TIL No Kings Protests were the 3rd Largest in US History

Literally all of these except number 23 and 31 are left wing protests.
Let that sink in 32/34 that’s over 94% of the biggest protests in the US were left wing.
We are the majority. Stop believing in the Reagenesque “silent majority” BS.
The majority of people, dont want oligarchs and conservative bigotry.
- Then why is the government so completely dominated by the right if most politically active people are on what Americans call the left?
  
  Gerrymandering and other structural means of disproportionate representation in federal government are big parts of it
  
  Two words, voter disenfranchisement
  They remove the right to vote from our poor, our people of color, our citizens who have made mistakes but paid their debts to society, they remove polling places, making people wait hours and hours standing in lines to vote, giving them water is illegal, they purge voter roles right before elections…. And so so many more things. So many Americans don’t vote because they can’t because our right wing government has put so many roadblocks in the way.
  
  Because most Americans have knee-jerk reactions to labels as opposed to policies. Like how everyone supports all the protections Obamacare provides, but how they all want to get rid of Obamacare.
  
  My take is that there are a lot of Left people who won't vote for anyone except a candidate they support 100%. Hilary Clinton should have destroyed Trump. Those people ignore the simple truth that any time any GOP gets elected the whole country moves to the right.
  
  Because while a lot of Americans support a lot of left wing positions, there are no major left wing parties, and a very small number of politicians who run for national or statewide office who actually take action to further left wing policies. There's Bernie Sanders, who isn't a member of a large party. AOC, and a few others qualify, but being a small proportion of those running, they're a small proportion of those elected, and have relatively little actual influence.
  Ideas neither major party supports are basically impossible to see happen.
  
  Others have commented valid points but I also wanted to bring up propaganda;
  A lot of people are unwilling or even unable (i.e. there is only one tv in the house and you don’t get to control the remote most of the time) to get their news from sources that aren’t constantly telling them that Democrats are out to get them and 2SLGBTQIA+ are the enemy and that if they just vote for (wealthy conservative) then all their problems will be solved overnight. Couple that with an education system that has failed to give people the critical thinking skills to ask what trans folk have to do with the economy and you get the 2024 election.
  
  As others pointed out, there's major structural issues. There's also issues with apathy and people buying into the anti-electoralism/accelerationism con with religious ferver.
  
  Money, Propaganda, Tribalism, an undemocratic voting system...
  Further, the uneveness of Power is gigantic: billionaires have way much power than common people, who are only powerful if together in large numbers and that's incredibly hard to make happen in a structured way with everybody aligned in the same way compared with what a single billionaire can do if they feel like spending $100 million, and the entire system is set up against people organising in such a way - notice how the biggest demonstration ever in the US, the George Floyd protests, achieved pretty much nothing at all, and the police in the US is still a force of Injustice rather than Justice.
  The vast majority of people are either played like fiddles or made to feel impotent and hence just turn of from politics and just live day to day.
  The US is not a Democracy.
  
  In one word: money.
  
  Because the left keeps falling in with the ineffectual center-right, leading to widespread voter disillusionment.
  
  Mainly because your average person is apathetic to their own governenance
  
  The electorial college and gerrymandering
- It's been clear for a long time that the "silent majority" is in fact just an obnoxiously loud minority.
  
  Mean rich people, their deluded lapdogs, and maybe like a thousand honest-to-goodness psychopaths.
- We are the majority.
  🌍🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀 Always have been. That's why conservatives constantly try to make it harder to vote - the more people vote, the more left wing politicians win. Because the majority of people agree with left wing ideals.
  
  If blue fucking showed up at the boxes more often. (Even just 25% of the people registered as blue) nearly all government seats would flip and change would actually happen for the better. Instead left is actually center and right is facist.
  
  Not necessarily true. People with left wing beliefs often vote for right wing candidates because the only information they have is their tiktok feeds and fox news playing at home.
- 100%. Republicans have been blatantly against the will of the people, and can only maintain power through gerrymandering and straight up rigging elections. We are the majority by a long shot. The last election was likely rigged, and the heritage foundation, Trump, and Putin are working on the business plot 2. We have to do everything possible to stop it.
- Also, if memory serves, the right wing group the 3 percenters got their name because it only took 3% of the population to initiate change at some historical event.
  Ergo, it doesn’t take that many people to get out and change the nation, but ffs you got to get out
- It seems like the ' in the word "don't" somehow fell down and landed on the floor right after the word "people" in your last sentence. Might wanna pick it up and place it where it belongs.

