On Saturday, October 18, thousands of Democrat socialists, Marxists and hard-core leftwing activists gathered in the streets of cities across America to proclaim that America has no king.

Apparently, most of these people never had a course in American history or they would surely have known that America does not have a king.

But history, common sense and just pure facts have nothing to do with the “No Kings” marches.

While these socialists/Marxists/left wing anarchists claim President Trump is acting as a king and a tyrant, no sensible person would believe them. After all, if President Trump were really a tyrant, it’s highly unlikely there would have been any marches at all.

To really understand what the marches were about, consider where we are right now.

Congress is locked out by the government shutdown orchestrated by Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is terrified of the socialists/Marxists behind the “No Kings” marches.

Because of the Democrat shutdown, American service members are on the verge of not getting paid which will be a huge issue for many military families. In addition, federal law enforcement, Border Patrol, air traffic controllers and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) continue to work and may not get paid.

The Women, Children and Infants program may not have the funding they need to provide the support that millions of indigent families rely on to feed their children and themselves.

Chuck Schumer claims the shutdown is over extending the Obamacare COVID subsidies that will expire at the end of this year.

The subsidies are expiring because, when the Democrats had the majority in both chambers and Biden in the White House, that’s how they wrote the bill.

But that is not all they want. They want to add another $1.5 trillion in spending adding even more to our debt. They want to repeal the Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied people with no dependents under age 14 that we had in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

They want to repeal the provision in the OBBB to eliminate duplication and fraud that is costing taxpayers $140 billion each decade. And they even want to repeal the Rural Health Transformation Fund that is the most significant effort in decades to address the rural health care crisis. Instead, they want to take the money to give free health care to illegal aliens, including those who have committed crimes.

So, what were the marches really about?

They were about putting pressure on Chuck Schumer to make sure that he submits to their radical socialist/Marxist agenda. They know Schumer is the consummate self-serving liberal who is scared to death he will be primaried by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, otherwise known as AOC.

Sadly, what is true of Schumer is also true of other Democrats in both the House and Senate. According to an article in The Hill, Democrats who spoke about the shutdown on condition that they remain anonymous said they fear getting “hammered” by the left-wing base of their party whose opposition would end their political careers.

In fact, according to The Hill, a Democratic insider confided that Sen. Jon Ossoff knows that if he continues to vote against reopening the government, he can raise $3 million from the extreme left-wingers for his reelection campaign. If he votes to end the shutdown, he may not be able to raise another dollar from the extreme leftist crowd and he would get crushed in the election.

On the “No Kings” website, they say, “we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.” 

The truth is that President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are fighting the chaos Biden and the Democrats created by opening our borders. We are exposing the corruption of the previous administration’s hiding of President Biden’s cognitive decline and weaponizing the Department of Justice.

We are fighting the Democrat-imposed cruelty of this shutdown that is causing federal government workers and military families to fear missing a paycheck. 

Republicans have done our job by passing a short-term funding bill in Congress. We have fought to return power to the citizens, secure our borders, strengthen our economy, cut taxes and restore common sense. And we have been working on health care legislation that will lower health insurance premiums, cover pre-existing conditions and give people more choices. 

So don’t think for a minute that the shutdown is about health care, as they now claim.

It is about maintaining the support of the socialists and Marxists millionaires and billionaires that the Democrats depend on to stay in power.

Gary Palmer represents Alabama’s 6th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.