Why aren't there mass protests in the USA?

There are. Heaps of them.

The US is just a big place and very spread out. And the ruling government and its media conglomerates are trying to keep them out of the media.

I'm going to guess

poor media coverage
media is explicitly hostile to protests and pro trump/right-wing-extremism
many people are living paycheck to paycheck + we have minimal labor protection
years of left-wing organizations being kneecapped (eg: the murder of fred hampton)

A lot of people are angry but there's not really much organization. As much as I would love someone to take 50,000 of their closest friends, march down to DC, and shoot every republican in the head, without years of organizing that's just a fantasy. Unfortunately, the right wing has been doing years of organizing and it's now bearing fruit for them.

Mass media is actively suppressing them:

Link to full article from WagingNonViolence.org

Yes, the media is suppressing news of protests because most of the media companies are owned by billionaires who’ve kissed the ring.

The protests that are happening are also smaller and somewhat decentralized. The media likes a big show and these protests don’t get clicks or eyeballs on screens.

There are many smaller protests happening such as the ones outside Tesla dealerships literally everywhere. This is having an effect on Teslas stock but TBD if it’ll have a lasting effect.

People are also attending town halls with their congresspeople and getting confrontational. This has led to many representatives cancelling town halls or screening for only Republicans like fucking cowards. Chuck Schumer just canceled his book tour because he knows he’ll get run out of every city he shows up in after his capitulation.

Pro Palestine protests continue on campuses.

There’s a lot to dig into on why there isn’t a large mass protest like 2020 but my simple answer is that things aren’t bad enough yet.

It's being suppressed, I can't find the graph I saw yesterday but cumulative daily protests this year have far outclassed the protests from 2017, yet there's very little coverage of it from the major outlets.

There are regular protests of thousands of people all across the country, but it never hits top headlines. There aren't nearly as many as there should be, but we're largely a broken people, a collective beaten dog cowed in the corner. We're burnt out. Literally every direction we turn, things are falling apart. The working class is almost entirely one or two paychecks from homelessness. Minimum wage hasn't increased in 15 years despite year after year of record earnings and productivity. A third of the country genuinely believes a rapist conman is their literal biblical savior.

We're fucking tired, man.

Estimates show 65-75% of households live paycheck to paycheck. We financially can’t miss a day of work, let alone long stretches. Or we are allowed so little time off that it has to be saved for sick/emergency days (if you get any at all!).

That’s setting aside things like long hours, multiple jobs, unaffordable daycare, lack of medical care on top of hard hitting inflation without any wage changes.

It’s by design. It’s like intentionally under feeding slaves so they don’t have the energy to run away.

50501 is very active, we're hitting the streets all the time. I've been at a demonstration almost every week for the past month and a half. Please, join us!

Edit: From one of my other comments in case you're uneasy about getting involved:

I don’t even like talking to people in the first place.

SAME SAME SAME. When I started confronting these [Trump supporters] people in my life my anxiety would flare up to the point my voice would shake lol. And I never in my life thought I'd be out marching in the streets.

It gets easier, but it takes practice (Prozac helps too). Now the anxiety has become anger. But not anger at them, rather anger at the system. Anger at what we let this country become. Anger at how lazy and complacent I've become.

Do your best, stay safe, and most important of all don't get scared. Get angry.

There are. I've been to a few. They don't get covered by the media.

Ok so everyone wants one, right? Feels like it'll be dramatic and big and change and fix everything, even if it gets violent.

But there's problems with that, not only in execution but also results.

One problem is the US is massive. It would take almost as much planning as a moon landing to effectively organize a protest that large, even if you only do the continental 48 states. Some of those states alone are as large as some European countries, some are larger, so the size alone gets in the way of things.

Then you have the problem with getting all the people protesting to agree to a cohesive protest. Where to protest, what to protest specifically about, and to have a solid list of demands. Trying to get that amount of people to agree on anything alone would be huge. Like my mother says, it's like herding cats.

And then there's the matter of getting that info out there. Occupy wall Street and BLM did have a comprehensive list of demands but the media pretended they didn't. Almost all media is owned by like, six corporations, so even getting the instructions for that protest would be incredibly hard. And lest people forget, those media companies are final, so most of the media in other countries hearing about this will have just as much information surpression and do already. So it would be incredibly hard to get a comprehensive plan, demands, and instructions out el to everyone.

