Democrats may still be trying to wring national significance out of their “No Kings” protests, but once again, reality—and CNN commentator Scott Jennings—stepped in with a much-needed dose of clarity. Appearing on a panel with Democratic strategist Karen Finney, Jennings calmly dismantled the narrative that these protests are anything more than performance art, dressed up as civic resistance.
The protesting initially amused and entertained me- watching Grateful Dead heads stand in the heat with their signs screaming, watching purple haired people and human furbies dance, prance and sing. They think they accomplished something.
Ho hum, zzzzzzzzzzz— Linda Warshaw (@warsh30070) October 21, 2025
Finney, defending the latest round of street theater, insisted that people taking to the streets weren’t wasting their time. Jennings’ response was swift, surgical, and devastatingly simple: “We don’t have a king.”
And just like that, the air left the balloon.
Despite the obvious point—that the United States has never operated under a monarchy and isn’t remotely close to doing so—Finney pressed on, doubling down on the notion that Trump’s political rise represents some authoritarian threat. The exchange quickly became a case study in how political messaging can drift so far from reality that it begins to parody itself.
Finney: Are you saying the people protesting at No Kings were wasting their time??@ScottJenningsKY: I don’t really care whether they do it or not. Listen, you guys spend your time however you want. It’s a free country. Not a monarchy.
Oof. 😂 pic.twitter.com/rTtIPOT19o
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 21, 2025
Social media lit up in response, with commenters pointing out the absurdity of the protests. “They take Trump literally when he’s obviously trolling,” one wrote. Another quipped that these marches, once perhaps novel in their branding, have devolved into something closer to a recurring street play with no real stakes.
The original “No Kings” events, launched as a kind of preemptive strike against perceived Trump overreach, may have carried a whiff of cleverness at the start. But by round three, it’s just another march in a long parade of progressive angst—where the solution to every perceived crisis seems to involve cardboard signs, chants, and breathless coverage from like-minded media.
That 2-3 seconds of stunned silence was 🤌
— Seaghan Kahn (@SeaghanKahn) October 21, 2025
What’s missing is any connection to reality. There is no monarchy, no executive overreach dragging the U.S. toward dictatorship, and no real-world justification for staging repeated protests over a scenario that exists only in the minds of the most perpetually alarmed. If anything, these rallies only highlight how far some factions of the Democratic base have drifted from the center of the national conversation.
Jennings didn’t need theatrics to make his point. He just needed to say what the rest of the country is already thinking: America isn’t a monarchy, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make it so.
