cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/mop/p/753896/you-are-permitted
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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I would happily hit a fascist with my car for no more reason but being within swerving distance but i will also just as happily hit an anti-fascist if they block the road, keeping me from my livelihood. I'm not the target of your protest, get out of my fucking way
Idk it really just sounds like you want to hit someone with your car.
I'd feel the same way. And yet...it's still effective.
"Why were you late?"
"Protesters."
"What were they protesting?"
And just like that, the conversation has started.
Yes, indeed. The conversation has started. But what conversation are they having? You seem to think they are talking about the cause being protested.
They aren't.
They're talking about the need for increased police powers to prevent such "anti-social" behavior. They're supporting broad, authoritarian legislation specifically because it includes provisions against the kind of "protests" that make them late to work, late getting home, late picking up their kids from school, late to their doctors appointments.
The net effect of blocking general traffic is increased support for authoritarianism, and greater tolerance for brutality against demonstrators, as we saw from tribal police in Nevada three years ago.
The conversations you want people to be having only come when your protest narrowly targets the people doing the oppressing. When you're intention is nothing more than pissing off their victims, you distract them from taking effective action, not focus their attention.
Yes, protests can be inconvenient. Freedom is messy.
The people who view protesting as "anti-social" aren't ever going to join your cause. They don't care about freedom, they care about safety and security.
There is a big difference between creating an incidental inconvenience, (such as by assembling 10,000 people whose mere presence disrupts traffic patterns around the protest site) and deliberately targeting fellow victims of oppression (such as by assembling a few dozen people to obstruct thousands on a freeway).
The former is a great way to protest. The latter is counterproductive.
If those few dozen people move their obstructive protest from the freeway to the driveway of the richest person in town, they get the same media coverage and motivate hundreds to come out and join them.
I think there's room for both.
Assembling even a dozen like-minded people for a coordinated protest is out of reach for most folks. What usually ends up happening is that a huge protest happens and everyone goes and then most of them are finished. They did their part.
The big protest ends up being a performative event, for both the protesters and the administration/police. The big protests usually happen on a weekend, so that everyone can attend. Usually in an urban area, where office and government buildings are closed on that day. So you end up with a downtown area packed with police and protesters and nobody else.
And even if you end up with a consistent, long-running, well attended protest, the chances are slim that it impacts anything. We did this for a year in Portland in 2020, and it made no difference. Maybe 25-50 people during the day would hold vigil over the park, watch other people's belongings and just be present. They'd chat with passers-by and make new signs, etc. But when evening came, things would ramp up as people got off their day jobs and came to join the crowd. The crowd would balloon to 5 or 10 thousand people sometimes, but even if it was only 500 or so people, they still had nightly clashes with police. At least two people died that summer.
It. Meant. Nothing. No meaningful change was affected. The police chief and the DA ended up resigning, and there were a few minor policy changes around how to better handle civil unrest.
I'm wondering, though, if we had been in a wealthy residential neighborhood, would things have been different? Probably. But could we get all those people to a suburb? Being in the city center provided all of the momentum. The foot traffic and downtown rush hour, drawing people's attention, that sort of thing. I don't know if that sort of excitement could be generated outside the city?
So..those a bunch of meandering thoughts, thanks for coming to my TED talk. :)
Yeesh. Bad hot take.