No Kings Unveils a Big New Trump Protest, and the Stakes Couldn't Be Higher
Ezra Levin of Indivisible on how protest can stop Donald Trump’s authoritarianism.
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If you're not showing up prepared to get arrested, you're just doing a parade.
I'm sure this will give everyone a nice chance to pat themselves on the back for pretending to do something, though.
What a stupid comment. Just showing up to a protest is far more than most people do. Do you think the No Kings protest would have had so much coverage if only 100 people went to it?
hear hear.
Sure.
Going out to vote is a better idea.
But then again, republican gerrymandering makes your vote pretty much cast into the void.
Going out to vote is a better idea.
The master's house can never be dismantled with the master's tools.
lmfao
Going … out to vote.
You really don’t have a clue what’s happening to your country, do you?
I see what you're about and agree. But there is absolutely nothing you can do to give this crowd the kick in the ass they need. They still wholeheatedly believe they'll vote out fascism. Something that has happened a grand total of 0 times throughout history. Your time is wasted on these people. Republicans said "The revolution will be bloodless if the left allows it to be", and these people are giving them everything they ever wanted, by letting it be bloodless, because they can't fathom how fucking terrifying fascism is.
Bold of you to assume it is.
would you rather get nothing? because most people aren't willing to risk their livelihood for this and the first step of action is centralization! get people talking, learn how to help.
I always take comments like these to be akin to the rapist saying there is no point in struggling.
You already have nothing.
Okay then chill in the back and be super smug from the couch or whatever, nerd.
I mean, they kind of have a point.
If you're not showing up prepared to get arrested to fight, you're just doing a parade.
There, FTFY.
Do you really mean it when you say you don't want no king in the USA? Because that's what Trump is acting like.
Yeah, that's the point of these protests.
Good! I'm rooting for you
RTFA
Agreed.
I tend to agree, protesting in blue cities and states is preaching to the choir and achieves nothing. Take that to DC or your closest red state.
Safe protesting is not protesting.
Says the mod who has no problem shutting down all talk of anything beyond peaceful protesting.
Just doing your job, lol.
You are not going to use our platform to organize violence. That isn't my rule, it's instance rules.
Just a cog in the machine, eh? Just the middle man.
Oh, no, I personally agree with it and I'd make it a rule if it weren't already. We aren't going to be liable for some jack off who wants to burn everything down.
Lemmy (.world) wouldn’t be liable. Lemmy wouldn’t be shut down. Nothing would happen. Also, the idea that a person who wants to fight back against fascism must want to burn everything down is very ignorant. People like you are the problem, people like you are the reason nothing ever gets beyond a “protest.” “Oh no, if we let them have an inch, they’re gonna burn the world down!!!!!”
Screw you, Jordan Lund.
The comments/posts removed were inciting violence and that is 100% not allowed. Don't like it? Go make your own platform.
Why? The users are here. And moderation on Lemmy is more annoyance than anything. It’s not like you can actually stop someone for more than a few minutes.
Individual posts, you're right, not for a few minutes, but when it becomes a pattern, it becomes bannable.
Lemmy is not a revolutionary platform, it you want to organize a rebellion, go do it elsewhere. We don't allow that here.
It was bad enough when a mod went off the rails and blew up a fertility clinic, we don't need that kind of attention:
Bans mean nothing. Lemmy has zero ways to censor a person who doesn’t care what their username is.
Lol, bold words from someone apparently unwilling to host that content themselves.
Let's see: @Illecors@lemmy.cafe -- are you fine with users using your instance to organize violence?
No, I'm not
@whiwake@lemmy.cafe look at that, the person you're leeching off of has the same rules.
Are you gonna roll your own server yet, or keep being all talk, no action?
lol, I see what you’re doing. Clever.
What am I doing?
Yeah, no one should stick their necks out. Fall in line and everything will be okay.
Oh look another mouthy user who's happy to put the risk on their admin instead of taking it themselves.
Big words.
I live in a red state, and I plan to be at my local protest. But I take offense to the idea that protests in blue states are somehow too "safe" or not worth the time. The shit that has gone down at protests in Los Angeles should counter that notion pretty handily.
Honestly, the protests I've been to in my red state were way safer than the ones in LA, with way less push back from law enforcement. Probably helps that ICE isn't operating in my city either.
Let me phrase it like this then... what have the protests in LA accomplished?
ICE is still operating with impunity, if anything they have accelerated.
Trump has increased military presence in places like D.C. and is threatening other cities.
The Supreme Court ruled it's A-OK to detain people who look hispanic or are caught "speaking Spanish in public".
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c784697j2v8o
Soo... good jorb?
If you're offended by this, and you really should be, the Powers That Be in California cannot change it. The protest needs to impact those making these decisions and right now it absolutely is not.
So how is that different for red states?
The representatives in Red states are in control in the house and senate. If it becomes clear they are acting against the will of the people they represent, that could actually change policy.
Right now, blue state reps have zero power, protesting to get their attention literally has no impact because they can't do anything even if they wanted to.
Who said these protests were to get the attention of House and Senate reps?
I mean, that's definitely a useful thing, but it's certainly not the only goal of a protest.
It's the only goal if your intent is to effect change.
Unfortunately, most people's intent is "Look at meeeee!"
That's silly. There are a bunch of ways to effect change other than begging 535 assholes in Washington to do it for you.
These protests can also reach state and local officials like mayors and governors, who can effectively resist and repel federal incursions like Pritzker and Johnson just did in Chicago. They can drive awareness by getting the attention of people unfamiliar with or apathetic to the issues at hand. They can enable people to network and lay the groundwork for future actions. Hell, at their most basic level, they remind those of us fighting this fight that we are still sane and we are not alone.
