politics

I think this is an important part of protesting that goes overlooked by the "protests don't immediately solve the problem" people. I'm in a very conservative area as well but when I protest I get more support than opposition. It helps other people realize that hey, maybe I'm not actually surrounded by people who are okay with this. Maybe there are actually a lot more of my neighbors who aren't okay with things, and there's actually hope that if I start acting up more, I'll have support. Hope and morale are pretty important for resistance movements.

Same. I woke up and saw there was another protest scheduled for today projected to be bigger than the last one. I thought "maybe this time there will be one in my town" and lo and behold. I swung by at the tail end of it to see what was up and it was active to the very end. I talked to the event organizers who said 300 people showed up and most care were honking and giving thumbs up. I ended up following the group to a post-protest location to eat and hangout and all in all I talked for five straight hours. I only expected to swing by for a couple minutes to see if there were more than a dozen people.

3% of 320 million is like 9.6 million. I guess they needed another 1.6 million people before the world changes for them.

It needs a trifecta. Protests, Politics, and "Persuasion".

The protests give weight to the political group. They also give cover and a place to organise for harder actions.

The political elements act to focus the will of the protestors, and provide guidance to the agitators.

The "Persuasion" group add teeth to the political demands. They also act to defend the protestors, when the government gets aggressive.

The 3 need to work together to achieve major changes. "The Troubles", in northern island are a good example. The IRA didn't achieve much/anything practical. What they did was force the UK government to sit down and negotiate in (vaguely) good faith. The protests and marches acted to show large scale support for the changes.

Against an intelligent, aware government, the need for violence is implicit, rather than explicit. It's a lot better to engage early and diffuse political hot potatoes. Unfortunately, the US government doesn't seem like they will take the hints.

The marches should be used to crystallise the other 2 requirements. A political agency, to act as a voice. As well as those willing to go further, to act as the muscle.

The mythical 3.5% rule is to keep protests peaceful, which only helps the oppresser

Everyone forgot that there is a hidden big good function for protests more than just a good way to show unity

The hidden function is to enable people to be together so they can socialize, get to know each other, and brainstorm on what they can do together to make things better in some way. Brainstorming, doing, and collaborating united

Everybody in a protest getting things done is more effective than a protest where everyone is only just walking with signs

That's the problem with protests since Trump was elected. It turns out you can just ignore protests, and this never occurred to politicians up until this point. Up until then, politicians acknowledged protests as a good-faith effort to represent their constituents.

Otherwise this is performative bullshit while we need hard action.

What kind of action are you talking about?

From what I've seen this is already happening, along with other engagement drives like circulating petitions and recruiting for mutual aid or collecting aid donations. Those efforts can vary by location but it's certainly not "just standing around with signs" like critics say.

have you been to a protest? they do this at like, every single one of them.

Some dude at the protest I attended had a petition signature sheet for ranked choice voting. He took time to calmly explain how RCV functioned to protestors who weren't familiar with it. Wound up getting a lot of signatures once he brought up the costs of runoff elections on the taxpayer's dime. Gotta know how to speak to your audience

Nokings.org ? You do have to look for it. Not going to show up on your Instagram feed...

Over 3000 protests in the US plus sixteen countries, according to The Guardian. We're here.

Oh, and in respect of your instance I saw a Canadian maple leaf sign that said "Elbows up!" in a picture of the Portland, Oregon demonstration (tenth down, near the bottom of the frame). I miss the goodwill and friendship of Canada so much. Keep boycotting!

No, we haven't hit 10,000,000 yet. About 12,000,000 is the magic number to reach 3.5% and possibly reach a Tipping Point that becomes a national trend.

I submit that we are already there. No Kings is a literal DEMONSTRATION of our numbers, but it doesn't tell the whole story. There are MILLIONS of people at home, who are just as committed, but will not participate in a protest for many reasons. That does not mean they are less committed, just that the physical act of protesting isn't possible for some reason.

And No Kings is too infrequent. If that's all we had, we'd be screwed. Even more important are people talking to their families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, encouraging their resistance, and spreading the word person by person, as well as online. That keeps the resistance growing between Demonstrations, so each No Kings protest grows, and freaks out MAGA each time.

We've already blown past that 3.5%, and we're heading for Midterms.

We did go for beers after so. Not wrong.

It's going to turn into a music festival soon with capitalism ruining it. Bruce Springsteen already showed up to one.