Let us take it completely seriously, because that is the funniest way to take it.
The proposition is: there is a king, and we are resisting him. Fine. Let us test it the way you would test any claim, which is to ask what would be different if it were true.
Under an actual king
- The permit would not have been issued.
- The road would not have been closed for you by officers paid out of the same treasury you are denouncing.
- The photographs would not have run in the paper. There would be no paper, or there would be one paper.
- Your employer would have received a phone call.
- You would not be home by eleven. You would not be home.
Every single one of those things went the other way, on the day, in public, on schedule. The protest was protected end to end by the thing it says does not exist.
The part that is actually a shame
The funny part is not the interesting part. The waste is the interesting part.
There are people on that shoulder with genuine grievances — about housing they cannot afford, about a water table nobody is protecting, about a hospital two hours away. Those are real, local, and winnable. And the entire charge of that grievance has been routed into a costume drama about a monarch, because the costume drama comes with a schedule, a hashtag, a community, and above all no possibility of failure.
A king would have them in a cell. The republic they are protesting gives them a permit, a police escort, a photographer, and a ride home. And they will be back next Saturday, at the same shoulder, having changed nothing, feeling magnificent.
They possess the gear. They have simply chosen not to use it.
