Then they fight you: How the ‘No Kings’ protests are winning America | A massive turnout of 7 million and a panicked White House showed Saturday why the No Kings protests matter, a lot.
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Embarrassing for the Republicans, but I don’t see a lot of “panicking”.
Like, if you’re an EMT or a soldier, you’ve probably seen all the elevated alarm responses people display when the shit hits the fan. Do the responses discussed in this article even register?
They aren’t “panicked”, they’re annoyed. They’re not panicked because the obvious reality has not changed.
Trump is immune from prosecution for his actions, which will all be construed as being done in his capacity as President, and even if the Democrats put on a show trial, they will fumble deliberately or put some type of petty sanction or fine of him, because they ultimately work in concert with Republicans and take their policy directive signaling from them, and at the very least they have receipts on one another. The rest in the administration, though they might be diminished in their popularity and ability to move about in society without derision and scorn, maybe they’ll get indicted too, but again, nothing will really come of it for the same reasons. They’ll still be rich from insider trading and crypto rug pulls.
They’re not scared.
This is a war with two fronts. The only way to win is to have an army of tens of thousands of progressives/leftists who are willing to be one term politicians in as many districts as possible.
One term. Kamikaze baby.
Right now there are a handful of hopeful prospects but not anywhere near the groundswell that I’m talking about.
You get something like that going, really picking up seats and state offices in big numbers, then they’ll “panic”.
When they start leaving the country, that’s how you’ll know they’re panicking.
Great idea and funnel them to RunForSomething to learn
Crowds make a difference when they are out in numbers on a daily basis, one massive protest every month or so won't make a bit of a difference.
Protesting every day might be less effective without economic disruption going with it.
That's just the nature of the news cycle, we've had over one mass shooting a day this year and it's not as much news as 10 years ago when they were much less frequent.
If it's always happening, it isn't news.
All of that said, there's other ways to protest that don't need to be news. Like out front of ice buildings. When you see ice harassing folks, disrupting them, recording them etc.
Protesting every day might be less effective without economic disruption going with it Ideally there should be a general strike, get the workforce out in force, this administration only cares about the bottom line, once the billionaires start feeling it then maybe. Unfortunately I don't think this is possible in todays America, for various reasons including size, reliance on work for health reasons, etc etc etc.
There are protests damn near every week... I've gone to at least 20 this year
Well, to the outsiders looking in, it looks like these protests are non existent and not effective. Doesn't seem to be much stopping Trump, with the courts now siding on Trump regarding deploying the national guard. I gotta be honest with you, it looks like your democracy is on life support at the moment.
Some people couldn't because of work/school Some weren't notified so they didn't get to go this time even though they went to the last one (A Stoat server would help with pinging people about these) Some had to be home due to health/caretaking Some out of the country in military/protesting in other country
I'm fairly certain it would have been at least 32 million for this one if it was better setup to get everyone to walk in step together for this
Also the protests aren't what is most effective. What is is the connections made and getting things done afterwards to change things for better and solve problems
Nobody ever stop at 3.5% let's get it to 65-75%
Trump posting a video dropping bombs from his asshole on the protests shows that he does, in fact, care a lot about the protest so he is doing as ridiculous of a thing as he can to counteract it...
The day was not only nonviolent but also historic. The estimated nearly 7 million who showed up across America marked the second-largest one-day protest in U.S. history, surpassed only by a very different type of event, the first Earth Day in 1970. That was roughly 40% largest than the first “No Kings” event in June, and in talking to protesters Saturday it seemed the turnout was only boosted by the right-wing rhetoric, that anti-Trump protesters must be some kind of domestic terrorists.
...
The official White House reaction, as related to one reporter, was “Who cares?” But guess what? They clearly cared, a lot. You could see that in the week leading up to the demonstration, with the increasingly insane rhetoric and warnings about “antifa” — a tiny, unorganized sliver of young rock-throwing radicals who were nowhere in sight Saturday — that aimed to neutralize the reality that millions of everyday Americans are sick of seeing a masked secret police snatch people off the streets.
