If Tolkien were to speak at a No Kings protest . . .

Yesterday, Anne joined our local NO KINGS rally and was heartened by the large, diverse crowd — hopeful and resilient Americans of all ages rising up.

It is good to see so much evidence that there are so many peace-loving, democracy-embracing Americans — people of healthy conscience willing to take a public stand against the GOP’s authoritarians, perpetual liars, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and misogynists that now have control of America’s congress and White House, and all the fearful and gullible fools who follow them. I shouldn’t have to state what qualifies as American History Lesson #1A, but here we are: Trump’s MAGA movement is a manifestation of the fascism, racism, and cruelty that America’s Constitution was established to prevent, and the evils that our military fought and died to vanquish in World War II and many other conflicts before and since.

Meanwhile, Vice President Vance shared an AI-generated video showing Trump as a king on a throne, brandishing a sword, and smirking smugly while Democratic leaders are forced to bow down. And President Trump himself shared an AI-generated video in which, wearing a king’s crown, he pilots a fighter jet over the NO KINGS protests and dumps an ocean of diarrhea on the protestors’ heads.

These are not merely flagrant displays of anti-American ugliness. These are the expressions of playground bullies who bring out the worst behaviors in anyone who is sick enough to admire them.

This is the disgrace that the GOP has become in America. This is the horror that the largest protest in all of human history has risen up to condemn.

Anne came home from the protest encouraged. Where was I during the protests? I was under deadline, making final proofreading edits to my next book. This book is my version of a protest sign, one that I hope will last longer than any cardboard sign I could have carried. I hope it will provide some measure of light, exposing and disrupting deception, hatred, and cruelty for many years to come.

And then this morning I rediscovered, in a Bluesky post to the account of Cian Murphy, this passage from one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s wartime letters to his son Christopher, and it resonated with me.

[E]vil labours with vast power and perpetual success – in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives. … But there is still some hope that things may be better for us, even on the temporal plane, in the mercy of God. And though we need all our natural human courage and guts (the vast sum of human courage and endurance is stupendous, isn’t it?) and all our religious faith to face the evil that may befall us (as it befalls others, if God wills) still we may pray and hope. I do.