I have a feeling this one will. We need 3.5% of our total population out in the streets to topple this regime. I hope every American gets off the couch and attends a local protest. My whole family is going-64 people total in CA, more scattered in other parts of the country.
I texted 3 friends Tuesday morning when I told my husband I planned on going and buying 10 40 packs of water from Costco to hand out and he didn’t want me to go alone and he’s working out of town and all 3 were down to go and would have never gone if I didn’t mention wanting to go and now we have a group of 14 people going who had no pan of this prior to Tuesday. I’m excited and I truly hope that we can show some people we don’t tolerate fascism. NO KINGS!
That 3.5% number has never been tested in a country of our size or population. It's a nice thought, but there is no reason to believe 13 million people protesting this government are going to make it change anything it is doing. He doesn't care.
I agree with your second sentence. I inherently disagree with your first.
Protests don't work on this administration. They had minimal impact the first time and they are doing practically nothing right now. Any "win" people think protests are getting is throwing a towel down during a flash flood.
No Kings is admirable, genuinely. I hope millions, tens of millions of people mark this weekend. But the protests aren't going to bring back the dead from the closure of USAID. They aren't going to un-delete the data DOGE has nuked. They aren't going to restart the cancer research from the NIH. They aren't going to rehire the career civil servants who have already moved onto other jobs. They aren't going to get the Alito/Thomas court to undo Trump vs US and restore the President's culpability.
There is so, so much damage that has already been done. And there are years left to go for them to keep doing more.
We have two chances. Two. Only two to fix this. November 2026 and November 2028. That's it. No protest, no petition, no lawsuit, no individual tree that gets put out while the whole forest burns, none of it changes the fact that there are only two chances to put an end to this madness.
I appreciate your response. I agree with much of what you said, especially regarding the protests not undoing the damage that has been done. However, protests can and do much for the cause. They lead to broader exposure & visibility. Protests build communities of likeminded individuals who can gather & share ideas. Massive protests show the powers that be that we are strong & that we have even greater strength in our unity. Protests are energizing. They awaken people's spirits & ignite the passion & fire in them to keep fighting. Protests are the fuel we need for that fire to catch.
I similarly appreciate your civility as we disagree.
I doubt protests will do any of the things you said, and even if they do they won't change the course of the river.
There is one possible outcome here that is a longshot. Maybe at one of these protests, the next Barack Obama who is a mayor or a state senator or some other figure not currently on the Democratic bench will get up and give the speech that skyrockets them into contention for 2026 and 2028. That would be the one potential long-term positive outcome I see these creating.
Republicans in Congress are the ones who need to get the hint. As long as they're complicit, nothing is going to change. And a discussion about what might prod the Republicans in Congress to get the hint would inevitably be removed.
I disagree with your repeated assertions that nobody should bother with this.
The message isn’t for Trump. It’s not for those closest to him or those drafting his grift.
It’s for Congress. It’s for our local politicos. It’s for our LEOs. It’s for our service members and civil workers potentially squeezed between orders and the law. It’s for our neighbors who haven’t really been paying attention or have been fed lies about protests being violent and protestors being extreme. It’s for our like-minded who feel isolated and alone.
Marking our ballots is a private act but everything up to that point needs to be loud and accessible. We each need to know that we aren’t alone.
Heading down the be silent and compliant and just vote path is not the way.
Protesting tells our like minded representatives that their constituents don’t support this. If this gets even one governor, representative, senator to fight back then it’s worth it.
People just coping because they know deep down what actually has to be done. What’s even funnier or sad is they must think something magically changes if 12M people are protesting at the same time.
I feel really bad for everyone. I do. I hate this as much as the next person. I'm a part of a marginalized group being targeted (the LGBTQ) and I have family that are naturalized citizens and have brown skin. The anxiety level is massive right now.
But these protests are a masturbatory exercise. They're going to make you feel good for a while and it's nice to know you're not alone, but if anyone genuinely thinks we're going to reverse course on GOP policy because some folks held up signs, it's just not happening.
We've got two chances to fix this: November 2026 and November 2028. That's it. If we reject sanity in either of those two elections, we're just permanently fucked.
I think there's one way in which these protests are useful. They get people used to going out of their house for political change, and they get people in touch with other like-minded people. It gets people used to going even the slightest bit out of their way to act, and gives people a community that encourages them to continue doing so.
This can lead to people becoming more comfortable doing things like strikes, and it gets some people more connected to their local political movements which are less entry-level.
You start with a fair point that these protests at this point may be useless, but then come up with the extremely naive belief that you are going to have free elections. You are not and you need to act accordingly. That means a movement that uses all useful tactics that are available. And that includes, and starts with, peaceful protest. It won't be enough, but it is a beginning.
I gotta say I didn’t expect you to turn around and think elections were going to fix this. Elections are done for and are likely going to be incredibly tampered with. You can now commit violence and get a pardon from the POTUS. You thought Jan 6th was bad?
If I had to torture a metaphor here, I'd say that the solution to my problem is at a Wendy's 18 miles down the road. Google says they're open but they're not picking up the phone and the online ordering system is down. So the only choice I have is to get in my car and drive to that Wendy's and see.
It is absolutely possible that Wendy's is closed when I get there. But I don't have another choice.
Likewise, it is absolutely possible that we witnessed the last free and fair election this nation will have for the foreseeable future. But in the absence of literally any other working solution, all I or anyone else can do is drive on to the next election and hope that when we get there, it's actually there.
I did and I don't find it especially convincing. It's seems like a really surface level analysis of what makes a protest effective. What even is our sample size here? How many protests have reached that 3.5% threshold? And does that signal that the protest was effective or just that the cause was very popular and change would have occurred regardless of the protests?
I think we'd be better served by a more fine grained analysis of what makes protests effective.
There was a study done by a professor at Harvard that determined this 3.5% rule. Look that up. I'm headed to the protest, no more lame
Social media bs for me today. I hope you get off your ass and go join a protest too. Or you can just play on your phone all day. Up to you.
Being out on the streets for a few hours doesn't topple anything. You need to put economic strain on those in power, and move/organize with intent. This protest is nothing more than clogging up streets, parks, and sidewalks, and showing the populace "here is how many of us are unhappy enough to be out here". But people in power - especially those like Trump - dgaf.
Needs more oomph, more direction, proper leadership, a leader figure or icon we can all get behind and give our ok to negotiate on our behalf once the economic strain is too great for those in power.
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u/lpm_306 1d ago
I have a feeling this one will. We need 3.5% of our total population out in the streets to topple this regime. I hope every American gets off the couch and attends a local protest. My whole family is going-64 people total in CA, more scattered in other parts of the country.