From the Maine Wire, Mon. October 20, 2025:
Maine Wire reporter Jon Fetherston was on the ground for multiple No Kings protests on Saturday.
Here’s how it went:
My day covering the No Kings rallies began early in Saco, Maine.
The weather was perfect, crisp and sunny and a crowd of about 500 people had gathered.
It was, without question, the most “normal” group I saw all day. Mostly women, polite, and eager to share why they were there. Yet when I asked more than 20 people a simple question…what happens tomorrow when the protests are over?
Not a single one gave me a clear answer.
The next stop was South Portland. That’s where the tone started to shift. Costumes and signs became louder and stranger.
Attendance was smaller, but the energy was more frantic. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows made an appearance. When I asked her why she had fired UPS and hired a small courier service following the Amazon box of 250 ballots found in Newburgh, she bolted. No answer. No accountability. A real leader would have faced the question, not run from it.
Then off to Portland.
Walking through Deering Park was a grim reminder of the city’s struggles, people passed out from drugs, open drug dealing, profanity everywhere, and a homelessness crisis visible on every corner.
The rally itself was hostile from the start. No one wanted to talk to a reporter from the Maine Wire. I was shoved, glared at, and called a fascist. One person told me directly, “The Maine Wire is not welcome here.” My response: “Now who’s the king?”
The scene only grew stranger. Adults in bear, dinosaur, and frog costumes paraded through the park.
Organizers from Indivisible and the ACLU refused interviews. One woman at the ACLU table called me a fascist. Another attendee scolded me for taking photos in a public park…then took mine in return. Triggered indeed.
Technical difficulties delayed the start of the program. When it finally began, the speeches were exactly what many expected: Shenna Bellows, Hannah Pingree, and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. It was the same tired script…Trump bad, ICE bad, hurt feelings, but no solutions.
As I walked out, I passed a grown man in a bear suit, another in a frog suit, two older people dressed as dinosaurs, and a woman dressed as a clown. A woman celebrating her birthday told me she wanted the President dead.
When all was said and done, there was no plan to win an election, no acknowledgment of Trump’s victories in both the popular vote debate and the Electoral College, no mention of Middle East peace deals, and no coherent strategy. Just costumes, slogans, and weak speeches filled with distortions. The median age was over 60, very few people under 30. Has the younger generation figured it out, woke is not the way?
Tomorrow morning, the sun will rise and Donald Trump will still be President.
My response:
I don’t want the Democratic Party to go away. It may no longer represent *me*, but it does represent a side of our countrymen that is important. Or it used to… I’m not so sure anymore. Regardless, disagreeing with it does not mean that I want it to go away. Our government was put together with two parties in mind (and the libertarian in me would love to see a third party form with decent minded individuals on the ballot), with checks and balances built in. When one party is in ascendance, things can get out of whack. When the pendulum then swings in the other direction (which is what I believe is happening right now), it can sometimes go overboard, and will almost always look worse than it is because of what we’ve become used to in the meantime.
This short piece from the Maine Wire really touches on the problem I’ve personally run into with the Dems, of late. There’s a sense of directionlessness. There’s no clear answer. I hear “Trump bad!” but don’t hear any actual facts. There’s a lot of how people is feeling, but not enough about how to fix it (if it’s even worth fixing, because sometimes feelings are just that: feelings). The milling about in animal costumes, the listless and repetitive slogans, the slick professional signs are all pointing to a small group pushing a large group to be “on board” without giving clear direction. And that… THAT really bothers me.
When I look at Leftist rallies of the past, like Bread and Roses, or the Civil Rights marches in the 60s, I see people united in a specific way for a specific cause. “Defeat Trump” isn’t unified. If the ruling Left had anything dirty on Trump, they’d have used it already… the fact that they haven’t tells me they don’t have it. So no matter what you do, tomorrow you will wake up and Trump will still be president.
While I don’t have the hatred for Trump that many others do, I am confused by the Dem Party’s lack of forward thought. Who do they want to run against (probably) Vance in 2028? That’s something we ought to already be seeing the seeds of today. But there’s nothing. It’s like there’s this big silence zone for everything except whatever the problem de jour is in DC. I don’t see the ruling Dems asking their constituencies what is needed. In fact, I often see the opposite: they’re telling their constituents what they need, instead of listening to them. This doesn’t seem to be a smart move. It seems to me to be a losing move.
So… yeah.
***
And from me today:
I have had a couple of responses to my post, both saying basically that they don’t hate Trump, but don’t like what he’s doing to the country, but that the Leftists actually cause them to be afraid. That people are actually saying that out loud on my page now is a big step forward. Among other things, it means that there are people near the center who aren’t conservative, but are seeing the truth finally. That’s important. The majority of voters reside in that middle range, even when they consider themselves Rep/Dem. Those are the people who matter, when it comes to elections. I’m glad they’re starting to understand what’s happening on the far Left. The drift that has occurred is rather terrifying, and the cognitive dissonance required to stay Left is also terrifying. We’ll see what happens.
Also… RAH RAH VANCE in 2028!
for a long long time the democratic party has resorted to lies and paid actors to pose as activists.
as many say- if you have to lie about what you want and what you don’t want your party is hiding an agenda.
what i see is a bunch of adult-sized toddlers who in ‘24 didn’t get their way and are having tantrums about it.
while We the People get up and go to work to support our families.
Im not interested in listening to any of these adult-sized toddlers whining about “fascism” and “kings”.
if we stopped validating them they would fade away.
until a sane and calm democrat stands up and speaks rationally and clearly offering SOLUTIONS to our problems, I have no reason to listen to them.
life is too fukkin short to waste it on toddlers who provide zero to this country.
The country wasn’t quite put together for two parties; in fact the Founders were worried about parties (they called them “factions”). But it is true that two parties emerged within a decade or two. And while new parties appeared over time, it was generally true that only two parties were significant. (I think Lincoln’s election was a noticeable exception, though.)
I’m not sure I would call the Civil Rights marches “Leftist rallies”. A key difference is that the Left is authoritarian and unwilling to accept dissent, while MLK and his compatriots were exactly the opposite. This might also explain why MLK was an NRA member while the left (and the Democratic party all the way back to its early days) has wanted to disarm us.
The idea of a 3rd party is not too far fetched. One arising out of the majority of us who are in the center and loyal to the Constitution as it was written.
Since neither the Republican or Democrat parties seem to be interested in representing us, why not?