No Kings, No Pants, No Problem

How Portland answered authoritarianism with bare asses and better ideas.

Oct 15, 2025

(AP Photo/ Jenny Kane)

There is something spectacularly stupid about watching a man in full tactical armor aim a sniper rifle at another man’s baloney pony. A rooftop Rambo sweating through forty pounds of gear, laser-locked on a moving target that happens to be democracy au naturel, slicked in little more than stormwater and sandalwood oil.

The Trump administration calls that “law and order.”

I call it foreplay for fascists.

Speaker Mike Johnson, the human form of a church youth-group PowerPoint, declared this week that shooting priests with rubber bullets doesn’t cross the line, but naked bicyclists do. Priests bleeding in the streets? Totally fine. Journalists in cuffs? Very legal and very cool. A topless woman on a ten-speed with “NO KINGS” painted across her patriotic pair of perky pancakes? That’s the fall of Rome.

Johnson speaks like a man who thinks God personally drafted the Patriot Act. He looks like the guy who tells you you’re going to hell while secretly Googling “are nipples sins.” He’s the sort of moral crusader who sees a bare shoulder and faints into his son’s porn tracking app.

And he’s part of the regime of professional buzzkills. Trump, Miller, Noem, Duffy. The Mount Rushmore of moral dry rot. They march around calling themselves “good Christians” and apostles of “law and order,” like morality is a prop they rent by the hour. They hold up Bibles like subpoenas and quote Jesus like they’ve got Him on retainer. Their churches are cash registers with choirs. Their sermons sound like Vegas residencies for the self-righteous. Every “amen” comes with an invoice.

They scream “law and order” while groveling for a convicted felon found liable for sexual abuse and business fraud.

Which Commandment covers bragging about assault and calling it faith? Must be the lost Eleventh: “Thou shalt sin in bulk and blame women.” They love cops until the cuffs click, then it’s “defund the FBI” and “witch hunt” with a side of holy tears. Their version of law is whatever keeps their daddy out of jail, and their order is whatever shuts the rest of us up.

They worship power, not piety. Their prayers are just press releases with candles. Their gospel is greed, their communion is chaos, and their God is whoever signs the checks. They call it faith, but it’s just fascism in a choir robe and they’re so deep in the grift they think salvation comes with a f’ng promo code.

They call Portland a war zone because joy gives them hives. Show them a Pride flag and they start convulsing like someone unplugged their moral life support. They don’t fear violence; they fetishize it. What they fear is happiness, because happy people don’t need saviors or strongmen. They see laughter and call it an uprising. They see dancing and call it decay. They see freedom and reach for tear gas. What they crave isn’t order; it’s obedience. Not peace, but punishment. They want the whole country as joyless, constipated, and spiritually malnourished as they are, sitting in the dark, clutching their guns, baptizing their bitterness, and calling it patriotism.

Because joy terrifies them. Laughter cannot be licensed. Dancing does not pay taxes. Nudity refuses to wear shame. They shake at the sight of people who have nothing to hide.

And that is why Portland matters.

In case you missed it, Portland, sweet, wild, wonderfully weird Portland, decided over the weekend to answer fascism the only way Portland knows how: naked, glittery, and completely ungovernable. When Trump called the city a “war zone” and threatened to send in the National Guard, Portland didn’t flinch. It laughed, stripped down, and climbed onto a beach cruiser covered in body paint and righteous mischief.

Because that is what Portland does. It fights fear with absurdity. It meets authoritarianism with art. It takes propaganda and turns it into parody. It looks power dead in the eye and says, ‘look, if you’re gonna call us anarchists, we might as well give you a fucking show.’

The so-called No Pants Peacekeeping Force rolled through downtown like the world’s happiest apocalypse, bells ringing, colors colliding, joy on full blast.

Portland, aka the “war zone,” looked less like a riot and more like a Pride parade produced by Ben & Jerry after three pot brownies and a nervous breakdown. The streets were a blur of bikes, boobies, body paint, and pot clouds thick enough to choke a Proud Boy. Bells clanged like freedom wind chimes. Hope bounced in every direction, occasionally attached to handlebars. Above it all, a sniper squinted through his scope, trying to pick a target and realizing everything below him was simultaneously moving, jiggling, and naked, an erotic Where’s Waldo that ended with him questioning his career choices, his faith, and his sexuality.

That’s what peaceful defiance looks like. It’s creative. It’s funny. It’s unstoppable.