1 George Floyd protests 500,000[5] 15,000,000–26,000,000 2020
2 Earth Day 20,000,000[6] 1970
3 No Kings protests 5,000,000 2025
4 Hands Across America (poverty) 5,000,000 1986
5 2017 Women's March 3,300,000–4,600,000
- Did any of these have any lasting impact?
  
  take a guess
  
  I mean, yeah- they all did an excellent job of reinforcing the fascists’ understanding of how little a threat the US “left” is.

I was about to say the list was incomplete as several million attended the Iraq war protests, but it turns out that was global and only a few hundred k Americans bothered to protest the invasion of Iraq based on manufactured propaganda.
The post 9/11 bloodthirsty hysteria, "you're either with us or against us" dissonance, religious nationalism, and ignorant patriotism is what made me believe the US would become an authoritarian dictatorship in my lifetime. Great job teenage me. I hate it.
- A lot of people forget the shear bloodlust in the USA after 9/11 that lasted for years.
  When people compare the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, a lot of people forget there was a large chunk of the country who were rabidly pro Iraq War while there wasn't an equivalent base for the Vietnam War.
  
  It felt like everyone was like you were either 1000% on board or you were casually on board cause you weren’t “into politics” but trying to find likeminded people who opposed it felt impossible to me. I was 16 when 9/11 happened and shortly after was when I stoped standing for the anthem or saluting the flag in the morning and I was the only kid in my highschool of 1,800 kids to do that and wow I got SO MUCH hate for it
- I was 16 when 9/11 happened and I was a pretty tuned in kid who spoke up about the issues I had with it, how horrible the patriot act was, all sorts of things and I can absolutely attest the response was always extremely hostile and cutting, filled with personal attacks about how moronic I was, now naive and of course because I’m female I’m inherently too stupid to hold a conversation about this so just shout me down so I will shut my stupid girl mouth and sit down. I’ve never changed my mind, why would I? And you know what, I still get attacked in exactly the same ways but at least the “you’re a terrorist for not supporting the Iraq war” has died down
- I think you may have misread the Wikipedia page. There were 300-400,000 in NYC alone.
  I was in Boston and there were 10s of thousands, even though it was February and sleeting, SF had another 150-200k.
  I think there was a sizable group in DC too.
  
  That's what I thought but those are the "official" estimates, which do strangely focus on NYC.
  I guess we're talking about a fascist-oligarch-owned MSM who profit from war and chaos so they had a vested interest to suppress the real opposition.
- I was in college at that time and was a typical "centrist" and counter protested. I've changed at lot since then.
  
  Congratulations on your evolution. I was pretty cringe around that era, too.
- That was the first overt demonstration that American news outlets were captured by jingoist propaganda. But back then pointing out that media coverage differed from literal experienced reality got you labeled as a terrorist kook.

This makes me really hopeful.
- Less to me. There are families being kidnapped, seperated, and sent to death camps, and the respinding protests outside of LA were a two hour march on a weekend.
  
  What is good enough for you?
  Quiet everyone, Mustakrakish is about to tell us the acceptable number for a protest.
  Go ahead, the floor is yours.
  
  Read this if you're having difficulty understanding the purpose of the recent protests within the greater resistance.

7 out of top 10 during Trump's presidential terms. My take is that civil duty to protest is stronger than voting for non-Republicans, maybe if elections were on saturdays instead of tuesdays...
- You only have to vote once every 4 years. Do both.
  
  Two years in most states. Every year in some states.
  If you're only voting in the presidential election, then you are effectively giving Republicans your vote during midterms.
- Classic bad take
  You can vote and protest, they're not mutually exclusive
  Stop trying to divide the left
  
  not sure which 2 halves i am trying to divide, just concerned Trump won despite having record protests
  
  Exactly. Theyre not mutually exclusive. There is a lnown issue with working class people not being able to take time off on tuesdays to go vote. If elections were saturdays, maybe there would be a better turn out.
  I feel like this argument doesnt hold as much water as it used to with how easy it is to vote by mail or use early voting. At least in the 3 locations ive been for the last presidential election
  
  Who said they were mutually exclusive?

3rd largest so far.
- Seriously, there will be more, I don't think we've seen the biggest ones yet either.

We clearly have the numbers against traitorous conservatives.
Would be really cool if we could use those numbers before allowing them to destroy our society.

Cool. I just hope your leaders take the hint. Maybe now that they're getting directly threatened they'll show their true colours. Either they stand up for themselves as they see their colleagues start to get attacked (at events or in their own homes), or they cower and come to heel. (Sadly, I have little faith most politicians in most countries these days will do much if it's not their own hides at risk.)
Incidentally, something weird is going on with that list. I'm not sure how the ordering works but much more important, it says only "500,000" for the protests over George Floyd even though one of the references says 15-26 million over the entire course of that movement.
- I'm afraid this may not be enough. One who is so deep in their delusions isn't so easily brought back to reality, if they ever can be.
  
  This isn't the first large nationwide protest of his second term and it won't be the last. For instance, the Hands Off ones in April were number 6 on that list. They're getting larger and there is already planning for the next nationwide ones. Or more broadly, here's the cumulative number of protests including smaller ones too
- Yeah I'm afraid the US and all its allies are marching straight into another set of wars and the consequences they'll bring. Apparently we're all the baddies now
- The protests didn’t raise eight figures of donations so they don’t care.

Good... now repeat it but as a General Strike
- A general strike would be devastating. But we ain't there yet.
  Not that I don't love the idea. It requires a robust support network. Start building a small local community that can be self sufficient. Grow food. Make tools. Sell things to neighboring communities.
  The owners will still expect rent during a general strike. We have the numbers, they have the funds to we wait us out. They'll do everything they can to make it hurt us more than them.
  
  But we ain't there yet.
  Sorry but this line is how the USA fell off the wagon in the first place
  nd not only that, you got there on Jan 6
  
  A 1-week strike ahead of the mid-terms would be enough to make the GOP turn on Trump.
  But that's over a year out.
  
  Defeatism has NO PLACE HERE. Pack your shit and leave, fucker! SERIOUSLY fuck off.

It feels good to know that lots of other Americans care about what's going on. I don't know if we're going to make it but I felt like part of a country out there and I hope we figure it out.

Ok but it's crazy that the George Floyd protests were 5x bigger than this, even with COVID in full swing.
- Nobody had anything better to do back then
  
  ah good point. COVID may have boosted the numbers.

Match the energy during election day ballot yeah?? Thanks

That's great news. The other 9 of the 10 biggest protests were were extremely successful at affecting change.
Since we made such massive progress on all the others, this is clearly a harbinger of social and political progress.
- Until we start seeing general strikes, or other action, they will continue to ignore the people.
  A week of general strikes, and the stock exchange tanking acordingly, would actually have an effect.
  
  I keep seeing this, and I don't disagree, but what exactly is gonna change? Some rich people get slightly less rich, they'll still own most of our government. Our current admin clearly doesn't care about public opinion.
- George Floyd (Police Brutality)
  Earth Day 1970 (Environmental Protection)
  No Kings (Trump)
  Hands Across America (Poverty)
  Women's March 2017 (Feminism)
  Hands Off (Trump)
  March for Our Lives (Gun Violence)
  Women's March 2018 (Feminism)
  #RickyRenuncia (Puerto Rico, Resignation of Ricardo Rosselló)
  Great American Boycott (Immigrant Rights)
  Only #9 actually accomplished what they wanted.
  
  Earth day did a lot of good

Earth Day needs to keep happening too.
- I'd like an Earth Day of the week. Day of the week for a bunch of progressive agendas would be cool. You've got Fight Fash Friday, obviously Saturday is Gay, Sunday Earth Day like don't buy anything and maybe sabotage something? Monday is probably international worker solidarity. Etc.
  You can fit a lot of good into 7 days.

not to rain on the parade or nothing, but a protest that hasn't the implicit threat of "...or else" is just a hang
- All the other benefits of a non-violent protest aside, there's also immense value is reminding people that they're not as singular in their viewpoint as they feel.
  For a lot of people, it's been very easy to feel like everyone else must be in board with this.
  I'm not sure what you're looking for to codify the implicit threat. A couple million people calling you a king at an event called "no kings day" in a country whose founding narrative is "violently rebel against kings" seems pretty implicit to me.
  Also, I just realized that there's a red coat/red hat parallel I haven't seen leveraged yet that has a lot of potential.
  
  there's also immense value is reminding people that they're not as singular in their viewpoint as they feel.
  This destroys the narrative of the protested party. They cannot convincingly talk about 'a few misguided people disagreeing' when you see so many others who feel like you. Even if nothing would be achieved by the protest, this is an immensely powerful confirmation of an individuals beliefs. 100% agree.
- Getting millions of Americans to go out and essentially shout "F U Donald" is a little bit more than a hang. And is potentially much more effective than a riot or occupy wall street.
  America is still a democracy, in that all the roads to power require you to get folk to show up and vote for you.
  
