Long Live the King of the Dunces
It's Sunday, the day after the 4th great No Kings rally, and I'm writing to tell you, gently, as your sovereign, that from where I stand at the stove I can't see what it bought. Yesterday you went out with your cardboard and Sharpies and folding chairs, stood on the corners and town greens and courthouse steps, and declared with great feeling that there would be no kings. This morning the government is where you left it. Same president, same Congress, same executive orders, same courts, same anchor with the same furrowed brow announcing the same collapse by Tuesday. You've marched against a king 4 times now, and 4 times the country has rolled over in its sleep and kept snoring. You spent a year and a half warning that someone was about to take the throne, nobody did, and the seat sat there getting colder while millions of people shouted at it. Somebody had to sit in it to make the noise stop. It might as well be someone who already has breakfast going.
Why me? Jonathan Swift settled that three centuries ago: when a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Look around, my subjects. The confederacy has never been better organized. It has standing chapters in both parties, a merchandise operation, a Sunday panel show, and a cardboard budget that could pave every pothole in Franklin County. By Swift's test, a genius must be standing somewhere nearby, and having checked the kitchen, I find it's me. I'll make 1 royal concession, since a king who won't apply his own argument to himself is just a dunce in a taller chair: every crank in history has quoted that same Swift line, including the man in Ohio with a perpetual motion machine made of bicycle parts and grievance. A confederacy against you proves only that you've annoyed a great many people at once. My real claim to the throne is better. I'm the only person in America who doesn't want it, and that's the essential qualification I bring to the job.
Every king needs an emblem, and I've borrowed mine from a considerably better-equipped monarch. Francis I of France carried a salamander crouched in flames beneath a crown, ringed with the motto Nutrisco et extinguo: I nourish and I extinguish. The old naturalists swore the salamander was born of fire and walked out of it unburned. That is your king. I am the Salamander King. I have walked through 4 rallies' worth of outrage with my skin unsinged, and I can do anything. I'll have the emblem embroidered on my bathrobe by noon. Then, in keeping with the customs of this court, I have to admit what the salamander really was: a cold, damp, ordinary little amphibian hibernating in a rotting log, which scrambled out of the hearth in a panic when somebody threw its house on the fire, and was immediately mistaken for a miracle by everyone watching. Now that I think about it, that's how most kings come to power.
Now sit down, my beloved imbeciles, while your king opens the books. The ledger covers the first 3 rallies; yesterday's numbers can be added when the organizers announce them. Every line is a scenario built on stated assumptions, not an audited count, and the assumptions sit right beside the totals where anyone can argue with them.
The Royal Ledger: First 3 No Kings Rallies
| Item | Assumption | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Attendances | Organizer estimates: 5,000,000 + 7,000,000 + 8,000,000; repeat attendees counted each time | 20,000,000 |
| Person-hours | 3 / 4 / 6 hours per attendance | 60,000,000 / 80,000,000 / 120,000,000 |
| Working years | 2,000-hour working year | 30,000 / 40,000 / 60,000 |
| Volunteer-labor value | $36.14 per hour (Independent Sector, 2025 data) | $2,170,000,000 / $2,890,000,000 / $4,340,000,000 |
| Gasoline | Half arrive by car, 2 per car, 25 mpg; 10 / 20 / 40-mile round trip | 2,000,000 / 4,000,000 / 8,000,000 gallons |
| Carbon dioxide | About 8.9 kg per gallon | 18,000 / 36,000 / 71,000 metric tons |
| Signs | 5,000,000 newly made, about 1/3 lb each | About 750 metric tons |
| Water bottles | 10,000,000 single-use, about 10 g each | About 100 metric tons |
| 10% redirected to direct service | 6,000,000 hours at $36.14 | About $217,000,000 |
Read it slowly. 30,000 working years, stacked end to end, would start before the invention of agriculture and still find you standing in a parking lot this morning, holding a sign about a monarch who didn't exist until he cracked his 1st egg at 6:14. The volunteer-labor value is a benchmark, not lost economic output, and any courtier who confuses the two will be sent to rake the library lawn until he can tell them apart. Nobody knows what those people would otherwise have done with their Saturdays; some would have worked, some would have helped a neighbor, some would have watched golf with the sound off. The middle gasoline figure is about what 7,700 typical passenger cars burn in a year. The signs could be fewer if people reused them more than I've allowed. Corrugated plastic is polypropylene, technically recyclable and rarely accepted at the curb, so some gets saved, some goes to the landfill, and some fraction, by the iron law of anything made of plastic and left outdoors in America, ends up snagged on a riverbank, where it'll still be explaining to the trout in the year 2300 that there are no kings. None of it's ruinous. Against the whole country's emissions the fuel is a rounding error, and the crown says so plainly. But a rounding error repeated every few months is still a cost, and a kingdom that won't count its costs has no business bragging about its returns.
In fairness, before my critics say it for me: the burner under my omelette runs on natural gas, the eggs came 40 miles in a refrigerated truck, and my own pickup has burned more fuel getting to flea markets than most of you burned getting downtown. Even a salamander has to admit he's standing in somebody's fire. Nobody has to be pure to show up for anything. But I'm the king now, and I get to ask the question no organizer will put in a press release: what did you buy with it all? What law changed, what policy reversed, what mind outside the choir was moved? If the results amount to people who already agreed discovering that other people also agreed, then congratulations: you've built the most resource-intensive group chat in human history.
