Ok but it’s crazy that the George Floyd protests were 5x bigger than this, even with COVID in full swing.
Nobody had anything better to do back then
Oh, nuh-uh! FOX News said it was a lightly attended failure. Who am I gonna believe, FOX:News or every local news sorce, that actually was there, in the country?
Yeah!
Now knock off all that fascism - or we WILL go back out there and do another lap!
We clearly have the numbers against traitorous conservatives.
Would be really cool if we could use those numbers before allowing them to destroy our society.
Good… now repeat it but as a General Strike
A general strike would be devastating. But we ain’t there yet.
Not that I don’t love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They’ll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
A 1-week strike ahead of the mid-terms would be enough to make the GOP turn on Trump.
But that’s over a year out.
Defeatism has NO PLACE HERE. Pack your shit and leave, fucker! SERIOUSLY fuck off.
But we ain’t there yet.
Sorry but this line is how the USA fell off the wagon in the first place
nd not only that, you got there on Jan 6
Behead those who say No Kings is violent
Match the energy during election day ballot yeah?? Thanks
That’s great news. The other 9 of the 10 biggest protests were were extremely successful at affecting change.
Since we made such massive progress on all the others, this is clearly a harbinger of social and political progress.
- George Floyd (Police Brutality)
- Earth Day 1970 (Environmental Protection)
- No Kings (Trump)
- Hands Across America (Poverty)
- Women’s March 2017 (Feminism)
- Hands Off (Trump)
- March for Our Lives (Gun Violence)
- Women’s March 2018 (Feminism)
- #RickyRenuncia (Puerto Rico, Resignation of Ricardo Rosselló)
- Great American Boycott (Immigrant Rights)
Only #9 actually accomplished what they wanted.
Earth day did a lot of good
Until we start seeing general strikes, or other action, they will continue to ignore the people.
A week of general strikes, and the stock exchange tanking acordingly, would actually have an effect.
I keep seeing this, and I don’t disagree, but what exactly is gonna change? Some rich people get slightly less rich, they’ll still own most of our government. Our current admin clearly doesn’t care about public opinion.
They care about money.
Day long general strikes have changed policy. A week would bring the government to the table on anything short of dissolving the government.
The US government is terrified of general strikes, and has gone to extraordinary measures to ensure they don’t happen.
great job everyone!
Ok. I’m too chicken shit to actually show up in person to one of these protests.
What’s the next best thing I can do to meaningfully help?
You’ll only be scared before you go to the protest. Once you’re there you’ll be fine. The vibe on the ground at every protest I’ve been to is great and there’s a real feeling of camaraderie and support from your community. There is some risk, yes. It’s probably still safer than crossing the street.
I get being afraid of going to a protest considering we have police literally saying they’ll just kill people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get involved with those organizing the protests. See if you can get involved with the organizers of your local protests and ask them what they need for the protests. After all, those signs you see people carrying didn’t make themselves. At the very least you can call your reps and make your voice heard. Even if your reps are dems, make it clear that you want real action, not just talk. You could also talk to the people around you: at work, at the store, family members, etc. Encourage them to call their reps. If your reps aren’t actively making things worse or letting things get worse by doing nothing but fundraise (so most reps) then see if there are efforts to primary any of them and encourage everyone you know to vote in the primaries too
Like I said, I understand being afraid to go to a protest. I am too. But you have to remember that if we don’t stop Trump and a full blown fascist takeover, then things will be much, much worse and much, much harder to change
Wtf, the police is literally saying they’ll just kill people?? I missed that one, do you have a link?
Yup. Florida police
Jeeeeesus
Can you share what exactly your concerns are so that folks could suggest a mitigation strategy?
Fucking show up is what you can do.
wear a mask and dark shades to stay anonymous and stand in quietly in back then. the trick is numbers. you don’t have to heft a sign and chant slogans and be a spectacle if you don’t want to, you can just fill space and it will still help.
Grow a pair.
