Are rip-snortin,’ rootin’-tootin,’ Macho MAGA Republicans really a bunch of fraidy cats quaking in their Guccis over the likes of Leslie McColgin and Karla Johnston?
The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone thinks they are.
“The upcoming anti-authoritarian ‘No Kings’ rally, which is scheduled to take place across the country on Saturday, including on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, has set off klaxons for Republican lawmakers, who are scrambling to mount a preemptive defense,” he wrote. “While many GOP lawmakers are describing No Kings as an astroturfed political operation meant to benefit Democrats in the continuing government funding fight, some in party leadership are going further by branding it a pro-terrorism demonstration — an unambiguously false allegation meant, clearly, to get ahead of a potentially massive protest against the president.”
Menacing McColgin and Joltin’ Johnston are co-leaders of deep western Kentucky-based Four Rivers Indivisible, a branch of the national organization. They’re helping ramrod Saturday’s “No Kings” rally at Noble Park in Paducah, the region’s main town.
Four Rivers and the Marshall County Human Rights Coalition are co-hosting the rally, which is set for 2 to 4 p.m. in the city park at 2801 Park Ave.
McColgin, 70, from rural Graves County, is a retired speech pathologist. Johnston, 65, who lives in rural Calloway County, was a Murray State University research assistant. “We’re the ‘grantifa’ team,” said McColgin.
Neither one thinks she’s scary. But GOP bigwigs are so wigged out over Saturday that they’re again summoning their inner Joe McCarthy and trotting out the Big Lie, which is Republican stock-in-trade these days.
Here’s more from Perticone: “… The most egregiously dishonest and inflammatory comments came from the top Republican in the House. ‘It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the Antifa people,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News in an interview. ‘They’re all coming out. Some of the House Democrats are selling t-shirts for the event, and it’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally because they can’t face their rabid base. I mean this is serious business hurting real people. ... I’m beyond words.’”
The Paducah gathering will be one of an estimated 2,500 “No Kings” rallies nationwide, including several more in Kentucky.
Saturday won’t be a one-off for Four Rivers. The group has organized 19 rallies or protests in Paducah this year. There will be more to come, said McColgin.
Many of the protests have focused on First District Republican Congressman Jamie Comer, a top Trump toady on Capitol Hill. For months, Four Rivers has urged the congressman to hold a town hall in Paducah.
McColgin, Johnston, and others tried visiting his local office and politely talking to staffers. When that didn’t work, they picketed on the sidewalk outside.
Comer still wouldn’t face the home folks. So, in March, Four Rivers upped the ante. Three women and two men — one guy 82-years-old — donned bright yellow chicken suits and roosted on the sidewalk.
The idea was to shame Comer into hosting a town hall. But Comer is demonstrably shameless. (Bill Straub, my favorite Northern Kentucky Tribune columnist, aptly described Comer as a “walking, talking disgrace of a human being who has fully absorbed the sleaze-ball spirit of [Joe McCarthy], the long-discredited Senator from Wisconsin through his reckless use of lies, hyperbole, and unsubstantiated accusations that are exercising great harm on the nation he is pledged to serve and protect.”)
Anyway, Comer was elsewhere. Even so, the protest ruffled his feathers.
A savvy politician would have responded with something like “everybody has a right to protest” or maybe joked about the chicken costumes. Instead, the guy Straub tagged “Tail-Gunner Jamie” had staffers knock out a three-sentence statement that concluded, “Congressman Comer does not plan on holding therapy sessions for left-wing activists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“A hit dog hollers” is an old Kentucky expression. It seems appropriate for Comer’s chicken-you-know-what comeback to Johnson’s jabbering, too.
Kentucky is one of the reddest Republican Red states and the far west is arguably the commonwealth’s most crimsoned corner. But a slew of Saturday rallies are set for Red States, which might be a big part of why fretting GOP bigwigs are ramping up the McCarthyism.
Nationwide “No Kings” rallies on June 18 attracted millions — Paducah’s drew 900, according to McColgin. Organizers from Maine to California are expecting even larger crowds on Saturday.
“Though Oct. 18’s ‘No Kings’ protests share a name with its predecessor, organizers are expecting an unmatched flood of people for what they believe will be the largest single day of protest in modern American history,” wrote Sarah D. Wire in USA Today.
“‘The anger level is way higher than it was in June for the last protests of the same name,” said Public Citizen copresident Lisa Gilbert, one of the organizers. “It’s not just policies we don’t like … but it’s also actual chipping away at democracy, at foundational rights and prerogatives that we all expect. … People are saying ‘I’ve never been moved to action before, but now I feel like I have to.’”
Meanwhile, fowl finery and other costumery will be featured Saturday in Paducah: “Inflatable costumes, including two chicken suits and a unicorn,” McColgin revealed.
She added: “Other people have notified us they are planning to wear inflatables or more traditional fun costumes featuring animals or characters. A Marshall County contingent plans to feature some Handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale and some Calloway County folks may show up as Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi.”
Folks new to protests — and maybe concerned about safety — can find out more about the rally by clicking here. “The Paducah Police Department has set up a mobile monitoring unit with video cameras and is in contact with the organizers,” McColgin said.
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