  America is still a democracy,
  Not much longer if americans dont fight harder.
  
  Alright, so let's say trump is gone, what replaces him? Business as usual republicans who were all on board with his policies but didn't like how boisterous he was. Democrats are all too happy to play along, fellating war criminals like dick cheney and george bush. America is a representative democracy where you vote on which representative will represent billionaires for you.
  I hope these protests develop into something more, but realistically I can only anticipate them being used as political points for democrats during their donation drives to raise tons of money to promote billionaire ass-kissers. Things will continue to get worse and then the next villain of the week will appear as the conduit to do all the bad things billionaires want. We'll be told again all we need to do is get rid of this next villain too and then things will be fine, but then the cycle repeats as things continue to just get worse.

You guys think that merely walking around in your own time holding up a board and shouting a bit, all focused on the mango puppet instead of the puppet masters, is going to change anything given that there is no single Historical event in the US ever of the lower classes rebelling against and deposit the upper classes (even the Revolution was literally the American plebs led by the American upper class fighting against the English plebs controlled by the English upper class)?!
The murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare had more impact, if only temporary because it wasn't followed by more similar murders.
Even millions of people marching and shouting a bit (and so polite that they do it in their own time) will cause no fear for the elites because that's in no way a warning that the heads of the elites will soon start getting separated from their shoulders if nothing changes.
You need at the very least a General Strike and/or targetting the economic and propaganda interests of the elites (trashing the TV studios of certain channels or certain newspapers would send a powerful message).
I mean, just notice the impact on police violence of the greatest demonstrations in the US - the George Floyd protests: nothing or even worse than nothing as the pigs have never been this violent.
- Come over and lead the revolution then, if you think you've got what it takes. Otherwise, you're also doing nothing of note.
  
  "Why isn't anyone doing the obviously much better thing?" - someone not doing that thing
  
  I'm not American. If I went there to lead the revolution I would end up in El Salvador.
  I did, however, got involved in politics in two countries I live in and did a lot of campaigning for them, so I've actually done the deed as far as I could rather than merely talk about it, and did so further than just demonstrations.
  Demonstrations are nice as a way for people to know that they're far from alone in their concerns, but they're worthless if not leveraged into helping make or grow grassroots organization to change the actual underlying problems that results in somebody like Trump getting elected again and again (and I'm pretty sure that if that doesn't change, when Trump is out somebody else like him or worse will eventually get elected).
  The Georgy Floyd demonstrations are a great example of what happens if demonstrations aren't leveraged to grow civic-society movements for change: you get some vague promises from politicians and then nothing actually changes.
  I just feel that people here are treating these demonstrations as some kind on getting near the finish line when they're at best (and hopefully) a beginning, and not even a beginning of the end but and beginning of the beginning, and they should be treated as opportunities to get the ball rolling on things that can actually snowball into real change.
  If all you do after a demonstration is pat yourself on the back for having "done something" whilst you don't even have some contacts for groups of people you're thinking of joining for further actions, you've just done exactly what the actual powers that control the country wanted you to do: defused your anger whilst not starting the ball rolling on real change.
- Getting average people to the point that they are ready to do something like a general strike is a process.
  Most people don't even want to have to go to a protest.
  But going to a protests is like anteing up in poker -- it is mentally anchoring people as in the game and publicly taking a side.
  And yeah - the fucks in power are going to say "bet".
  So now millions of people who are not where we already are, who have not wrestles with this and avoided it as long as they can - they are starting to ask, "ok, what do we actually have to risk to change this? What am I willing to do?"
  Will we get enough people actually engaged enough for a general strike? I have no idea.
  But I know it won't happen without giving people a ramp-up that includes things like the protest this weekend.
- Murdering ceos didnt do jack shit, real change only happens like this
  
  These protests, while better than nothing, will not produce real change.
  Just as the George Floyd protests did not produce real change (Pelosi kneeling and raising a fist is not "real change")
  UnitedHealth reduced claim denials following the murder. So at least that is some tangible positive result

Oh, nuh-uh! FOX News said it was a lightly attended failure. Who am I gonna believe, FOX:News or every local news sorce, that actually was there, in the country?

