The next nationwide “No Kings Day” is Saturday, Oct. 18, with local events in Staunton and Charlottesville, among the more than 1,000, and counting, scheduled across the United States.
The local and nationwide events are follow-ups to the June 14 anti-Trump administration protests that served as counterprogramming to the Washington, D.C., military parade the president threw as a birthday present to himself, and turned out to be a national embarrassment for the wannabe dictator – you no doubt remember the images of creaky tanks rolling down the empty streets.
The local Oct. 18 protests will be at familiar locations – in Staunton, at the Augusta County Courthouse downtown, and in Charlottesville, at the Shops at Stonefield, which is home to a Tesla showroom.
Further out, we’re seeing Oct. 18 protests on the schedule in Shenandoah County, Culpeper, Lynchburg and Roanoke.
‘No Kings’: Oct. 18 local events
- Staunton: Augusta County Courthouse, 12:30-2 p.m.
- Charlottesville: The Shops at Stonefield, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Shenandoah County: 443 W. Reservoir Road, Woodstock, 10 am. to noon
- Culpeper: Sign up for more details, 10 a.m. to noon
- Lynchburg: Miller Park, 2-4 p.m.
- Roanoke: Corner of Orange and Burrell, noon to 1 p.m.
The first “No Kings Day” was a successor to two nationwide protests in April, one of which, you may remember, led to the arrest of a Staunton towing company owner on a criminal reckless-driving charge.
The towing guy, Jeffrey Wayne Armentrout, drove at a high rate of speed through the intersection in front of the courthouse, within feet of a large crowd of protestors, and told a police officer, after a brief pursuit, that he hit the gas because a man from the protest had smacked his truck, which features a bumper adorned with neo-Nazi insignia.
As the officer let Armentrout off with a verbal warning, the MAGA informed the cop that “when they smack my truck again, I’m gonna get out and punch them right square in the motherfucking mouth.”
Despite the threat, Staunton Police declined to pursue a reckless-driving charge, but I took up the cause, and presented the case myself to a local magistrate, who issued an arrest warrant for Armentrout.
Then the Staunton Commonwealth’s Attorney Office declined to prosecute the case; again, I took up the cause, and led the prosecution – I wish I was making that up, but that’s what actually happened – in a July hearing in Staunton General District Court.
Armentrout was acquitted after a 45-minute trial.
ICYMI
The Shenandoah County protest also has a fun local backstory. VDOT has installed a sign on a bridge over Interstate 81 in the Woodstock area to deter protestors who have been hanging signs with messages including “No ICE,” “Free Palestine,” “Tax/Eat the Rich,” “Free DC” and “F*ck Fascism” to showcase to I-81 motorists.
As you might guess, the Oct. 18 protest in Shenandoah County is set to take place in the vicinity of the I-81 bridge – officially, “the grassy areas on the east and west sides of I-81 – NOT on the overpass,” according to organizers.
The other fun backstory is in Culpeper, where the former county sheriff, Scott Jenkins, who was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison for accepting $75,000 in bribes, was, not surprisingly, granted a full pardon by Trump.
This Jenkins guy fancied himself a “constitutional sheriff” who was not subject to state or federal oversight – basically, he viewed himself as king of Culpeper County, until he finished a distant third in his 2023 re-election campaign.
In addition to the local storylines, the Oct. 18 protests will be held against a backdrop of continued pressure on MAGAs in Congress and the Trump administration to release files associated with disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, a close friend of Trump who died in 2019 while in federal custody on child sex-trafficking charges.
And of course, the context for next month’s protests also includes fallout from the murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed while speaking at a rally in Utah last week.
The Trump administration has been using the Kirk murder to threaten progressive groups that MAGAs are claiming were involved, even as the evidence to date is that the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a college dropout, was a supporter of an internal rival to Kirk among MAGA influencers, Nick Fuentes, who expressed his distaste for Kirk’s hate speech.
Safe to say, with the political air thick with tension, we might expect turnout from anti-Trump protestors, MAGA counterprotestors, and heavy police presence at the local events.
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Chris Graham