And that’s exactly why this regime wants chaos. Trump and his blackhearted backup singers need violence like vampires need fresh plasma. They’re poking, prodding, praying someone throws a punch so they can roll out their armored cosplay and yell “see, we told you so.” Sean Duffy already called the upcoming No Kings marches “Antifa.” Which is rich, considering Antifa isn’t an organization. It’s just people who think fascism is bad. Imagine being so morally bankrupt you treat kindness as terrorism.

But we are not giving them what they want. They want us scared, small, and silent, which is exactly why we won’t be. We are giving them the one thing they can’t corrupt or cage: joy. Big, brazen, bare-assed joy. We will flood the streets with laughter that sounds like rebellion and smells like espresso and pheromones. We will march shoulder to shoulder, jiggle to jiggle, voice to vulgarity. We will sing off-key and on purpose, shake our freedom fruit in the drizzle, and ring bells until their crosses start to rattle. We will moon them with patriotic peach fuzz and a sense of humor. We will be massive, messy, magnificent, and utterly unarrestable in spirit. They want chaos because fear feeds them. We will give them a carnival of cheeks and chutzpah so big it clogs their outrage arteries. We will outnumber them, outsing them, outshine them, and leave them swooning like Southern belles who just saw democracy’s full frontal.

Because peaceful protest is as American as it gets. You don’t march because you hate this country. You march because you love it enough to drag it, kicking and screaming, toward its better self.

The “No Kings” marches coming up THIS Saturday, October 18 aren’t riots. They’re reminders. They’re teachers, nurses, veterans, parents, and kids on bikes. They’re grandmas in tie-dye and guys in Speedos painted like the Constitution. They’re everyone these hypocrites pretend to represent but actually despise.

I’ll be marching this Saturday in a nearby town. Surrounded by neighbors and veterans and parents pushing strollers. Nobody armed except with caffeine, sarcasm, and righteous fury. Because democracy doesn’t defend itself.

We do.

They have armored vehicles and talking heads. We have cardboard, glitter, and gall. They have propaganda. We have punchlines. They have rubber bullets. We have rhythm and the world’s most determined nipples.

And yes, they will call us hateful. They will call us terrorists. They will call us every name they can invent to make decency sound dangerous. They will call us indecent while praying no one notices their own rot. They will reach for their fainting couches like scandalized Victorians who just caught a glimpse of democracy’s dangling participle. But there is nothing indecent about truth. There is nothing obscene about freedom. There is nothing un-American about showing up with your head high, your voice loud, and your patriotic plumbing flapping proudly in the breeze.

And for the record, the No Kings marches are not about nudity. They are about power, accountability, and the simple, radical act of showing up. But if a few bare asses happen to photobomb fascism along the way, well, that is just democracy with a sense of humor.

It’s easy, in times like these, to feel small. To feel disconnected, disheartened, disillusioned. Believe me, I get it. It’s easy to scroll through the chaos and think no one else cares, that decency died, that we are shouting into a void too loud to hear us back. That’s what they want you to feel. Power thrives on isolation. Tyranny feeds on exhaustion. They want us tired and quiet and alone in our fear.

But we are not alone.

Every chant, every sign, every stranger who shows up beside you in the rain is proof that the void is full of people who still give a damn. That you are surrounded by hearts that beat the same angry, hopeful rhythm. That democracy, for all its bruises, still breathes through us.

Protest like this reminds us that we are not just witnesses. We are participants. We are the pulse. The laughter. The noise that refuses to die down. It’s the sound of a country remembering itself, one body-painted, glitter-smeared, ungovernable human at a time.

So yeah, it’s easy to feel lost. But if you show up — even once, even for an hour — you’ll remember how loud hope can be when it stops apologizing for existing.

Because every time we take to the streets, every time we raise our voices, every time we laugh in the face of fascism, we remind them and ourselves that we are still here. Still fighting. Still funny. Still free.

And still not wearing pants (ok, ok, pants are allowed, fine).

We’ll be out here in the streets, laughing too loud to hear them. Because they fear what they can’t control. They can’t arrest everyone. They can’t muzzle joy. They can’t outlaw laughter. They sure as hell can’t shoot straight when the target is liberty shaking her ass and refusing to sit the fuck down.

We the people are stronger than the people in power.

Always have been.

Always will be.

Where will you be marching this Saturday? And what will YOU be wearing (or not wearing)? 😈

And with that, and a nod to Portland, today’s song: