There were protests in all 50 states.
Just because you didn’t hear about them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. I walked the line in West Virginia and I was not alone.
The media is afraid of Musk and won’t report on his empire breaking because they are afraid.
We are here.
We won’t win, but at least when folks who really need their mental health pharmaceuticals get rounded up and put in RFJ’s farms, we will know that we tried.
I never said they didn’t happen. I did say they were useless. I stand behind that statement.
Are you basing that statement on any facts or is it simply your opinion?
I will make an offering of alfredo sauce to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It will have the same effect as the protests.
And this is why you will end up in one of RFK’s farms where you will learn to grow healthy food and get over your addiction to drugs. This is happening right now!
But, you are right. Ain’t nothing we can do about it, so why bother.
I’ll thank you not to put words in my mouth. I did not say ‘There is nothing we can do’. I simply said ‘Public protests of Trump are useless and will achieve nothing’. Once again, I stand behind that.
I am sorry. I am sure that you are right and that public protests are useless and never work.
Do you think that writing letters and making phone calls are equally useless?
Once again, you put words in my mouth. I never said “public protests are useless and never work.”
I did say protesting Trump is useless and will never work. For the third time, I stand behind that statement.
OK, I guess I am not able to understand your words. Have a great life!
That would certainly seem to be tha case.
Moderating:
Dial it back. You’re being a jerk.
This might not be a very popular response but I don’t think Dems should be protesting at all right now. I think they should keeping their powder dry for the right moment which will happen sooner rather than later.
Americans are singularly self focused, they care primarily about their own needs and desires and right now things aren’t that bad. The stock market just hit an all time high, unemployment is still low, and inflation is around 3%. I just don’t think protests will move the needle much right now.
However this will soon change and it when it does it will be very palpable and felt by large swaths of people. When people are feeling the sting in the loss of public services; farmers are losing their farms because they not getting their subsidy checks and all the cheap labor has dried up; when veteran services are cut; when middle class families can’t send their kids to college because there’s no grant money; when grocery and gas prices are even more astronomical than they are now; when people get desperate then they will rise up but not one minute before.
Stock market indices are not a good metric for public satisfaction, economic health, or really anything other than how optimistic wanton speculators are. The notion that “right now things aren’t that bad” is something you can say only if you haven’t been personally affected, as tens of thousands of government employees already have been as well as people whose livelihood or welfare depends on government funds and grants.
I know a couple who have between them over half a century of investment in public health, running a virology lab and an epidemiological training program at a top tier research university who have had to lay off post docs, warn grad students and trainees that the will likely not be able to complete their programs, and are now strongly considering leaving their tenured positions to move to Europe or Canada, all because of purely arbitrary and capricious cuts in previously allocated public health spending by the NIH and NIAID. Not only are their lives, and those of dozens of aspiring public health and research scientists being completely upended but it is also disrupting important and even vital work of preparing for and responding to public health emergencies and epidemics, all because of one fucking conspiranoist predator who seeks to enrich himself at public expense.
Another couple I know were dismissed from USAID without even notice or so much as an offer to return them to the US, not only impacting them but the tens of thousands of people that their work served (and potentially millions if political instability or an undetected epidemic were to arise without notice). Personally, I’ve received several emails from my company that if we aren’t paid by end of quarter they will suspend work and send everyone on indefinite furlough because there are apparently very legitimate concerns about the ability of government payment systems to even function. So no, despite bullshit inflation and unemployment indicators, or the stock market running pell mell up a cliff face, everything is not fine.
Stranger
Stock indices may not be a very good measure of the health of the macro economy, but it is a place where many middle class have invested a great deal of their life savings and when those indices start to plummet the middle class will take notice and quickly lose their patience. I also mentioned several other factors that do affect people lives directly such as current unemployment level (still around 4%), grocery and gas prices, as well as CPI (inflation) and the loss of social services. What I didn’t do is list anecdotes of people I personally know who have been affected. A great deal of those federal employees are receiving severance packages or otherwise have some amount of discretionary saving. When that well dries up which will be sooner rather than later they will become desperate. I have every expectation that the macro economy will soon take a drastic downturn, people will start foreclosing on their homes en mass, farmers will lose their farms, etc. I just don’t think we are there yet.
But it sure looks like one thing the Donald pays attention to. Go cash may be a wierd way to protest.
One thing about protesting is that it’s visible. This has obvious and numerous upsides, especially when so many people scream that nobody’s doing anything when they actually mean that they don’t see it themselves. The only individual methods more visible carry hardcore prison sentences. So that’s what many people do.