& here come the lies about the protests https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4mwJ1sIxt4
not to rain on the parade or nothing, but a protest that hasn’t the implicit threat of “…or else” is just a hang
All the other benefits of a non-violent protest aside, there’s also immense value is reminding people that they’re not as singular in their viewpoint as they feel.
For a lot of people, it’s been very easy to feel like everyone else must be in board with this.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for to codify the implicit threat. A couple million people calling you a king at an event called “no kings day” in a country whose founding narrative is “violently rebel against kings” seems pretty implicit to me.
Also, I just realized that there’s a red coat/red hat parallel I haven’t seen leveraged yet that has a lot of potential.
there’s also immense value is reminding people that they’re not as singular in their viewpoint as they feel.
This destroys the narrative of the protested party. They cannot convincingly talk about ‘a few misguided people disagreeing’ when you see so many others who feel like you. Even if nothing would be achieved by the protest, this is an immensely powerful confirmation of an individuals beliefs. 100% agree.
They don’t have “a” narrative that can be refuted. Any narrative that they present is facile and can be changed in mid sentence. Addressing the things they say is a waste of effort, even as counter-propaganda. It costs them orders of magnitude less to spread bullshit than it costs you to spread the antidote. This is just another way that they get you.
I don’t mean to devalue organizing and peaceful protest, but the benefits are what it does to us, not what it does to them.
Showing up isn’t arguing against them, it’s sending a message to other people (amongst other things).
Arguing with fascists is pointless. Showing that not everyone agrees with them is different though, and has value. They may not have a singular static narrative, but they rely on the perception that dissent is a minority position.
I was trying to say that. Seeing others puts a ‘narrative’ that is different from theirs in your own head, because you see with your own eyes. Everybody still needs to adress all incoming information, it’s not always apparent it is a false story.
Would be MUCH more effective if all the protesters were armed.
The lesson from A Handmaid’s Tale is don’t protest without the arms to back it up.
Getting millions of Americans to go out and essentially shout “F U Donald” is a little bit more than a hang. And is potentially much more effective than a riot or occupy wall street.
America is still a democracy, in that all the roads to power require you to get folk to show up and vote for you.
Alright, so let’s say trump is gone, what replaces him? Business as usual republicans who were all on board with his policies but didn’t like how boisterous he was. Democrats are all too happy to play along, fellating war criminals like dick cheney and george bush. America is a representative democracy where you vote on which representative will represent billionaires for you.
I hope these protests develop into something more, but realistically I can only anticipate them being used as political points for democrats during their donation drives to raise tons of money to promote billionaire ass-kissers. Things will continue to get worse and then the next villain of the week will appear as the conduit to do all the bad things billionaires want. We’ll be told again all we need to do is get rid of this next villain too and then things will be fine, but then the cycle repeats as things continue to just get worse.
America is still a democracy,
Not much longer if americans dont fight harder.
That is exactly why the midterms will be so important, not to mention the next presidential election. We need to keep the momentum going for a blue wave, and this protest may have helped with that.
When that fails, when Democrats lose voting rights, when Trump pardons the Minnesota assassin to effectively legalize political violence against MAGA’s enemies, when all peaceful options for democracy have been exhausted, then let’s talk about the violent revolution. Until then, there’s no reason to be a buzzkill about this protest.
The fact that No Kings was nonviolent was perfect, for now, because trying to riot or a coup would have just enabled MAGA to justify state-sanctioned violence of their own.
Well, good thing that the Minnesota assassin is currently being held on state-level murder charges because Trump can’t pardon non-federal charges.
Oh, thank goodness.
I see so many videos with people saying “I support you” and none saying “I’m going to take action.” Everyone is dawdling, nobody is doing anything
5 million people are doing something, your comment is shitting on their effort.
It’s incredible that millions of people showed up and pretty much none of them feel for Donald Trump’s trap that would have, to the MAGA Republicans, justified martial law and the suspension of liberties.
I’m pretty solidly convinced the protest was a good thing and that we won this battle.
And 2-3 million were doing something a few months ago with the earlier protests. With any luck this trajectory continues
They are saying the effort was toothless, no need to take it so personal.
