Brent Showalter knew his outfit was a little ridiculous. That was the point.
Strapped into a homemade military tank costume, built from cardboard, duct tape and hot glue, he joined the crowd gathered in Chicago’s Daley Plaza on Saturday for the city’s “No Kings” protest — one of more than 1,500 demonstrations nationwide against President Donald Trump’s administration.
“I always like to have a good time, and going to a protest like this, I just wanted to point out the absurdity that everyone is accepting as the new normal,” Showalter said, referring to a military parade that also took place in the nation’s capital Saturday.
That parade, which is the culmination of an executive order creating a planning committee entitled Task Force 250, is a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, which also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday.
As over two dozen real tanks and thousands of troops paraded through the Washington streets, Showalter and another protester dressed as a tank rolled through the heart of Chicago’s Loop Saturday, stopping just shy of a barricade of police officers blocking the swelling crowd.
Showalter hoped to draw attention, not for the sake of spectacle, but to open conversations. As onlookers began asking for photos with him, he said that was exactly what he wanted.
Standing about half a block away as the crowd began to march north on Dearborn Street toward the river, Showalter said protests should be about more than just standing in the street and shouting.
He called his approach a “joyful warrior” project, his way of eliciting laughter and smiles from other protesters as they marched.
But joy wasn’t all he hoped to reclaim. Showalter said he also wanted to honor the American flag, a symbol he feels has been co-opted by “ultra-conservatives.”
Showalter wasn’t alone in that fight.
Saturday’s protest landed on Flag Day, the anniversary of the Second Continental Congress’s adoption of the American flag. Stars and stripes rippled through the crowd, some stitched onto hats or wrapped around shoulders while others waved on poles.
Some flags looked just as they always had.
Some didn’t.
Adam Cipcic, a Chicago-based artist, marched alongside his cousin and friends with an upside-down flag, the universal signal of a nation in distress.
“It’s showing that we’re still American, but what’s happening is not right,” Cipcic said.
Cipcic said he resents the idea that “people on the right” seem to have a monopoly on patriotism, because to him, “standing up to tyranny” in peaceful protest is the best way to demonstrate his love for his country.
Around him, other flags filled the air, not just American ones, but Mexican and Palestinian ones as well.
“I think it’s important that people show their solidarity,” Cipcic said. “Because it’s not just Americans, it’s immigrants — it’s everybody that’s suffering right now.”
Nearby, Mary Feeley had a different take. Her flag flew right side up.
A longtime advocate of social justice, Saturday’s protest was far from Feeley’s first. As a young woman, she fought for civil rights, spoke out against the Vietnam War and marched in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.
“While some people think we’re in distress, and we are a little, we’re still strong and we still have a voice and it’s this flag that’s speaking,” Feeley said, pointing to her handheld American flag.
Peggy Zureich, who stood at Feeley’s side, interjected, explaining that while she believed in the importance of honoring American troops, Trump’s military parade was not the way to do so.
Zureich’s late-husband, Herb, served as an army captain during The Vietnam War, and as she briefly told his story, she called herself “just as patriotic as anyone else,” citing her husband’s service as one reason she carried an upward-facing flag.
Zureich wasn’t the only one thinking of a veteran on Saturday.
With his wife standing beside him, Richard Laya held a sign that read “My dad fought Nazis in Europe! It sucks that I have to fight them here.”
Laya’s father landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France on D-Day, and though his father was a conservative, he said he was sure he would be “appalled” by a large-scale military parade.
Laya said his father had a bag full of medals that commemorated his accomplishments in the service, and while he was proud to defend his country, he never opened the bag to look at them.
“They weren’t full of bluster or carrying on about what they did in the military,” Laya said, referring not only to his father, but to others who had served.
As Laya and his wife hoisted their signs up and down, organizers took to the Daley Plaza stage to rally up the crowd, calling for those in attendance to “resist hate with love and joy” by ensuring the gathering remained non-violent.
Further from the plaza, where the stage was out of earshot, smaller groups picked up chants of their own.
“No king, no crown, we the people will not bow down,” one attendee shouted into a megaphone.
Among them was Beverly Berman, who came with her grandson, a college freshman, and her granddaughter, a high school senior. She stood wrapped in an American flag, watching the younger protesters chant and march.
Berman said she came for her grandchildren’s future, and that attending a peaceful protest was, for her, the best way to celebrate Flag Day.
“I’m proud of America,” Berman said. “I’m proud of our military, and I’m even proud of the Chicago Police most of the time.”
She smiled, then added, “I’m the middle of the road and I follow the law, but what’s happening right now is un-American.”
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