In a maneuver that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un must have surely applauded, Trump’s Pentagon fired some artillery shells over a closed I-5 in the heart of Southern California’s anti-Trump rally as the protests were taking place — ostensibly to mark the 250th anniversary of the armed forces, but alsoas a reminder of the regime’s military might as Trump weighs invoking the Insurrection Act.
All good, but saying that antifa is a group of rock-throwing radicals is dumb at best and plays into the fascist's narrative.
And a sign we shouldn't be fighting for America anymore, we should be fighting for something better.
yeah I hate this bullshit throwing around antifa like its a particular group. they tried to do the same thing with black lives matter. even funnier that anti-anti-facists want to talk about the people protesting them as being anti-american.
Keep fighting the good fight America.
I 110% guarantee you the White House is not panicking. He and his little Nazi party of buffoons have zero fears of anyone or anything getting in their way.
They think they’re above the law. And one that is above the law has no fear because he has limitless power to do with as he pleases.
That should be the point of protests. Reminding them that the government should work for the people, and that they will be held accountable for what they did. Because if you don't, no one else will
I think both are kind of true. They have more power than perhaps any administration in history given how stacked the Supreme Court is and how subservient the entire GOP is to Trump and the billionaire apparatus.
That said, I DO sense a panic of how so many months have gone by and midterms are right around the corner. With Trump's approval-ratings plummeting to Jimmy Carter levels already and their lack of justifying consolidation of power while Democrats are energized — IF they don't succeed by next midterms, GOP are going to lose pretty big.
Prop 50 Yes in California is a must as well.
Only an absolute collapse in support for the GOP will affect them. The SCOTUS is going to rule against section 2 of the voting rights act and then southern states are going to jerrymander another 12 seats away from the Dems. That's not insurmountable, but they will need a national lead of 6% in the popular vote just to break even.
Dude what. Last presidency he got scared during the anti-abortion law protests of May 2019 and installed new fencing around the Whitehouse that are roughly twice as high.
https://apnews.com/united-states-government-f0dae0200dd945dcb868d98b1e8ff378
Then he had additional fencing and concrete barriers installed around the already huge fences during the BLM/George Floyd protests, and when one of those fences was partially pushed down (still leaving a 14 foot fence protecting the Whitehouse), he ran off and hid in a bunker.
Then he spent the next weeks telling everyone he's very brave and did not go to a bunker. While Whitehouse leakers confirmed he did.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/trump-is-literally-building-a-wall-around-the-white-house
He's repeatedly shown he's a scared little piss-baby, especially of protesters.
Trump's first term was so much wilder than people remember. It drives me nuts every day.
Bruh those fences weren't fear, they were a publicity stunt and rile up the right... They know what they are doing and it's basically a psychological war.
They can just send a manipulated poor person to do their dirty work, including murder, without having anything to fear at all.
Trump is just a puppet to larger organized crime that's global. America is just being used as a tool in the lawless global game that is above the law.
A dictator is always afraid of the people the rule over. Law is not something they fear. It is lawlessness. Protests is the way to show them a glimpse of that.
Lawlessness is their upper hand, but when they realize their victims are willing to die or kill things change. They do have pawns that will die for them though so it's not so simple.
It's exactly like mafia and gang life on a larger scale.
Most Americans are not playing the same game as them... Most Americans are taught not to play that game... But when they start things might have hope.
Thewhite house panicked so hard the President of the united states posted a video of homself with a crown on shitting on the protesters. Think about that for two seconds.
That’s not panicking, that’s laughing and making a joke of the whole thing.
People need to accept this.
They've seen zero drop in the money they're pocketing or stealing.
They're seeing zero ramifications for their actions.
So they'll keep doing what they're doing.
Good for you, America!
The people that oppose this administration don't want anarchy and guillotines though. They want integrity, law, order, justice, etc. The teeth of the anti-MAGA movement will have to come through at least semi-legitimate means, i.e., I think it will have to come through the authority of state governments.
And we see state governments become increasingly aggressive against this administration. These marches embolden the mayors and governors that oppose MAGA; they say that the people are with them.
Can we just stop policing people's acts of resistance? At this point I'm more upset at the people doing absolutely nothing other than maybe post stuff online.
I find it useful. My block list has grown massively. Its a good litmus test for myself on peoples whos opinions are not for me.
