Another thing to remember is that the media turns "tens of thousands" into hundreds for anti-state protests and turns hundreds into "tens of thousands" for color revolutions and Trump rallies
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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askchapo
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There was an estimated 150k at the DC Palestine protest, they said "a few thousand" lol
thinking about the 2016 primary when Hillary couldn't fill a school gymnasium and Bernie was packing stadiums, and the lying bourgeois media liars would show tight-cropped shots to pretend Hillary had a crowd and never show the instances of a hundred thousand people roaring at Bernie rallies
Isn't it messier because these "protests" are occurring where ICE are in the middle of raiding? From what I can see of tactics it looks like groups of anti-ICE activists follow ICE around and then make shit loads of noise to agitate the local population out of their houses and into the street to counter them. This would generally pull several hundred people outside.
Organised marches can have thousands at a dedicated and planned location but those events aren't like the actions where Renee got shot in the face. Here's one from Minneapolis a few days ago: 
I think one thing to keep in mind too is that it is below freezing temperatures. Are you going to get thousands out to a march in Spain in sub-zero temps? The weather matters for turnouts and I think these turnouts are very large for these weather conditions. Here's another angle of that event: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DT3qRxdEsTq/
Thanks for the reply. I didn't mean to be 'Spain better' — just trying to get a handle on what's actually going on
I'm not there either so anyone present can give a better take. I'm parsing from outside as well and understand where you're coming from.
Trump talking about the lady shouting "SHAME" and "the noise" she was making and calling her a "professional agitator" seems to be a badly worded and unhinged way to describe the basic premise of following ICE around and beeping horns/making noise that is pulling people outside to counter them.
These things are mostly happening in suburbs from what I can tell, wherever ICE is trying to raid housing or workplaces that might have migrants.
For sure 100k+ in Minneapolis on Friday. Many protests in the big cities in the thousands, and in the hundreds basically everywhere. Small towns turn out dozens.
You think 100k? I've seen lots of wildly different estimates, but highest for in the cities was maybe 30,000. Which is still a lot.
I heard over 100k, but I think that might have added up actions across the state, not just the downtown rally. I've seen a lot saying 50-75k for the downtown rally.
That's a massive crowd to turn out downtown in that weather with public transit shut down in my opinion
Public transit wasn't shut down. They were still running busses and trains and had all hands on deck essentially. They were great at coordinating everyone getting there and leaving, since the trains were over their capacity a few times and had to make people get off, but went back for them so they didn't have to wait for the train to loop while standing in the cold. While it goes against the idea of a statewide strike, the numbers wouldn't have been possible without them.
I wasn't aware. I saw that the transit workers union endorsed the strike so I thought transit might not have been running but it does make sense to make sure to run trains and get people to downtown.
Still a big ask of people considering the weather, you minnesotan MFs are hardcore
From what I've heard from people in the state something like 50,000 people turned out.
200-300 in my large city. Organized by PSL in response to Alex Pretti's murder (so in a single day). Speeches and chants revolving around a general strike. The tone was angrier than pro-Palestine demonstrations I've attended recently. It's good to see PSL capitalizing on ICE outrage and hopefully inoculating people against anti-socialist attitudes and rhetoric.
There was ~75,000 in downtown minneapolis, subzero temperatures on Friday.
At the same time there were thousands in other large cities in solidarity (NYC and LA mainly)
It's not enough but at least they are hearing and reading 
propaganda and many are getting organized.
I don't give AF about protests anymore. They are too easily ignored and nothing ever changes from doing them.
I'll take 100 trained armed people on the rooftops over 10,000 sign holders any day. How do we get people to THAT point? So tired of just chanting while these fuckers are killing us
Protests are a tool for mobilizing people and demonstrating solidarity. Showing vulnerable people that they aren't alone. They have to be followed up with community meetings and other actions that channel that energy into ongoing productive work. The US is significantly lacking in follow up here because I guess people don't know what organize means?
Join a community defense group, join a socialist political party, get to work learning your local radical history and building on it. You can't simply win, you have to learn how to engage in a workers struggle in the first place.
I was at a protest/demonstration the other day. There were not too many signs, a couple chants, people from PSL were there, speakers talked about the urgent need to organize and confront racist state terror, and afterwards many people were meeting up and planning future discussions in the next couple days. It was a different atmosphere than previous protests, more camo apparel than normal and average looking people talking like "We need to stop the nazis now. No one else will save us." I agree with you, from what I've seen people seem to be entering a different stage, even a sort of lib friend of mine who has never really protested or been active in that way has been saying he's getting a gun.
People are at that point. It takes time and money to arm and train.