I can already hear the defense: the march wasn't supposed to change anything by Monday morning. It was supposed to build solidarity, raise awareness, and turn out voters in November. Fine. Those are legitimate goals, and they can be measured. Count the new registrations, track the volunteers who stayed after the speeches, compare the turnout. If the results come in 6 months from now, your king will read the report 6 months from now, with his reading glasses on and his omelette pan scrubbed. But don't put attendance in the results column just because it's the easiest number to print on a banner. A packed town green shows that people showed up. It doesn't yet show what they accomplished.
So here is your king's guidance, offered freely between bites, and it's the last line of the ledger. Take 10% of the low estimate and send it into the kingdom carrying tools instead of placards. The dollar figure is the least interesting part. It's a food pantry that stays open Thursday nights. It's a riverbank with the tires hauled out of it and, while you're down there, last spring's signs. It's a 3rd-grader who finally gets 1 hour a week with someone patient enough to sit through every wrong word. It's a widow's roof patched before the snow. Keep the other 90% and march to your heart's content; protest can show strength and build an organization for next time, and the crown says so gladly. The result is what that organization eventually accomplishes, and the crown will allow time for that. Meanwhile, the widow's roof will either leak or it won't.
My decrees are few, because a wise king governs lightly and his omelette is getting cold. Each goes out under the royal seal: a salamander in flames, drawn in ballpoint on the back of an envelope. 1st, unlimited insults, aimed at me, free of charge. March on the palace, a 1-bedroom with a knocking radiator and a cat who doesn't care, and chant "TYRANT" under the window; I'll put on a 2nd pot of coffee. Bring your sign home afterward. 2nd, the Office of Applying Your Own Argument Back to You opens at 9 sharp tomorrow and never closes. Anyone alleging tyranny gets a clipboard with a single blank: "The specific power being abused is ______." Submissions reading "his general vibe" will be returned for revision. Anyone asking the government for a new power must first explain how it should be restrained in the hands of the person they hate most. 3rd, the royal time sheet, with a column for gallons and a column for pounds of plastic. Every subject keeps one. I don't want to read it. You'll read it yourself, alone, late at night, with a strong drink, and ask what it all bought.
And having seized absolute power, audited the treasury, inventoried the landfill, and established the only government in history with a line item for being insulted, I'll now do the one thing no would-be king in America seems able to do. I'll finish my breakfast and abdicate. 3 houses down, a woman in a bathrobe has been tiptoeing across a rotten stair tread for 2 winters. I don't know whether yesterday's marchers knew about it. I know I did. The Office of Applying Your Own Argument Back to You has apparently opened early. The dunces can keep the crown; they've been shouting about it long enough that they clearly want one. Nutrisco et extinguo. The burner is out. There's work 3 houses down. I'm rinsing the pan, putting the spatula in the drying rack, and taking the hose clamp off my head. I'll need it for the railing.
Long Live the King of the Dunces
Six-fourteen this morning, between the second and the third egg,
I crowned myself with a hose clamp from the junk drawer.
long live the king
long live the king of the dunces
butter foaming in the pan, the radiator knocks salute
the congregation is a cat who didn't give a hoot
Napoleon took his crown from the Pope, I took mine from the drawer
between a dead nine-volt and a menu from a place that ain't there anymore
yesterday you marched with your cardboard and your Sharpies
four times against a king and nobody came to the party
the throne sat there getting colder while you shouted at the chair
somebody had to sit in it, and I had breakfast there
my scepter is a spatula (stir it up)
my crown is a hose clamp (screw it down)
the only man in America (who doesn't want the crown)
Long live the king of the dunces
hail the omelette on the throne
you marched four times against a king
so I made the thing my own
long live the king (long live the king) of the dunces
Jonathan Swift said you can know a genius by this sign
the dunces all in confederacy, standing in a line
I checked around the kitchen and the genius must be me
but every crank in Ohio quotes the very same decree
King Francis had a salamander crouching in the flame
nutrisco et extinguo, I feed it and I put it out again
but it was napping in a rotten log they tossed into the fire
it ran out scared, and everybody hailed it as a sire
that's how most kings come to power
sixty million hours (stacked end to end)
two billion in volunteer time (that nobody got to spend)
four million gallons (out the tailpipe)
seven hundred fifty tons of signs (on the riverbank tonight)
and in twenty-three hundred, there's a sign by the creek
still telling the trout (there are no kings)
The most expensive group chat in human history.
in fairness, my burner runs on gas, the eggs came forty miles
my pickup burned more chasing flea markets than you burned on your miles
nobody has to be pure to show up for anything at all
but what did it buy, what law got changed, what mind outside the hall
take ten percent and send it out with tools instead of signs
a pantry open Thursday nights, a third grader's patient time
haul the tires from the river and last spring's placards too
patch a widow's roof before the snow, then march, I won't stop you
First decree: unlimited insults, aimed at me, free of charge.
Second decree: the Office of Applying Your Own Argument Back to You opens at nine sharp.
The specific power being abused is, blank.
His general vibe will be returned for revision.
Third decree: keep your own time sheet. Read it alone, late at night.
three houses down a woman in a bathrobe on a rotten stair
two winters tiptoeing, and I knew that it was there
the burner's out, the pan is rinsed, the spatula's in the rack
nutrisco et extinguo, I'm giving the kingdom back
Long live the king of the dunces
the shortest reign that's ever been
you can keep the crown you've shouted for
I've got a railing to begin
long live the king (long live the king) of the dunces
the burner's out (the burner's out)
the pan is clean (the pan is clean)
there's work three houses down (three houses down)
long live the king (no kings)
long live the king (no kings)
I'll need the hose clamp for the railing.