Also don't forget that we have the technological spying that didn't exist before. Cameras are everywhere. Not only in your phone, but on almost every street. People even put those Ring doorbells on their homes and that company sells it's video footage to the police, and doesn't turn off, so any protest could be monitored and nipped in the bud. We have whole agencies devoted to surpressing protests and entire handbooks in infiltrating them.

Then there's logistics and provisions. Most Americans can't afford to travel, much less take a week or two off of work, or a month, to protest long term. We can barely afford to keep ourselves fed with what we're getting paid, and if we were protesting in one specific location, most of us couldn't take the time to get there much less afford to. We have to feed the majority of almost an entire continent in one location for an extended period of time.

And if it was one specific location, the hospitals, hotels, grocery stores and restaurants would be so overwhelmed that they couldn't handle everyone.

Speaking of hospitals, if, as in when, the police and military attacked the protest, most people could never afford the medical treatment to be able to get patched up, much less their lives saved.

And speaking of the police and military, we have the most militarized police force on the planet. Our police don't have just batons, they have live rounds of ammunition and full on tanks. And they are more than willing to use them on civilians, especially in protesters. Look up Blair Mountain and the Kent State shooting. Not only could this crush a protest, but people would have to be ok with the idea they would very likely die.

And our prison system, being for profit, would salivate at the idea of getting more slave labor en masse, and the current administration is more than happy to detain people over trivial things. So everyone would have to be ok with life imprisonment if they didn't get shot.

On top of that, not everyone is on board. About a third to a half of the country is in favor of what's happening and have a cult around Trump and Musk. A lot of people voted for this and are in favor of it, because they really, really hate the liberals, Democrats, gays, minorities, etc. There's a whole media pipeline for this that they listen to, especially young people who normally are the type to protest this stuff. So there would be resistance from civilians on top of not everyone being in favor of the protest.

Then there's the problem of what that protest would actually accomplish. Even if you pulled it off, because of the supply issues, it would be short lived. Maybe a week or two, being surpressed by the military and police, and demonized in the media. The oligarchs would simply wait it out. It wouldn't enact long term change, even if everyone could agree with what they want changed in the first place. So it might not be effective even if it was pulled off.

And the primary opposition party, which should be doing anything, has adapted a strategy of self preservation. Concede to the fascists for now, bide your time, then come election season tell everyone that you are the better and only choice (because winner takes all so they are the only alternative) and hope for a blue wave in four years. Can't make any changes if you're not in power, so do what you can to keep it now and believe that if things get bad enough now people will come crawling back. So very little actual support for a protest would come from on top.

And then, if we look at history, a lot of rebellions needed other countries to support them in order to be successful. Most of them had outside influence from other major powers. The other major powers right now are either in favor of the government, turning fascist themselves, or if they did intervene would risk starting a war with the US which has the biggest military in the history of humanity. So not a lot of help would come from the outside, if any.

So while we also would like a massive protest, there are huge issues in the way of effectively pulling it off.

So what's been happening has been local efforts. You might not hear about town hall protests or stuff in individual state capitals in other countries, but those smaller fires are burning. There's been economic protests, like the backlash against Tesla and the no buying day, which apparently was started to get people to dip their toes into a national protest. There's been a lot of smaller community organizing, which hopefully adds up. I think and hope there will be more individual direct action, perhaps more Luigi strategies on specific individuals, as things get worse. Maybe more guerilla tactics, French resistance style efforts, are what is going to happen rather than a massive protest.

Tldr: We ARE doing stuff here. We hate this more than anyone. The change will have to come in less exciting ways than a big, national rebellion, so sorry you're not getting as much of a spectacle, we'd like that, too, but there's a lot of prep work that would need to be done to pull it off that needs to happen first. We aren't sitting by and letting this happen, and we are working towards fixing things.

Whenever I attend a protest, there is 0 media stations in attendance or covering it.

By design. They're under control.

Honestly, I think everyone's waiting for the masses to be just pissed off enough to kick it up a notch.

There are. And from what I know, apparently the media avoids reporting about them.

There have been but i suspect they may have slowed down.

I feel like one reason why trump has crashed the economy is to hurt people so they are too busy working and struggling to be able to protest his fascist policies.

It's hard to help your neighbor when you are drowning yourself

There are, they are being reported. I couldn’t speculate as to why you are missing them.

Yes. The media is suppressing them. See c/50501

Just remember, the media is owned by the rich.

