No Kings: Summer of Love Redux?

Is the resistance going the distance?

In 2020, the world was in Lockdown. We all remember navigating new normals, but what faded from the collective mind is the impact that season had on our capital city.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Denver’s economy was booming. The city was widely considered a regional economic powerhouse, one of the strongest and most dynamic economies in the US, with steady growth, low unemployment, and a diversified industrial base.

After Covid, housing and other costs of living, which were already an issue before the lockdowns became a crisis for many residents. Between December 2019 to December 2024, consumer prices (all items, including food and energy) rose nearly 46%, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unsheltered homelessness increased 200+%, according to data from the Common Sense Institute. Homicides increased 35% and violent crime was up 30% by 2023, according to data from the FBI.

Before the pandemic, light rail cars were packed at rush hour and restaurants on 16th Street had hour plus wait times. Then in 2020, Denver was in lockdown. And the city fell.

The trains often run empty now, as the laptop class became accustomed to working from home. That impacts the city’s transit and parking revenues, the restaurants and retail shops, the bars and nightlife.

Licensed restaurant establishments decreased 22% between 2019 and 2024, according to data from the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses. More than 200 Colorado businesses closed in 2024 alone, and 82% of them were in Denver, as reported by Axios.

Perhaps few remember the violence, the property damage, the historic buildings vandalized, the sweeping encampments in Civic Center Park. The economic impact of lockdowns, while devastating, pales in comparison to the social and cultural impacts.

I’ve often theorized that the people don’t remember because they weren’t there. Out of sight out of mind for the insufferable white collars attending zoom meetings on their Pelotons.

But perhaps they do remember, and that’s why they rarely, if ever, enter the capital city anymore. It’s dangerous and expensive, and your odds of getting accosted are prohibitively high.

On June 10, there was a notable anti-ICE protest reported on 18th and Stout and in the area around the justice center. Conservative radio host Jeff Hunt was accosted and filed a police report about the incident.

On June 14, Colorado expected “No Kings” protests in every city and most towns around the state. In Denver, June 14th kicked off with an early morning shooting near 10th and Broadway. Vibrant.

Screengrab, note the “Indivisible” banner on the right. How “organic.”

For the June 14th event, the Denver Police Department put out an official protest edition of expectations on X.

I personally read this as a peacekeepers’ plea for safe passage through the city (for which they’re charged with keeping the peace). If this is the posture of the police, what can the people expect? It isn’t any wonder that so many commuters and tourists no longer go to Denver. It’s also obvious why Colorado is a national story nearly every week.

A possible sequel to the Summer of Love is simmering under the surface of political resistance and disputes on immigration, foreign policy, and gender ideology. Peaceful protests on these issues are welcomed and protected. Human-targeted violence, arson, and property damage are not.

A final thought: While many suggest that Colorado has all right to resist all federal policy implementation, remember that:

“Colorado is expected to receive $13.4 billion from the federal government in fiscal year 2025-26 — about 30% of the state's $40 billion annual budget… Hundreds of millions more go to Denver and surrounding localities for law enforcement and other government programs… In 2024, Denver Health, the city's safety net hospital, received $89 million in federal grant funding,” according to Axios.

Compare those federal investments to the metrics cited above. If the feds are providing hundreds of millions for law enforcement, and that law enforcement defies federal law — for example, refusing to enforce immigration law — a thinking person would expect the funding to stop.

Any funding not being used for its allocated purpose should stop. It’s fraud, and it’s being perpetrated on all taxpaying Americans, not just those in Colorado.

The DOJ knows this. It’s why their investigations seem to be escalating. Waste, fraud, and abuses of power infringe upon Americans’ guarantee of a Republican form of government, a representative democracy.

Trump knows this, too. The president’s agenda broadly can be summarized as uprooting and exposing systemic corruption. “Today’s ceremony has very special meaning… we are taking power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, The People,” President Trump said in his 2017 inaugural address.

In all their opposition to the President, the Colorado Executive’s probable corruption and abuses, along with that of their public-private minions, are sharply in focus. They doth protest too much and, after their unhinged pursuit of eliminating their political opposition in 2024, the power dynamics of this conflict have shifted.

In other words, if you come for the king, you best not miss.

Mother Jones, accidentally being based.

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