So apparently, tear gas was used on protestors in front of the White House. That got me thinking: the average citizen can get pretty scared when they see mass protest on city streets; they imagine (or know) it’s happening in their backyard, and they could get caught up in it. But does seeing it at city halls, government mansions, and the President’s home have the same effect? I kind of thought maybe not, because it directs anger towards people the public can generally buy as having responsibility, and at specific people, so there’s less fear of being “caught in the crossfire,” even if you do politically support those specific people.
IOW, I don’t feel like seeing protestors massed outside the White House has the same effect on the public that seeing them marching down Minneapolis streets does.
I worked right across the street from the state capitol (Denver). There were protests at the capitol at least once or twice a week. That was just where a lot of them happened. No. I feel not at all threatened by Americans’ right to protest. I do feel a little threatened when that right is curtailed. In fact, damn threatened.
It sometimes made it annoying to get to work. (Or more likely, to get to lunch.) But not threatening.
Note, this is just one American weighing in. YMMV.
I work 1/2 block from a favorite protest place in Chicago (next to the Federal Buildings).
I’ve walked by/been in…I dunno…a couple dozen protests easily. Many small, a few really big.
I honestly never felt scared at all and walked right by the protesters or joined them and no fuss at all. Cops were there but they just watched and kept things semi-orderly with traffic.
I lived for about a decade in France, where protesting is something of a national hobby, and I never felt particularly threatened by a bunch of people marching, whether in front of governmental buildings or on residential streets. I haven’t seen much in the recent national protests that would make me fearful either, except for a) images of looting and fires, and b) heavily armed cops and military bundled up like Star Wars clone warriors, which in the latter case, AFAIK, is intentional.
Government buildings are a great place to protest. Usually plenty of space, good photo ops, doesn’t disrupt anywhere else like a downtown protest, etc.
I was both outraged and felt threatened by the openly armed protesters at the “open up the economy” rallies at state capitals.
I never did. I worked in a government building for 20 years, complete with a convenient plaza that lent itself well to protest marches. While my job required me to remain strictly apolitical during working hours, I often felt a kinship with protesters and was glad to see them peacefully exercising their rights to assemble and protest.
Of course this was in California, where concealed carry is a virtual non-issue and open carry is non-existent. People carried signs, not guns.
I would allow that the dangers posed by protests are highly situational.
I worked close to there for several years, and my office is now a block from the Thompson Center (the state office building) and two blocks from Daley Plaza, though I haven’t been to the office for three months.
As a result, I’ve seen a lot of protests at those buildings. I never felt threatened by them, just occasionally inconvenienced.
yeah, those turds strutting around Lansing in their knock-off “tacticool” wardrobes really was a bad look. They may have thought they looked like bad-asses, but a Wal-mart grade “tactical” vest that barely slips over your gut and gardening gloves doesn’t make you look like a gritty soldier of fortune, it makes you look ridiculous.
I wish they protested at government buildings, I live in a city of 50,000 people and that was still enough people to loot several commercial buildings, break into a sporting goods store to loot guns, and then the stragglers attempted to start breaking into nearby houses because my cities commercial districts are surrounded by residential areas. Apparently there was an actual peaceful protest at city hall but that conveniently drew all the cops to city hall while large groups went to the other city of town and hit all the major retail stores.
As an American I don’t feel threatened by most protests at government buildings, and in the case of people protesting for justice I’m fully behind them and happy to see them. Riots and looting are more threatening but I don’t begrudge people doing that, because nobody seems to improve the justice thing much until there is rioting and looting. More than “threatened”, what I feel is a wish that we would deliver liberty and justice for all before making anybody feel driven to rioting and looting.
I guess there’s an economic threat too, but it’s tiny compared to what wealthy and powerful entities are doing to the rest of us.
Now, the protests by people in vaguely military looking getups carrying huge rifles feels very threatening, and I also feel very threatened by the chemical weapons, flash/bang grenades, rubber and beanbag bullets, clubs, and mounted people the government is using at protests; the appearance of the military and the secret police has become enormously threatening.
BTW I don’t think of Washington, DC as a distant government place. I spent a significant amount of time growing up in the District, though it was Friendship Heights along the NW border and not downtown. It still has a bit of a homey feel to me. I get homesick for it in fact.
I think we need to differentiate between protesters and looters. Protesters are mainly doing so peacefully, while looters are opportunists taking advantage of the current situation. There is little overlap as far as I can tell.
To answer the question, no. These days, I feel much more threatened by the government itself than by anybody protesting against the government.
I think millions of Americans feel threatened. I also think millions of Americans are assholes.
It helps to be old and remember what the country was like under Nixon. I was a news editor at my college radio station. People were marching from campus to have a protest on the steps of City Hall. Not a large number, and they couldn’t fill the narrow flight of stairs. It was a nothing by any standard.
For reasons I don’t remember I stuck around after they dispersed. Suddenly police cars appeared from every surrounding street. Dozens of cars, probably more cars than protesters. They had City Hall completely ringed, ready to swoop in. I’ve never seen more police cars in the 50 years since.
To this day, I have no fear of protesters. But the possible police response scares me to death.
The police are extremely valuable and certainly necessary. But in the flicker of a second they can turn and be deadly marauders. Nobody has ever solved that paradox. It haunts those of us who have seen it. Over the last two weeks that number may have grown exponentially. Maybe that will at last force a change.