I don't get the rankings. Seems like only earth day had more people.
- Boy. They sure coulda made that more apparent. Seems like something to put more in parenthesis than a footnote.
  
  Hopefully the people can push out maga eventually.

Yeah!
Now knock off all that fascism - or we WILL go back out there and do another lap!

When multiple biggest protests are against your presidency, then you seriously fucked up.
- News flash, neither Trump nor his Republican allies care. Literally at all.

& here come the lies about the protests https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4mwJ1sIxt4

Finally found something Trump was good at.

great job everyone!

Behead those who say No Kings is violent

Ok. I'm too chicken shit to actually show up in person to one of these protests.
What's the next best thing I can do to meaningfully help?
- You'll only be scared before you go to the protest. Once you're there you'll be fine. The vibe on the ground at every protest I've been to is great and there's a real feeling of camaraderie and support from your community. There is some risk, yes. It's probably still safer than crossing the street.
- I get being afraid of going to a protest considering we have police literally saying they’ll just kill people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get involved with those organizing the protests. See if you can get involved with the organizers of your local protests and ask them what they need for the protests. After all, those signs you see people carrying didn’t make themselves. At the very least you can call your reps and make your voice heard. Even if your reps are dems, make it clear that you want real action, not just talk. You could also talk to the people around you: at work, at the store, family members, etc. Encourage them to call their reps. If your reps aren’t actively making things worse or letting things get worse by doing nothing but fundraise (so most reps) then see if there are efforts to primary any of them and encourage everyone you know to vote in the primaries too
  Like I said, I understand being afraid to go to a protest. I am too. But you have to remember that if we don’t stop Trump and a full blown fascist takeover, then things will be much, much worse and much, much harder to change
  
  Wtf, the police is literally saying they'll just kill people?? I missed that one, do you have a link?
- Can you share what exactly your concerns are so that folks could suggest a mitigation strategy?
- Fucking show up is what you can do.
- wear a mask and dark shades to stay anonymous and stand in quietly in back then. the trick is numbers. you don't have to heft a sign and chant slogans and be a spectacle if you don't want to, you can just fill space and it will still help.
- I've gone to protests and stayed near the edge/outskirts so I can feel the vibe and keep an eye out to leave if it feels bad at all. You could do that if you wanted to try it out. I think massive popular protests are usually fine, it's the smaller ones that are more risky IMO.
- Grow a pair.

Cool
Do the next one next Saturday, PLEASE
Do not lift the pressure, keep going at it

Just want to say estimates for both no kings and hands off were much higher.
No kings estimated at 13 million and hands off at over 10 million. The estimated amounts on Wikipedia are way under imo.

Wikipedia is weird. In an article that lists the largest protests that have occurred in the United States, they still feel the need to tell you that each one of these protests, that are on a list of protests that occurred in the United States, in fact occurred in the United States.

- Wrong thread, I think.
  
  Correct

The posters username is ironic, given the content.
- Rand is not a king. He is the dragon reborn and the chief of chiefs, but not a king.

And didn’t accomplish shit, by design. These types of protests are intended to channel frustration of the masses into feeling like they’ve done something, when really they’ve accomplished nothing.
That was more than enough people to overthrow the parasitic ruling class. Just do it already.
- Please, if you feel like you've got the charisma and plan to rally us to, come on over and do so. Otherwise you're doing no better.
  
  Doing no better than what? What was accomplished? What’s the bar we’re measuring against?
- Really? No one? Can’t even tell me what specific change they’re trying to enact?
  Expecting a pat on the back, and can’t even articulate a specific policy goal. Absolutely wild and hilarious.
  
  I would never. So please clarify for me- what was accomplished by this billionaire sponsored event? What change was enacted or demanded?
- It was a moral victory. It showed us jow strong and numerous we are and we needed that.
  
  It was a protest organized by a billionaire that was overtly anti-revolution and neutral on genocide.
  It was specifically set up to reinforce inaction among a frustrated populace. Numbers don’t mean anything, without the will to use those numbers to revolt.
- You first.
  
  HEY EVERYBODY!..."you first" is absolutely NOT the flex you think it is.

- "no kings" isn't meant as an insult, what are you on about? It's a statement that people don't want a king.