No Thrones! No Crowns! No Kings!

By Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, NY

The author and her husband John giving the Trump Administration hell

October 18, 2025 was an amazing day in America.  Seven million people took to the streets to defend our democracy. Not only were the demonstrations entirely peaceful, they were joyous, uplifting, exuberant, creative, and playful.

The good people of Portland, Ore. set the stage in recent weeks for counteracting the ugliness and brutality of our current regime with kindness, neighborliness, playfulness, and a bit of sassy fun thrown in. And the country took their lead. The nationwide rallies were plentiful with silly costumes and humor, music, and bubbles.

My husband John and I attended our third protest rally (since this political nightmare began) in the small upstate city of Kingston, New York, near our home in Red Hook. It does seem to us that the movement is growing. This was by far the biggest and the best of them. And even the most fun.

Of course, our message was gravely serious, but the mood was not one of anger or nastiness. We are not the party of hate. We came together as the party of warmth and humanity. We delighted in sharing our message of hope and promise for a future that we believe in. It felt so good to be enveloped in a crowd of people who were equally passionate about the future of our country.

The creativity and humor of those around us was awe-inspiring. It was a serious message presented in a light-hearted way.  People came in a myriad of costumes and displaying laugh-out-loud signs. We sang and whooped with delight and blew bubbles. Cars driving by honked their horns in solidarity, giving us the thumbs up or a fist salute, or even flashed their own signs back at us.

Then we gathered together and marched through the streets of Kingston, playing instruments and chanting, “Show me what democracy looks like….THIS is what democracy looks like!” or that old stand-by, “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” One of my favorite moments was when we were marching behind a woman holding a speaker playing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” We all quietly walked in unison to: “They may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”

We went to protest what is happening in our country, to be with like-minded people, to show our solidarity for the democracy of our United States of America. We came away with a renewed sense of faith in the good people of our county. We came away with hope.

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A long, long time ago, after the birth of her third child, Victoria made the life-changing decision to leave the work world behind and devote herself to being a full-time mom and homemaker. Along with her new title of Domestic Engineer, she took on the role of the Chief Home Economist for the family.

At first, it was scary to try to live on less than half their income, but Victoria found that she not only rose to the challenge but thrived in the enjoyment of learning to live their best life with limited resources. She embraced this new frugal lifestyle of the at-home-mom and went on to add a fourth child to the mix. And their family was complete.

Along the way she acquired a great deal of wisdom in how to not only avoid debt, but pay off mortgages early, buy cars for cash, travel on a shoe-string budget, and send kids to college with no student loans, all while also saving a tidy nest egg for retirement. She currently educates others in these skills through her business Bright Future. 

Now living the life of a modern homesteader in the Hudson Valley, New York, Victoria has added gardening to her list of skill sets as she grows many of her own vegetables to supplement her family’s primarily vegan diet. And she has come to realize that this waste-not, want-not, carbon-friendly, sustainable life she is living is not only benefiting her own family but also our Mother Earth, and that each of us has the obligation to live a responsibly sustainable life not only for ourselves, but for the greater good of our community, and our planet. We can all do this one household and backyard at a time. We are the world! And it all begins right at home.

Victoria can be reached at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com