No Kings in Estes Park
Before the winds kicked up over Estes Park, some big news—I’m now writing for Westword, the Denver alt-weekly that inspired me back when I was just another kid chasing stories and bad coffee downtown.
Author’s Note
Before we jump into the No Kings in Estes Park story, I wanted to share some good news.
When I was a teenager exploring Denver’s underbelly, I picked up my first copy of Westword—that holy relic of Colorado counterculture—and thought, One day, I want to write for these people. It was the closest thing I could find to The Village Voice after moving from North Jersey out to the Front Range of Colorado. Fast-forward a few decades, a few scars, and a few hundred thousand words later… and here we are.
I’m officially writing for Westword.
For that kid who once wandered the city with paint-stained fingers and big dreams, this is one of those rare full-circle moments. I’ll still be publishing my dystopian-horror fiction shorts and serials, along with my good old gonzo dives and unfiltered takes, here on the Colorado Switchblade—but now some of that work, and a few new pieces, will also find a home in Westword’s pages.
Keep an eye out this weekend for my review of One Battle After Another on Westword.
Now, about that protest…
PS - As I was loading this post up for my Substack, they ran my shorter (less gonzo) version of the piece you will read below. But please help support my (and my daughters’) work by clicking on the Westword story link here.
NO KINGS IN ESTES PARK
By Jason Van Tatenhove
The winds were bursting the clouds over the peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, flinging the first false flakes of snow sideways down Elkhorn Avenue. My daughter—my photographer and partner in crime—bounced beside me, camera in hand, shouting, “Dad! Watch out! You’re about to run into Kenny from South Park!”
She wasn’t wrong. A seventy-eight-year-old man in a full inflatable Kenny suit was being helped by a friend trudging upwind through the crowd, his orange hood puffed up like a balloon. It was the kind of sight that only makes sense if you’ve lived here long enough to know that absurd creativity is just another Estes weather pattern.
This wasn’t our first protest together. The first one we covered together was during the George Floyd rallies, back in the lockdown era of COVID. Those were the first real demonstrations of note in our little town—small mountain-town echoes of a nation trying to figure out what the hell it was becoming. That coverage later landed me a job at the Estes Park Trail-Gazette.
Before heading out today, I’d been watching Don Lemon and fellow Coloradoan Joy Reid cover the No Kings protests in D.C. and New York on their new independent outlet—both of them hosts I’d appeared with back in their CNN and MSNBC days. Their urgency hit me square in the gut. I’d sworn off political writing after the last election—too many threats, too much bile—but my daughters convinced me silence wasn’t an option. “Dad,” they said, “your voice still matters.”
So here we were.
Estes Park protests are a different breed from Denver’s. There’s less tear gas, more windburn; fewer anarchists in black, more retirees with park-themed signs. But the energy was unmistakable—vibrant, loud, and, by Estes standards, massive. My rough count hit just over 520 people lining both sides of Elkhorn, waving flags and handmade signs at the endless stream of tourists inching through downtown.
We’re an older town, mostly. But I noticed something new: younger families, toddlers bundled in strollers, teens in homemade costumes, high schoolers with cardboard signs shouting over the honking horns and wind. Some even argued playfully with their Trump-supporting relatives as they drove by, a Trump-Vance sign hanging out a van window. That was about the extent of any counter-protest—just a few older men shaking their heads and muttering as they passed.
I met the Stewart family, who had driven up from Denver with their four daughters. One of the daughters was the first to answer when I asked why they’d made the trip. “Because we don’t like Donald Trump!” she laughed. Then, more quietly, her father added, “It’s sad to see women’s rights being rolled back as our daughters come of age. They have fewer rights now than we did when we were their age.”
His wife nodded, her breath whipping visible in the cold wind. “We’re here to support democracy. We want our kids to see that it’s worth showing up for.”
Was this their first protest together? “As a whole family, yes,” he said. “We’ve been watching what’s happening the last nine months, and when we saw this national No Kings movement spreading to towns across the country, we realized we couldn’t just sit this one out.”
A few feet away, Kenny from South Park stood as if he’d materialized from satire itself, the wind puffing his orange costume into glorious absurdity.
“Well,” he told me, voice muffled through plastic, “nothing says Colorado more than South Park. I figured if I was gonna protest in Estes Park, I might as well do it as Kenny.”
When I asked why he came out, he didn’t hesitate. “Because we’ve got to work together. There are no kings in America—at least, there shouldn’t be.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Seventy-eight,” he said, with a grin visible through the fogged-up mask.
Further down the line, I found a small group of younger locals—recently out of college, some freelance mountain-sports journalists, others climbers or guides. They’d brought homemade signs and a baby stroller, the kind of crew that usually works in the national parks, not show their political unrest.
One of them, a local writer, said, “I mostly cover outdoor stuff—climbing, conservation—but this matters too. Journalism matters.” Then she thanked me for showing up and doing my part.
Another jumped in: “Honestly, the shutdown pushed me out here. A lot of my friends are federal employees. They’re not getting paid, but they’re still showing up for work. That’s messed up. So I figured the least I could do was show up for them.”
They smiled as a car honked in support. “It’s nice to see so many community members out,” one added. “This is a small town, but people showed up. That matters.”
Then there was the man in the eagle costume—Estes Park’s answer to Uncle Sam by way of guerrilla theater. His nylon wings flapped violently in the mountain gusts as he shouted over the noise.
“I’m here to raise awareness that our government is being overthrown by a fascist dictator,” he told me, dead serious despite the feathers. “And where better than Estes Park? With all the tourists coming through, you get maximum exposure for the movement.”
He paused, then smiled. “And for the record—I love our police department. Love our mayor. It’s different here. Peaceful.”
Just when I thought I’d seen it all, a man approached carrying a sign that read Refuse Unlawful Orders. Beneath it were the names Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer—officers who defied commands during the Sand Creek Massacre.
He explained, “Those two refused to fire on the Cheyenne and Arapaho people who had disarmed under a flag of truce. If they hadn’t, the massacre would’ve been even worse. They followed conscience over command.”
He gestured toward the crowd. “That’s what this moment feels like—a test of conscience. When power starts demanding immoral things, it comes down to the individual to refuse. That’s what democracy depends on.”
By the time the crowd began to thin and the winds began to blow even harder, my daughter and I were both wind-chapped and grinning. She waved, told me she loved me, then headed down the block to her part-time job, flags whipping in the cold. Estes Park had spoken—not in rage, but in resolve.
It wasn’t D.C. or Denver, but it didn’t need to be. Out here in the mountains, democracy sounded like honking horns, fluttering signs, and a teenage photographer reminding her old man to stay out of Kenny’s way.
