Harry Belafonte, singer, actor and activist, has died at age 96

The Republican response to this weekend's massive No Kings demonstrations showed they're ready to crown President Donald Trump as absolute ruler, an analyst wrote Monday.

The president dismissed the protests, which drew an estimated 7 million people at 2,600 events nationwide, as "very small, very ineffective," posted AI-generated video of himself dumping feces on attendees' heads and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act.

But Salon's Sophia Tesfaye argued the GOP response was even more revealing.

"The right’s response to No Kings wasn’t just politically telling. It was conceptually damning," Tesfaye wrote. "If a protest warns that someone is behaving like a king, and the accused responds by laughing, wearing a crown and declaring 'You’re just mad I’m winning' — you have your answer."

Vice President JD Vance shared a doctored video of Trump placing a crown on his head while Democratic leaders bowed, and the White House official account shared his post. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) claimed the protesters "hate America" and wanted to "dismantle capitalism" and "erase our founding principles.”

"He may not be a king by law," Tesfaye wrote. "But in posture, and in the eyes of his defenders, Donald Trump already wears the crown. So he wants to define criticism as disloyalty. Mike Johnson wants to define protest as hate. Fox News wants to define mass mobilization as marginal. And yet none of it is working."

Millions protested Saturday against the president and his policies, but Tesfaye said the Republican reaction shows why those demonstrations are necessary to preserve democracy.

"The important questions now aren’t whether Trump will continue to act like a king," Tesfaye wrote. "They are whether the right can continue to pretend he isn’t — and if the press will let Republicans claim they haven’t seen Trump’s absurd reaction before he abuses his power to exact revenge."

While meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Monday at the White House, President Donald Trump chided a reporter for apparently bumping into a mirror with a camera.

“You gotta watch that! You're not allowed to break that, that mirror is 400 years old!” Trump said as the White House reporters crammed into the room ahead of the president’s meeting with Albanese.

“The camera just hit the mirror... Ay ay ay! I just moved it up here from the vaults and the first thing that happens, a camera hits it. Hard to believe, isn't it? But these are the problems in life.”

It’s unknown what mirror the reporter had bumped into, though it could possibly be a gilded English pier mirror made in the late 18th century and donated to the White House in 1946, which the White House Historical Association made reference to in a past social media post.