went 58% for Trump last November, and several of my pro-Trump
neighbors made remarks like that in the lead-up to the election. Deep
down, they know Trump is a liar and con artist
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even if they find him entertaining and thrillingly transgressive
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They didn’t take his bombast and grandiose promises seriously. Like
establishing high tariffs. Abolishing the Department of Education.
Arresting diverse “enemies,” including a federal judge
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congressional representative
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mayor
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student journalist
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Or slashing funding for Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (food stamps) and the National Institutes of
Health. Or demolishing federal government
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such as the Consumer Financial Protection Board, Equal Opportunity
Employment Commission, National Weather Service, Federal Emergency
Management Agency, Federal Drug Administration, Occupational Safety
and Health Administration or Environmental Protection Agency. Who’s
going to warn you if a wildfire, tornado or hurricane is headed our
way? Who will bring emergency relief if you’re unlucky enough to be
in its path?

It wasn’t only my upstate neighbors or people like them
elsewhere—small business owners, farmers, service sector employees,
teachers and retired workers—who declared, “Nah, he wouldn’t
really do that.” Sophisticated Wall Street titans wanting tax cuts
and deregulation
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the same thing and then freaked out when Trump imposed tariffs that
tanked the stock market. Republican members of Congress have stood
idly by and let Trump run roughshod over the limits of executive
power, insisting that he is “only joking” when floating ideas like
running for a third term. This may be a way to “flood the zone with
shit
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as Steve Bannon once put it, but such jokes often have serious
consequences.

“I don’t know
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That’s what Trump responded when NBC reporter Kristen Welker asked
him whether he was obliged to uphold the U.S. Constitution. They were
talking about due process for migrants, but Trump’s ignorance of and
contempt for the Constitution go way beyond that. Accepting the Emir
of Qatar’s gift of a $400 million jet plane, for example,
violates Article 1, Section 9,
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the Constitution, which states that “no Person holding any Office
… shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present,
Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King,
Prince, or foreign State.” The Emir of Qatar
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prince, is now a king, and is the personification of a foreign state.

Since his inauguration Trump has issued nearly 200 executive orders
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Some are brutally cruel, like invoking an “invasion”
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remove migrants with no criminal record
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prisons in third countries, or dangerously shortsighted, like
withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and
the Paris Climate Agreement. Others are peevishly petty
like promoting plastic drinking straws
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pennies
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demanding higher water pressure in showerheads
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rulings had at least temporarily paused some of these initiatives.

It’s not just that Trump is reveling in Qatar’s gift of the
opulently appointed Boeing 747 (which will have to be torn to pieces
if it is to be brought up to Air Force One’s security standards
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It’s that Trump too aspires to be like the emir, a king with all the
dictatorial powers that absolute monarchy implies. In December 2023,
when Trump remarked to Sean Hannity that he would only be a dictator
on “day one,”
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aides dismissed the comment as a joke. Fast forward to February of
this year, the White House posted a mock _TIME_ magazine
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that showed Trump wearing a golden crown. In place of the magazine’s
name was “TRUMP” and below the words, “Long live the king.”

Many of those people who used to say, “Nah, he wouldn’t really do
that” will continue to insist, “C’mon, he’s just joking.”
But is he?

“Make America Think Again
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is what I hoped for in the days before the 2024 election. What I’d
say to my neighbors today is: If you’re having trouble finding
affordable housing, low-income immigrants doubling up in substandard
apartments aren’t screwing you as much as those private equity
firms that snapped up so many foreclosed properties
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the 2008 crisis and jacked up rents and sales prices.

Like most rural counties, Sullivan County, in the western Catskills
where I live, receives far more in federal funds than we pay in taxes.
In our county, 37.2% of the population is on Medicaid
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the third highest proportion of any county in New York State. Federal
cuts to Medicaid affect not just Medicaid beneficiaries, who lose
medical insurance, but also the solvency of local clinics and
hospitals. When nurses and physician assistants are laid off, or
health care facilities close because of falling reimbursements, the
diners where employees bought their meals will also suffer.

Effects like these cascade through entire regional economies. Farmers
are already complaining that the USDA’s cancellation of contracts 
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signed for reimbursement of infrastructure and conservation
improvements on their properties has saddled them with massive debt,
having spent money for planting or infrastructure and conservation
improvements expecting reimbursement from the government. USDA also
halted procurement programs
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sourced fresh, local foods for school cafeterias. Together with the
cuts to SNAP and dismantling the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), both programs that purchased huge amounts of
food, farmers are reeling—and will be spending less at our
region’s businesses. The kids in school will be eating less
nutritious food. It’s hardly Making America Healthy Again.

At the same time that the administration is abandoning rural America,
it is fighting tooth and nail to get Congress to pass enormous tax
cuts for the rich, and promoting influence-buying scandals like
the $TRUMP meme coin and its gala gazillionaires’ dinner
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Meanwhile, Elon Musk and the DOGE boys have eviscerated entire federal
agencies with impunity. Do people remember that Trump and his cronies
once yapped incessantly about “Drain the Swamp”?

Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago the American colonists revolted
against George III, the “mad king” [[link removed]] who
governed them. This year, a new mad king
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to celebrate his birthday on Flag Day with an expensive, over-the-top
military parade, paid for by you the taxpayer.

On June 14, citizens throughout the land will take to the streets in
large cities and small towns to celebrate “No Kings Day.”
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will remind the Trump administration that no one is above the rule of
law and declare: no thrones, no crowns, no kings.

_Click here to find a No Kings Day event near you._
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_Marc Edelman lives in the western Catskills, in New York State. He
has worked for more than three decades on rural development issues,
agrarian history and peasant and farmer movements._

_Barn Raiser publishes independent news, analysis and information to
support diverse, civically engaged and dynamically connected rural and
small town communities. We champion the free exchange of public
dialogue by bringing together underrepresented voices and perspectives
on the intractable issues facing communities and policymakers. We seek
to convene a space where big ideas and bold questions enliven local
connections, where daring criticism, rational debate and compassionate
care will renew the social imagination to build common ground,
encourage democratic participation and inspire change._

* Donald Trump
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* resistance
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* No Kings Day
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