Let them play golf

                       “Let them play Golf”

        Millions of Americans gathered, in multiple locations across America,  beneath a clear October sky, on Saturday, October 11, 2025. They were  marching against Donald Trump’s ideas of a “Royal Democracy.” The roar of the “No Kings “ rallies echoed and resounded throughout  the concrete canyons of America’s larger cities and then resonated  down into and through the town squares of our rural towns and villages. It was an American protest statement at its finest .

         Speaker after speaker thundered their condemnation, of Trumpian suppression of first amendment rights, insertion of the military troops into American cities and multitude  violent abuses in his treatment of immigrants. “No Kings” they chanted. “No Kings.” A remembered echo struck my ear from the marches of the  1960’s, “Hey, hey, ho, ho.  Donald Trump has got to go.” (substitute LBJ for Trump if you remember that far back) The crowds were indignant and amped up with energy.

          Illinoid Governor J.B. Kritzker thundered “Trump, stay out of Chicago,” to an appreciative and extremely large crowd of cheering Chicagoans. His humous on-air commercials, about alien forces invading Chicago, still brought smiles to many of the watchers. Imagine putting ketchup on a hot dog or some other such horrendous cultural abuse.

          In New York City and Washington D.C. huge crowds waved flags and anti-Trump placards. Some of the protestors, interviewed by the media, were older Americans who had marched for freedom once before, during the 1960’s. They were here to “preserve democracy and civil rights  in a country they loved and admired,” they said.

         And in all the thousands of rallies, there was not one argument or incident of violence. It may have been one to the largest expressions of peaceful dissent, since the non-violent Civil Rights marches of the 1960’s.

         During all of this massive outpouring of American political dissent, this conversation with our American government, the President of the United States was playing golf at his Palm Beach golf course. “Let them play golf?” “Let them eat cake?” There is a familiar ring and a similarity of content and intent from both of those two phrases.

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                                            (360 words)

                                    Joseph Xavier Martin