I had to work Sunday but figured there would be time to catch the tail end of the No Kings march. I finished work, drove home to South Philadelphia and jumped on my bicycle. But my back tire went flat as I was riding to Independence Mall, so I didn’t get to rub shoulders with the inflatable chicken woman and thousands of others who turned out to protest the ongoing misdeeds of the orange blob who would be king.

“I couldn’t find a gas station with a working air pump,” I told my neighbor Swamp Rabbit when he asked why I didn’t get the tire re-inflated.

“Don’t blame them gas stations,” he said. “It ain’t their fault you’re too dumb to carry an air pump.”

The Philly march was one of more than 2,700 No Kings demonstrations that took place on the same day all over the country to protest the Trump administration’s efforts to dispense with the norms — not to mention the laws — of America’s 249-year-old democracy. A bunch of local politicians were among the protesters, as well as ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, who was in town to perform at Met Philadelphia and was happy to pose for selfies with some of the protestors who recognized him.

Byrne brought his bike (!) and marched with it. Swamp Rabbit was amused to learn this and said, “I bet he had plenty of air in his tires.”

It seems a good time was had by all, which drove home the main point of the marches. Sane people — especially sane city people — are fed up with the evil buffoon in the White House and his goons, who will end all protests, along with free and fair elections, if they can get away with it. But this isn’t Germany in the 1930s, right?

“We’ll see about that,” Swamp Rabbit said.