The stuff that actually works end up being made illegal or being heavily criticized.
Jury nullification for anyone arrested for committing a crime against a fascist state works, which is why politicians criticize this tactic endlessly. Look at how much hate politicians have for the public sympathy for Luigi. But jury nullification was a very powerful tactic used by abolitionists. People would commit crimes against slave catchers, then the jury of abolitionist sympathizers would refuse to convict.
Strategically done labor strikes are extremely effective. Thats why both democrats and republicans worked together in a bipartisan way to make it illegal for rail workers to strike in 2022.
Primaries to elect democrats who are effective and have spines are also effective. However living in a deep red state, there isn’t much you can really do.
Politicians prefer the public engage in protests, petitions and emails because those are useless and can be ignored.
There’s lots to do.
Start doing things that politicians care about. That means taking the advice of former Congressional staff members who know. And that means joining your local Indivisible chapter. Discussion in this thread. Briefly, don’t think you can do everything: those in blue states/districts will run a different strategy than those in red or swing states/districts. It’s all in the colorful 20 page Indivisible document, mostly in the first quarter of the document.
Leverage your social network. In other words, there’s plenty to do if you’re a lawyer. STEM has dragged its collective feet. Methinks a message of shared traditional conservative and liberal values could work, but who knows?
This bluesky thread organizes Trump actions by its opposition. It also has a spreadsheet of actions that went unopposed. Worth posting multiple times on this message board (but not spamming)
You need to break down the different sections of the electorate. 40% are for the GOP, and some of them should know better. 40% are for Democrats and democracy. 20% are unengaged and affected by the price of eggs. Worldwide there was a turn against incumbents and I say it was because of supply side inflation, which was beyond any politician’s control. Oh well.
Similarly, those reviewing the 2016 election numbers found them unexceptional, which means that Hillary wasn’t a particularly bad candidate, Biden wasn’t a particularly good one, and Kamala wasn’t too bad either. Granted it’s not a great insight to say that political victories occur at the margin, but it’s important to realize that, “How do we win elections? (A: at the margin)”, is a fundamentally different question than, “Why did people vote for Trump? (a question about the median Trump voter, as opposed to the median American voter)”.
Any explanation for the 2024 loss must account for the huge swing in Latino voting (majorities of Latinos still voted for Democrats, but by a much thinner margin), and the fact that swing states swung a lot less than non-swing states did (indicating that Democratic GOTV and ad spending were superior to GOP efforts). Those are median American voter facts. The academic/think tank analysis of them should be available by June of this year. Maybe there’s a paper out now.
This Tumblr post and its replies discuss other potential goals of protesting besides sparking direct action. You may not agree, but I think it’s worth discussing potential other reasons.
Sure, one of the major virtues of protest is that it illustrates to the ‘silent majority’ of like-minded people that they aren’t alone. But it isn’t going to cause Trump and his collection of circus clowns to abate their attacks on government one bit, and it for sure isn’t going to do a damn thing about Elon Musk fucking around with government accounting and payment systems, or arbitrarily firing people and defunding agencies with zero oversight or accountability whatsoever.
Stranger
Well, sure, if direct and immediate change is the only metric by which we should measure success. I’m not saying it’s not severely important, just that I’m open to the idea that it’s not the only, and that not achieving direct and immediate change doesn’t necessarily mean it was a huge waste of time and resources.
I mean, most protestors are still going to work every day. That ain’t gonna stop Trump or Musk either.
Protests at this point are for keeping the activists busy and committed to a future, rather than giving way to hopelessness and despair. Moreover, in general people like to see others preaching for their side, whether that’s in politics or football. It’s harder winning in a stadium in which everyone is cheering for the other team. You also don’t have to go home and wait for the next protest to get involved. There will be local groups almost everywhere always looking for volunteers. (If the local group is eccentric, start a new one or overwhelm the current one with your numbers.)
In the meantime, don’t forget that local elections happen at odd times and so do special elections for the House. Three of them are scheduled for the near future to replace Matt Gaetz, Michael Waltz, and Elise Stefanik. All are from deeply red districts so it would take a miracle. If you want to find a place to donate now, however, that’s a start.
Or perhaps look to Wisconsin and the Supreme Court seat that’s open. If the Democrat-backed “non-partisan” judge wins, the liberals have the majority. If the Elon Musk-backed “non-partisan” candidate does, the court flips.
Protests do not, in literal fact, change anything by themselves. They’re simply symbolic of the change that is desired. Not an inconsiderable result. But they are just the start of getting political victories. You can skip that step and go on to the following ones any time you want.