No Kings, No Crown and No Seeds

 Except for the seeds of hatred some need to sew into every moment.

Yesterday left me buzzing and aching all at once. We were a small crowd in Liberty, Missouri, small, but mighty — waving, chanting, sweating, and soaking up every honk and peace sign from passing cars. I felt something I haven’t felt in a long time: proof that there are still more of us than them. By “us,” I mean people who want things to be legal, kind, and fair. The rest is noise.

But here’s what’s eating at me. After the rally, I scrolled through social media and saw a post from someone who used to be a friend — one of those deep-in-the-MAGA-hole types. She shared a photo from the huge gathering in Boston, the one with thousands of people filling the streets. Except she and her friends decided it wasn’t real. They said the photo was fake — that those weren’t people, they were sprouting seeds in a field. Seeds. I sat there staring at my phone, trying to understand how anyone could look at an ocean of human beings and see botany.

That kind of denial hits different. It’s not just misinformation anymore; it’s like we’re living on different planets. For them, anything that doesn’t fit their version of the world must be fake. It’s safer to believe a silly lie than face the possibility that maybe — just maybe — their side isn’t as big or beloved as they think. I keep thinking, they’ve forgotten how to see joy without suspicion.

Later, a friend showed someone else a photo from our own protest — two people in inflatable costumes running toward each other and hugging. We howled with laughter when we saw it. Those ridiculous costumes were the perfect “FU” to all the talk about “violent Antifa thugs.” Turns out the radical left isn’t hiding in the shadows; we’re just sweating inside polyester inflatables, hugging it out for democracy. But again — no laughter from the other side. Just confusion. Fear. They couldn’t see the joke because everything has to mean something dark now. Humor feels dangerous to people who’ve forgotten how to laugh at themselves.

I’ve tried to make sense of it. How can the same people who rail against “the elites” worship a man born on a gold toilet? How can they call him a “blue-collar billionaire” when the only collar he’s ever worn is starched and imported? He’s never carried groceries, fixed a leaky pipe, or waited for a paycheck to clear — and yet he’s their hero. They don’t follow him because he’s like them. They follow him because he fights for the version of themselves they wish they could be: loud, untouchable, unapologetic, and immune to consequence. He performs their anger while living off the very system they hate. And still, they cheer.

And before anyone lumps this all together — I have plenty of conservative and Republican people in my life. We don’t agree on everything, but we get each other. We can talk because we actually listen, or we know when it’s better to steer around the topic altogether. None of them are the kind of people who live on conspiracy theories or need to scream to feel seen. They care about their families, their faith, their country — just like I do. So when I talk about “them,” I’m not talking about every Republican or every person on the right. I’m talking about the ones who’ve let hate replace thought, and paranoia replace patriotism.

So yes, yesterday brought me peace and pride. We were out there with our homemade signs, our chants, and our laughter, and for every flipped bird there were fifty waves and a hundred honks of support. But it also left me grieving. Because every time someone shares a meme about “fake crowds” or sneers at people in Unicorn suits, I realize how far gone some of our neighbors are. We’re not arguing about politics anymore — we’re arguing about whether our eyes still work, our ears still hear and whether rhyme and reason really do still exist.

I don’t know how to bridge that gap yet. But I do know this: we’re not going anywhere. We’ll keep showing up — with humor, with hope, with inflatable hugs — because kindness and truth still matter, even when they’re mistaken for something else.