35k in Denver today

There have been protests in every single state for awhile now. At least that is what I have heard through the grapevine. I'm Danish so I haven't seen the protests with my own two eyes, but I have seen pictures, read posts and talked to Americans who are out protesting. From what I have been told, it is unheard of that there are protests for the same cause in all 50 states at the same time. It is historic, but I'm not surprised that the greatest president who ever lived wouldn't want that information to slip out in the media. It would hurt his fee-fees bigly.

I'm not sure where these questions are coming from, there are tens of thousands of people conducting dozens of protests across every single state at every level of government, and multiple stories about those protests in this feed.

there's absolutely some media suppression since Trump is friends with the owners of some media outlets, but there is also a lot of media documenting the literally Nationwide protests.

there's a super popular post like a few tiles up about the dozens of ongoing Tesla protests going on that are tanking the company.

Lol wut? There are. Where do you get your news?!?

Bernie and AOC just got 34,000 people at a protest they did. Check out 50501... They seem to be rallying point. You might need to check them out here or on Blue Sky though, tik tok is deleting comments about them and Facebook will soon also probably. But yeah, for some reason the protests are not hitting the media

Why do kids, who mainly get their news from Tik Tok, not get mad?

Maybe look at who controls the algorithms

There have been dozens.

Because the Americans don't know how to protest.

To a Frenchman a protest is storming and taking control of the representation of authority in the country.

To a Greek a protest is filling the streets of many cities throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of people.

To an American a protest involves standing in a square by the few hundreds, holding signs with semi-sarcastic or passive aggressive messages written on them.

Low density and car based infrastructure neuters protests. I usually work from home but I had jury duty a few weeks ago in the courthouse in my downtown area. There were several protests daily the entire time I was there.

@Yazer@lemmy.ca there is also the 50501 group organizing protests in all 50 states April 5.

As others have commented, there haven't been protests this large and often in the US since the Vietnam War. Organizing this takes time. Organizing without using billionaire owned services with questionable privacy policies takes even longer... but it is happening.

https://www.fiftyfifty.one/

I live in the SF Bay Area. There's a website that was set up to track protests (https://www.actiontogetherbayarea.org/calendar). There are more than a dozen today and more than two dozen tomorrow. I think generally the larger protests are at state capitols and Washington DC, which are simply too far for many people to go to. Sacramento is our state capitol and that's about a 1.5 hour drive from here. CA is a big state, Sacramento would probably be an 8-hour drive from Los Angeles.

Also, as others have mentioned, the protests don't get a lot of media coverage.

There are but its a big country. Not everyone can walk on DC.

I'm pretty shocked by this as well.

I always thought that America was on the ready to stand up against fascism and tyranny.

I guess they aren't.

Getting sick of Europeans falling for the blatant suppression and propaganda that our corporate-elite overlords are spoon-feeding them and using that to act superior.

Tens of millions of Americans can't afford a sudden $400.00 expense without going further into debt.

That means they can't afford to miss a day of work.

And that's by design.

I think this is a factor of your media echo chamber. I've personally attended protests nearly every week since January. I'm going to one tomorrow. They are all over my news feeds.

Millions protested against the invasion of Iraq, the USA invaded Iraq anyway. Mass protests are ignored by the oligarchs.

Now if the USians grew spines and organized a general strike, that might get the ruling class's attention.

Loads of people in this thread saying they're happening but media not covering them...

I don't think that's really what is meant by "mass protests". In the not so distant past I would have thought every american man woman and child would be weeping in the streets at the corruption and despotism.

There are protests, and maybe they're not being covered, but it's not the type of civil unrest I would have expected honestly.

There are many, but nobody reports them.

I dunno about you bro but there's a protest every other day in Denver. We're getting there.

The question is how Dumbfuck will respond. There's an unverified rumor the Insurrection Act may be invoked on April 20th owing to an executive order signed on January 20th. If it gets to that point, we will find out how far our military is willing to stretch its service to the Constitution.

Don't be afraid. Don't look away.

there are pretty significant protests in recent months. Tesla, the federal government, unions etc. It's just that nobody really care about them with all the funny shit happening in the federal government right now.

Realistically, they also won't do much, so you'll have better reach doing more traditional on the ground campaigning anyway.