I would argue that it already isn’t. we kinda waited a bit too long, that’s why the protests happened.
Truth will be in the form of how they respond to the protests. If we end up with military occupation or martial law, we’re already not a democracy.
that said, tomato, tomaaato, same fix.
It feels good to know that lots of other Americans care about what’s going on. I don’t know if we’re going to make it but I felt like part of a country out there and I hope we figure it out.
You guys think that merely walking around in your own time holding up a board and shouting a bit, all focused on the mango puppet instead of the puppet masters, is going to change anything given that there is no single Historical event in the US ever of the lower classes rebelling against and deposit the upper classes (even the Revolution was literally the American plebs led by the American upper class fighting against the English plebs controlled by the English upper class)?!
The murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare had more impact, if only temporary because it wasn’t followed by more similar murders.
Even millions of people marching and shouting a bit (and so polite that they do it in their own time) will cause no fear for the elites because that’s in no way a warning that the heads of the elites will soon start getting separated from their shoulders if nothing changes.
You need at the very least a General Strike and/or targetting the economic and propaganda interests of the elites (trashing the TV studios of certain channels or certain newspapers would send a powerful message).
I mean, just notice the impact on police violence of the greatest demonstrations in the US - the George Floyd protests: nothing or even worse than nothing as the pigs have never been this violent.
Getting average people to the point that they are ready to do something like a general strike is a process.
Most people don’t even want to have to go to a protest.
But going to a protests is like anteing up in poker – it is mentally anchoring people as in the game and publicly taking a side.
And yeah - the fucks in power are going to say “bet”.
So now millions of people who are not where we already are, who have not wrestles with this and avoided it as long as they can - they are starting to ask, “ok, what do we actually have to risk to change this? What am I willing to do?”
Will we get enough people actually engaged enough for a general strike? I have no idea.
But I know it won’t happen without giving people a ramp-up that includes things like the protest this weekend.
Come over and lead the revolution then, if you think you’ve got what it takes. Otherwise, you’re also doing nothing of note.
I’m not American. If I went there to lead the revolution I would end up in El Salvador.
I did, however, got involved in politics in two countries I live in and did a lot of campaigning for them, so I’ve actually done the deed as far as I could rather than merely talk about it, and did so further than just demonstrations.
Demonstrations are nice as a way for people to know that they’re far from alone in their concerns, but they’re worthless if not leveraged into helping make or grow grassroots organization to change the actual underlying problems that results in somebody like Trump getting elected again and again (and I’m pretty sure that if that doesn’t change, when Trump is out somebody else like him or worse will eventually get elected).
The Georgy Floyd demonstrations are a great example of what happens if demonstrations aren’t leveraged to grow civic-society movements for change: you get some vague promises from politicians and then nothing actually changes.
I just feel that people here are treating these demonstrations as some kind on getting near the finish line when they’re at best (and hopefully) a beginning, and not even a beginning of the end but and beginning of the beginning, and they should be treated as opportunities to get the ball rolling on things that can actually snowball into real change.
If all you do after a demonstration is pat yourself on the back for having “done something” whilst you don’t even have some contacts for groups of people you’re thinking of joining for further actions, you’ve just done exactly what the actual powers that control the country wanted you to do: defused your anger whilst not starting the ball rolling on real change.
Murdering ceos didnt do jack shit, real change only happens like this
These protests, while better than nothing, will not produce real change.
Just as the George Floyd protests did not produce real change (Pelosi kneeling and raising a fist is not “real change”)
UnitedHealth reduced claim denials following the murder. So at least that is some tangible positive result
Just as the George Floyd protests did not produce real change
That’s just not true though. You’re just spouting bullshit on the internet.
That link states that no federal reform occurred. Which supports my point.
Of the state level changes, they are all aesthetic and surface level changes - and even those are now being undone.
So I’m not seeing the real change. Which demonstrates that the protests were not effective
3rd largest so far.
Seriously, there will be more, I don’t think we’ve seen the biggest ones yet either.