If you're going to just sit and wait for Congress to change things, good fucking luck with that, no matter which party holds your seats.
State and local officals have no control over Ice or federal policy which is what is being protested.
Again, tell that to JB Pritzker.
Protesting in blue areas can achieve something, but only if it's actually disruptive. For example you can force your elected officials to take a hardline approach to Trump rather than capitulate.
Local officials have no power over Trump, and Democratic Congressmen and Senators have no power over Trump due to being in the minority.
So you're protesting people who a) agree with you and b) can literally do nothing.
So, again, protesting in blue cities and states is entirely performative. "At least I did something!"
They can obstruct and/or oppose Trump in their own jurisdictions. There are options, everything from withholding federal taxes to enforcing state law on ICE (like Pritzker is threatening to do) to having local National Guard units defend immigrant neighborhoods. In the worst case scenario, forbid ICE from entering the state and shoot them if they do. At the very fucking least this shouldn't be happening.
This made me lol. You're literally THE most terminally online power mod on Lemmy. You, of all people, advocating for dangerous or violent protests is highly ironic considering how the chances of you leaving the comfort of your house in general, let alone going to any protest, are slim to none.
Not advocating for dangerous and violent protests, as always I advocate AGAINST ineffective protests, and protests in blue states only serve one purpose... virtue signaling.
You want a protest to be effective? Take it to where it counts. Red states. D.C. Those are the minds you need to change, not your garden variety blue voters who already agree with you.
See, I actually understand your frustration, but I think you actually misunderstand why these protests are ineffective. Virtue signaling is indeed a big issue with protests in America. This could easily be seen with the signs. Everybody has signs and all these signs have puns, jokes, provocative drawings, or websites on them. The point isn't to send a message, it's to farm social media engagement. So you're right on that, but the issue with American protest is much deeper than that.
For example, the bigger protests here aren't exactly organic, they're more like festivals. For example, I went to the "hands off" protest in Boston a few months ago, and they literally had a "program" for it like it was some kind of show. There were bands that played music, advocacy group leaders who gave speeches shilling for their causes at the expense of the cause that was being protested, local and state politicians getting PR and advertising their upcoming campaigns, and so on.
When it's not a festival, then it's a public nuisance. There's this myth that's widely believed among the American left (the right doesn't really protest) where they actually believe that disruption is THE most vital part of protesting, and thus it's presence is mandatory for every protest otherwise they're simply ineffective. This leads to things like blocking intersections, vandalizing property, getting in the way of other causes, or being extremely annoying on purpose. For example, look at how "queers for Palestine" sabotaged Ottawa's pride parade by dangerously stranding thousands of people in sun, made threats, and then had the event canceled for everybody... as you can imagine there's a lot of people who resent this group and their cause because of their actions.
Another massive issue is the ever increasing presence of the omnicause. This is a product of a mentality that combines the worst elements of intersectionality and purity testing. This mentality insists that if you support one cause, you must support them all, and if you oppose or remain neutral on any "approved" cause, you're branded as morally corrupt. This binary thinking forces people to label every movement as either wholly good or bad, leaving no room for nuance. What this leads to is protests that don't stand for anything because they try to include everything. For example, the women's march in Boston last year had people with Palestinian flags, black lives matter signs, Ukrainian flags, communist symbols, and there were even animal advocates in there... what do any of these have to do with women rights in America? The answer is nothing, they just dilute and distract from the cause that's being protested.
If we really want protests to lead to change in this country we have to look back at the country's successful movements and see what made them work. Well if we look at the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, the Vietnam war protests, and the LGBT movement, what do they have in common? They were all...
We need all these elements to make our modern protests meaningful. Going to red states isn't going to do anything. It's not going to change anybody's mind or do anything because it'll have the same problems. If the protests in blue cities and states aren't leading to anything, why would the ones in red states yield any results? We need to learn from our past and look at the rest of the world as to what good protests should look like. Protests in Europe, for example, are minimalist, there's no "program", there's huge turnouts, people respect their fellow citizens, and people show up solely because they believe in the cause. Want examples? Look at the protests happening right now in Georgia and Serbia. Want non European examples? Look at Hong Kong or Turkey.
I think the primary problem you note is a distinct lack of focus, and, in my mind, that started with Occupy Wall Street. There was no organization, they didn't have demands, they couldn't articulate what they wanted, they were just angry. Which I get, but if you want someone to validate your anger, you need to give them a path.
I was legit curious and back in the day went down to the local Occupy and asked a guy:
"So what do you want? What can the banks do right now that would make you dust off your hands, go 'my work here is done!' and send you back home to live your life?"
"I WANT THEM TO FUCKING DIE!!!"
"Well, that's not going to happen, you have any other ideas?"
(Spoiler - He did not.)
I don't think it's a lack of focus per se, I think it's a lot of our protest since Occupy Wall Street had tried to substitute emotions for principled beliefs. Protesting to show you're "angry" doesn't mean anything because there's no end goal. If our protests embody the emotions of a toddler, then it's no wonder they get easily manipulated, shut down, or end up going nowhere. Protesting for the sake of it is simply idiotic. It's fine and perfectly normal to be emotional at protests, but they have to be accompanied by specific demands and principles, otherwise you just have a directionless mob. It doesn't matter where you place this mob or what cause you give it, it's not going to accomplish anything because it's lost.
I’ve been very happy with my blue politicians responses and if this encourages them I’m all for it.
Not sure what you’re expecting - violence can easily be counter-productive, especially in areas where police are sympathetic
Oh, no violence, but the people who need to change their opinions aren't in blue cities or blue states.
Unhappy with the Feds? Take it to DC and shut DC down for a month. Protesting in LA, SF, Portland, Seattle does nothing as everyone there is already on your side.
The people who need to see the protests don't give two shits about what blue cities and states think.