Did they write you a ticket or something? Pretty sure they are trying to participate in a conversation. If you don't like it, don't participate. There are plenty of other comments to reply to.
The important part is that the protests are carrying weight with other people who care. The protests have been getting bigger and bigger, and when someone who cares about the cause but doesn’t show up sees this it gives them more imperative to show up too next time. The larger the protests get, the more likely that it will lead to a general strike, which is what will make a very big difference. Once the billionaires and centimillionaires genuinely feel like their profits are being threatened, they’ll pull the administration’s strings.
Please, start the rolling out of the first guillotine and gallows. Fire the opening salvo. If you are going to shit on people doing something you consider to not be enough, step up and lead a stronger resistance rather than standing by and bitching that someone should do something.
Do not split
The next national protest should proactively disappear all ICE agents.
Make ICE fear putting boots on the ground.
Make people fear joining ICE.
That's a real start.
Who disagrees with this?
Escalation of violence tends to go in favor of the despotic regime.
Instead of making ICE disappear, make it impossible for them to disappear. Make their identities public, and keep them that way as long as they're associated with ICE. Then see what the community around them does.
The more the better
According to the NYT, it was thousands that turned out ¯(ツ)_/¯
They stopped estimating crowd sizes because it made Trump look bad
Seven thousand thousand.
Where they just counting like some suburb of some city?
3.5% participation is required for a population to reach a Tipping Point, and start a trend that leads to change. In America, that's about 12.5 million people. The last No Kings protest was about 5.5 million people, this one was around 7 million, so we're getting closer.
The thing to remember, because MAGA surely does, is that the 12.5 million doesn't all have to be out marching. The No Kings protesters represent less than half of their actual numbers. In fact, they probably represent less than 20% of their total. A LOT of sympathizers stayed home, most of them, in fact.
MAGA understands that the protesters are only a small portion of the actual resistance, and they know they are surrounded. It's time that the rest of the country recognizes that.
Seem to be a lot of people posting this so I'll just repost what I wrote elsewhere :
The 3.5% theory is extremely questionable. The first paragraph of (the BBC) article is problematic if you know like 3 things about Philippine politics.
I’ve dug deeper into the data and it is very opinionated how it defines “success” and violence/nonviolence.
I’m not a pro-violence guy, i defend liberation struggles, but work to create educational/political/cultural revolution. Also the 3.5% mobilized population would be rad AF in USAmerica.
I haven’t read the whole book the study is based on, though I was working on it for a while. But IMO it misrepresents historical fact to make a nice-sounding abstraction, and I’m not sure how people will react to its failure, which would be based on a faulty premise.
We need to be more focused on what we will do with the power that will come from mobilizing like 12 million Americans rather than hoping some members of the political class notice and decide to fix things. The actual problem is that power is kept out of the hands of workers. The thought of building that power and giving it away would be a catastrophic blow to our movements.
The political system is empowered to fix problems, but not equipped. As far as I can tell, the only people who have ever created or fixed a goddamn thing in all of history have been workers.
I admit, it almost worked on me. I was a little scared to go, and I left my phone and identifying information at home. I also brought a 360 degree camera in case shit happened, figured I’d have a better chance of getting it on camera.
But instead it was a massive party, just fun people, hilarious signs and a truly pleasant and enjoyable walk through the city. It really helped break some of my cynicism; some, not all.
I can’t wait for the next one.
No kings needs to accelerate their frequency. This needs to move to every night.
Do you have a source for this? I was recently wondering about specific numbers and would happily read something on the topic.
The Wiki article is a good starting point I think.
Most important to keep in mind for this is that afaik the research was only correlative so there can be any amount of other factors in causative play.
But it’s an intriguing couple of studies nonetheless.
Two good books are Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point, and Mark Penn's Microtrends.
A good number of sympathizers were too busy working to stay afloat
A correlation not a requirement.
You could at least as easily say the calendar date is most important. With peoples lack of attention span, will this still matter to them next election? As we continue to build support, will it hit critical mass at the right time to affect next election?
Or on the shorter term, is it only the local results that matter. I live in a blue state that is trying to fight back in some ways. My most important short term goal is to show them that’s what their constituents want. They need to fight back with every chance they get and to not be discouraged.