This. Trump is delivering on “owning the Libs” in a big way, and his fans are lapping it up and even more motivated now. “Wow! This is great! President for LIFE!!”
The problem is non-violent, legal protests accomplish virtually nothing. They just function as a release valve so people can let off steam while the people that truly hold the power ignore them.
The only protests that work are the ones that have consequences for powerful people. Voting in primaries, voting in general elections, jury nullification, illegal acts, etc. Also a protest that leads to the downfall of a regime only works if law enforcement and military refuse to put down the protests. If the military and law enforcement put down the protests, they fail (which is what happens in Iran and the military puts the protests down, but in eastern european nations around 1989, the military stood down so the regimes fell).
I have no idea what’ll happen with the LA protests. If the protesters hold back the police, and the city/state government tell the police to not cooperate with ICE, then the military gets sent in but the military hopefully doesn’t have the power to do anything. In theory the federal government just keeps escalating force until they break the spirit of people trying to protect marginalized groups. But what could also happen is people resist enough that the federal government backs off the same way Trump chickened out on his tariffs when he faced high enough consequences.
Trump sending in the military may be a bluff in the sense that the military may only send a few hundred soldiers without live ammunition to guard federal buildings. The federal government is just hoping it terrorizes the public enough that they stop resisting.
I disagree somewhat. There have been protests that succeeded. But the way they (the non-violent legal protests) succeeded was by changing hearts and minds. Hearts and minds of ordinary voters and the people in power. In the past that included Dwight Eisenhower, Earl Warren and LBJ. Further back, there was Abraham Lincoln becoming convinced by abolitionists. More recently, that was John Roberts when he was convinced to join the cause of legalizing gay marriage in the Obergefell decision.
What those all have in common is that the people whose hearts and minds were being won over were fundamentally decent people who just needed their eyes opened. That is not the case with Trump, his cronies, or the rank and file voters that support him. That avenue is not available. And so protesting will do no good.
Currently planning on joining the London protest, which will be outside the US Embassy on Saturday. I don’t anticipate a large crowd nor much trouble given that only building security will be working that day anyway.
Amusingly the organizers are carefully avoiding the “No Kings, No Crowns” rhetoric in order to avoid being mistaken for small-r republicans, and are instead promoting a “No Tyrants, No Clowns” theme.
From the article
In terms of the specific strategies that are used, general strikes “are probably one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, single method of nonviolent resistance”, Chenoweth says.
General strikes, political strikes, solidarity strikes, etc are illegal in the US due to Taft-Hartley in 1947. They’re illegal because they’re effective. Thats why government approved protests that the government can safely ignore are legal and why politicians encourage them, because they’re useless.
The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), adding new restrictions on union actions and designating new union-specific unfair labor practices. Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The amendments also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws banning union shops. Enacted during the early stages of the Cold War, the law required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government.
I mentioned how voting in primaries is a good way to protest and resist. So the democratic party, on the federal level, has been messing up the primaries to shut down progressives. In 2024 they didn’t even have a primary, they just appointed Harris. In 2016 there was a lot of behind the scenes action to stop Bernie, and in 2020 Klobuchar and Buttigeig dropped out so the moderate vote would solidify around Biden.
The government can’t make voting in primaries or general elections illegal, so they look for ways to nullify the power elections have.
Which again comes back to the point that if you want to engage in effective protest, its probably illegal to do so. And that is by design. The only legal forms of effective protest I can think of are voting in general elections and primaries, donating money, filing lawsuits and jury nullification. Everything else is illegal by design. The civil rights movement was illegal and people got arrested all the time for that.
BTW there’s a thread specific to June 14th’s No Kings rallies here: "No Kings" rallies, Saturday June 14th 2025
On top of that, Trump can’t run for reelection, so what leverage do voters have over him? In his first term, the main factor was “Hey Donald, if you piss off the people, you might not get reelected.” But now he has no future elections ahead of him. Protests aren’t going to budge him; he’s politically invulnerable.
While not wrong, the last line isn’t a big deal either. Fox News and the like have already gone so far into false attribution and propaganda that there isn’t any need for “real” pretexts, they just manufacture them (like this entire episode) and aren’t questioned in any way.
