Renaissance Style Impeachment

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We spent the evening before Labor Day (September 4th, 2006) preparing a special flier (shown above), putting Renaissance costumes together, and fashioning signs. The next day we traveled to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and arrived somewhat later than we had intended — at around noon. We were working on a minimal amount of sleep, but we were determined to remind people that impeachment remains timely and crucial to our democracy — and have some fun in the process.

We both wore signs reading "Impeach King George." One of us had a "Stop the Crusades" sign and the other had a "Restoreth Due Process" sign. We walked all over the Renfest many times, passing out our fliers and calling out for Bush’s impeachment in the most Elizabethan manner we could muster. This meant speaking about the country as if it were a monarchy and a kingdom, as well as using phrases like "bloody hell" and "by jove" a lot. It also meant using accents, which (due to our somewhat dubious acting skills and general silliness) shifted between upper and lower class English accents, morphing once in a while to Scottish and Irish accents, and even changing once or twice (strangely) to Australian accents.

Perhaps the highlight of our experience occurred when we entered the Festival parade. Though we weren’t scheduled to be a part of it, we simply walked up and slipped in at the end, hoping that no one would notice that we didn’t belong. Almost immediately after we stepped in line — and we still aren’t sure exactly why — the final installment of the parade (two people carrying a picture of the backsides of two horses) came up right behind us, ensuring that we looked entirely natural as members of the parade. We got pretty bold as we walked through a crowd of thousands of people, calling in loud voices for all to hear for King George’s impeachment on the grounds that he hath violated the law, committed torture, spied on his people, initiated crusades, and the like. No one asked us to leave, so we saw the whole parade through!

As we went about our day, some Fest attendees were not immediately aware of who we meant by King George II. We occasionally had to clarify that our quarrel was with he and not King Henry, the King of the Renaissance Festival. Most people seemed to catch on pretty fast, though. As always, there was some dissent. One Fair attendee decided our flier should be used as toilet paper and graphically wiped himself with one before stuffing it inside one of our shirts. Another engaged us in enthusiastic debate for about ten minutes before being reluctantly dragged away by a friend. And of course, some people ignored us.

Overall, however, we got an overwhelmingly positive response from the vast majority of people. We gave away well over a thousand fliers, and after we ran out, people kept asking for more. Many people congratulated us for making the effort, many cheered, and many others gave words of encouragement.