Because the people protesting represent in the single digit percentages of the voter base of America. An extremely vocal minority, but still a minority of Americans.
Boy who cried wolf situation. Protesting every single thing endlessly for years on end has made the average person stop caring about whatever you're protesting about. Not saying it's right but that is how many people view continual protesting.
The far left protests lost most of their corporate backing this time around. As soon as the bean counters up top realized that pandering to the social stuff on the left wasn't going to net them record profits they all dropped supporting the issues like a bad habit. They saw the popular vote change and they all dropped their masks immediately. Remember this in 10 years when the balance swings back again and you see target suddenly pretending to give a shit about gay right again or whatever it is at that time. They only ever cared about money.
Lack of unified direction of protests. There are tons of local and small group protests as many people have linked in the comments, but outside of these small tight-knit online communities planning these things the general public has absolutely no clue any of them are happening. There isn't a single unifying "thing" to rally around like the BLM protests had with George Floyd. When the angry mob can't direct their anger all in the same direction it loses power.
Since modern media runs on outrage (clicks) and they have seen that most people don't care anymore they have moved onto other things in order to generate the clicks they want to make the money for the big guy.

To be the most effective we have to be protesting in front of houses of people who actually influence change. I’ve been too far too many protests and it feels like they mean nothing. Only way to make change is to stop taking it to the streets. And taking it to houses of billionaires and politicians who actually are in control of change.

There are, The media is own'd by the rich and now so is the government.

We have an extremely effective propaganda system. There are protests. My partner shows me on Instagram videos. But most people are complacent or defeatist (because of the propaganda system since childhood).

You also have to understand the sheer size of the USA. It's not like everyone can go to DC that easily. The protests are taking place in all states.

Okay, I'm going to acknowledge that there are protests, yes, but probably what OP is thinking of something more like the BLM protests during COVID where shit started to get real. There's a few things going on here:

First: People don't have the time off like they did during COVID. They also aren't locked up and less able to ignore the news.

Third: Resignation. I think this is the bigger of the three parts. I know for my part, I consider this a complete loss of the federal government. Even if we somehow avoid a dictatorship and get control of the government back, the damage that's been done is so deep and complete that we'll likely never fully recover from it, we'll just have to move on with things as they are. My efforts are now focused on organizing balkanization. If Texas wants to be a fucking stupid theocracy with prosperity gospel televangelists and the antichrist at the top, who am I to get between them and a good time? Maybe without having to hear about what Daniel the terminally addicted Fox News viewer thinks about Critical Race Theory, we can get some shit done, fix healthcare, get some fucking trains and bike lanes put up.

Second: Lack of organization. The federal government has spent the last 100 years stomping any serious leftist movements both here and abroad. There is almost no living memory of what a real leftist movement looks like, or how to get one going, so we're all having to roll them from scratch, and there's still a lot of the old high-roading instincts that were implanted in us over the decades. It's just going to take time.

https://fiftyfifty.one/

You won't see much about protests until we're closer to the next election.

@Yazer@lemmy.ca my kids didn't have school yesterday because their teachers were protesting.

https://coloradosun.com/2025/03/20/hundreds-of-teachers-rally-to-protect-schools-at-the-colorado-capitol-as-lawmakers-look-for-cuts/

50501 is hard at work! Also check out https://www.mobilize.us/

There's considerable more happening now than in 2017. They hust aren't getting media attention because the media has been folded in.

Can't mass protest if you don't have a way to get people in one location. United States car infra prevents that.

Source: seen mass protests, seen "US protests". Night and day difference

My wife and I got babysitters went to the science protests. There's often protestors waiving Palestinian flag downtown during the week - small but consistent group near city hall. I don't hear any reporting either but I see them.

They had that protest in every state did they not? But when I couldn't find much on it in the Canadian media, I went searching CNN and other American sites and found very little also, which was surprising to me. Here on lemmy, there were all sorts photos being posted from various cities, and it looked like a pretty big deal?

I visited family/friends in the US recently (i've lived in europe for many years).

Everyone is super upset about the current state of things, angry at Trump etc.

However, they are also generally just convinced they need to wait out these four years and then everything can return to normal.

Because protests don't do shit. There were mass protests over police brutality in 2020. Didn't do shit and the right wing media reaction arguably helped kill off police reform legislation that was in progress before the protests.

The reason protests from the left don't do shit is because the most popular media is controlled by Maga. The top social media network for news, the top podcast, and the top cable TV news are all outright maga propaganda. A narrative can arise without them, but they will determine what happens to it. So last time, the protests arose due to George Floyd, but the right wing media turned it into a narrative about lawless riots, using exaggeration and fake images.