We’re in an interconnected world. Being outside the US may buy enough time to metaphorically run out the clock. And that’s fine, I’m not going to judge you for it. But it’s not realistic to assume that the collapse of a massively nuclear armed nation, currently in the thrall of some of the worst braggarts and bullies imaginable is going to end well for everyone else outside the borders either. Not to mention, that while I don’t excuse this nation for it’s many excesses while trying to claim the “morality” of being the World’s Police, plenty of other nations will be happy to stretch their own expansionist wings while we’re collapsing.
And that leaves out how the swing towards populist, nationalist factions across Europe and much of the world seems to be gaining steam.
I don’t think there’s anything like a safe haven to go TO outside the short term. Which may well be enough for many, especially older, wealthier individuals, who don’t have an investment in the next generation (kids, cousins, or niece and nephew in my case).
It wouldn’t be my take from the entirety of the article that anything less/other than a strike tends to be ineffective, though. I just think it’s a matter of degree.
I, of course, agree with your basic premise. It’s akin to RFK, Jr. deciding that diabetics shouldn’t be given insulin, but rather (only?) “cooking classes.”
As always, “these people” aren’t stupid. They’re evil.
My wife and I are planning to join the No Tyrants protest in Ottawa, outside the US embassy.
I personally think that this would be catastrophic (in the short to medium term (eg my remaining years) at least). As a Canadian I would be all to happy if somehow the machine was reset such that post-Obama was a Hillary presidency followed by a Kamala presidency. On the other hand, because of the critical mass of MAGA types, maybe it’s just too bloody late.
That’s part of it. But the big issue is his (and his cronies and his voters) mindset. They see these protests and they don’t think “I disagree with them, and their demands are not all practical, but I do sympathize with the pain they are feeling”. Instead they think “look, we made some liberals cry, haha”. Adding more numbers to each individual protest and increasing the total number of protests isn’t going to help when the other side has that kind of mindset. How could it possibly help in this kind of situation? I genuinely don’t see how stronger protests would do anything other than cause the other side to point and laugh even more.
Yeah, that’s just not possible. America is the global leader for the resurgent fascist movement. The heroes of this century will be the people who stop it. The sooner it’s over, the less damage it will do.
It would be nice if things had played out that way. If they had, I think the Republicans would have gone back to being the party of George Bush and Mitt Romney. Not the best thing in the world, but way better than MAGA.
Exactly. In the past mass protests did move the needle on important issues because government back then paid attention and knew there would be consequences, for society and for them as leaders. Today, the government doesn’t give a shit. The Republican government we have is fulfilling the campaign promise they made to Republican voters to own the libs, and they don’t care how many non-Republicans are getting all worked-up, other than to enjoy watching it all with beer and popcorn. In fact, the more non-Republicans getting worked-up, the better!
I’m going to a No Kings protest on the 14th. I’ll be wearing a T-shirt that says, “Make Orwell Fiction Again.” I’ve already made a sign that says, “No Golden Throne in the White House.”
There’s another couple of possibilities -
4 There are so many protests/protesters that retaliation/suppression becomes impossible and someone realizes that the current path will be counterproductive. It won’t be Trump but maybe those Republicans who are so afraid of him will realize he can’t retaliate against them all.
5 There are very likely a fairly large number of Trump supporters who are either not in favor of Trumps immigration policies or not in favor of the tactics. The “we only wanted him to deport criminals, not Carol” contingent. They were wrong to imagine he wouldn’t deport Carol but that doesn’t mean they will support Trump no matter what , and seeing how the administration responds to protests might wake them up , possibly even enough to make Republican congresspeople more afraid of their constituents than they are of Trump. Because that’s how we ended up with what we have now, because so many Republicans are afraid of Trump’s retaliation. It’s not Trump who needs to be swayed- it’s the people watching on TV at home who see journalists get hit by rubber bullets when there was no violence by protestors happening.
I’m going to be out of town this weekend , but I’m going to try to get to a protest where I will be.