Whether it was a takedown of Trump’s birthday parade or how the Detroit Jazz Fest shows the best of America, Free Press contributing columnist Keith A. Owens explained defiance, from protests to music. Along the way, he made a few of you mad ― but he made more of you think.
Between ‘No Kings’ protests and Trump’s DC parade, this one was bigger
“Perhaps the best thing that could be said about President Donald Trump’s military/birthday/“Look at me I’m president” parade was that it was kinda … cute.
“Surreal, sure. Problematic, sure. But in that special first moment when you’re exposed to the ‘whaaa?’ of it all, it still kinda makes you chuckle. It’s that painfully cute image some of us may never be able to unsee of Our President standing waaaaaay up there behind his bullet-proof glass shield, twin tanks positioned strategically below the podium in front of the specially designed army-green stage. Almost like the Great and Powerful Oz, except … well … we can see him. …
“Soooooo … have you by any chance seen any photos of the parade?
“… the Big Beautiful Event looked more like those photos of Trump’s first term inauguration in January 2017, when he claimed the National Mall was packed with his supporters when, in actual fact, it was pretty much tumbleweeds ― at least in comparison to just about every other presidential inauguration in modern history. …
“You know what? Maybe Trump got his meager crowd size confused with the No Kings Day protest crowds that were erupting not just all around the country, but around the entire world.”
Read the full column here
Detroit’s most aggressive middle finger to Trump was disguised as a music festival
“Because this had to rank among the largest and most aggressive, lengthy and persistent extensions of the middle finger to the current occupant of the White House yet this year, but you would never know it, because it was disguised as a music festival.
“But not just any music festival; it was a music festival in the Blackest big city in America, paying homage to a classical form of American music created by Black people but celebrated, loved and performed by people of all races, all ages, all sexes and all genders throughout the world.
“President Donald Trump seems to want to prevent us from rising above our worst instincts, because when we are at our best as humanity, that is what makes him weak. Trump cannot survive a well-informed, multi-racial America where we do our best to get along with one another, and so he inflames division, because division makes him strong.
“That’s why Detroit’s Jazz Festival is a white nationalist’s biggest nightmare, thriving in plain view. It’s a rebuke of Donald Trump and his efforts to turn us against each other. And I never even heard anyone mention his name.”
Read the full column here
Trump’s attacks on your access to news are all part of Project 2025
“Ignorance is Donald Trump’s best friend, which would explain why he is not a fan of a free press that strives to provide fair and balanced reporting of the facts. Fair and balanced media just doesn’t work for what this particular president and his team of government wrecking balls seem to have in mind, because it doesn’t provide the steady, rage-inducing diet of misinformation required by his base. Or maybe I should say, required to keep his base in line and on script.
“Just for one example, Trump claimed last month that the price of eggs had come down ‘like 93%, 94% since we took office.’
“That’s not just misinformation, that’s a lie. The truth is that the price of eggs hit a record high in March.”
“If the only information American voters had access to was provided by a fair and balanced media, I suspect Donald Trump might never have been elected. But instead, we are deluged daily with a firehose of misinformation and disinformation mixed in with actual truthful information that is misleadingly presented as ‘choice.'”
Read the full column here
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: In 2025, he taught us how to resist | Year in Review
Reporting by Detroit Free Press Opinion Staff, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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