leaders with the most prominent Trump-resistance group organizing “No Kings” answered that complaint Saturday when Indivisible’s Ezra Levin took to the stage in Minneapolis and announced that a nationwide general strike is planned for May 1, modeled after a successful local action that shut down much of that region in January
Ok, so 8 million people went out and publicly proclaimed their hatred of trump. Now what? WTF did that accomplish?
Fortunately, there’s a website called nokings.org and if you were to peruse that “What’s Next” section at https://www.nokings.org/whats-next it will answer some of your questions.
Honestly, you don’t really sound sorry to be negative, and in fact, it’s almost impossible to differentiate your comment from the ones being made by Trump supporters. If you sound just like them and are saying the exact same things, then you’re really no different.
These events are currently in the build-up phase. People have to become familiar and comfortable with protesting. Protests can be scary. It takes a lot of bravery to get past that first step and show up to a massive protest in a city. It takes a lot of bravery to get past that first step and show up to a tiny protest in a small MAGA dominated town. But once people do that, it means they’re more likely to come to the next and bring a friend. And then the next and bring more friends. For there to be a chance of resisting, there needs to be enough people participating. These things, in the USA, just don’t happen by random chance.
Similarly, the people organizing and planning these events – local people who started with little or no experience planning for this type of thing. They have to learn how to do this. That takes time, practice, repetition. They aren’t paid experts who will get everything perfect on the first go.
Why bother? Because to actually pull this country back from the brink, it may very well require rapid response protests, on-going sustained protests. It will definitely require active civilian participation in politics and elections. The groups running these events are getting people signed up to help campaign for local, progressive leaders, to become poll watchers, and so on at record numbers – especially in these rural areas that have, for decades, been overwhelmingly conservative places. If Trump decides to invalidate the November election because he doesn’t like the outcome, who’s got a better chance at resisting and stopping that attack on democracy? Unorganized people who’ve never protested before and local organizations with no ability to mobile people OR an engaged populace of people who know what to do and what to expect and how to make that happen? The outcome isn’t guaranteed either way, but I like the odds of that latter group much better.
Wouldn’t it work better if it happened more than like twice a year on a weekend?
It’s happening more than twice a year. Another good reason to go visit that website I posted above! It’s called NOKINGS.ORG, you can view it in pretty much all the browsers I’ve tested. Lots of great information there for those curious and with questions like these!
Oh yeah the don’t buy anything day on a day where people have other things to do besides shopping. When I worked retail people didn’t really shop during the week. You want to really hit them, hold multiple protests during the early to mid day hours of weekdays and do the no buying stuff on a Sunday, the busiest shopping day of the week (speaking from personal experience). Then don’t stop once it rolls over to Monday.
Sounds like a great idea. How many people (raw number or percentage-wise) do you estimate will need to participate in those protests? How do you plan to get them engaged and activated to join your protests? How soon can you get those people out there on the street during the week? I’m all in, where can I sign up?
From doing work with my local PSL group that outwardly hates the Dems and calls them out regularly for being pieces of shit, we do this stuff near weekly. However I don’t agree with how many of them turn away anarchists and I tend to be the only one helping them do their violence. The anarchists around here tend to not have anywhere to go for help, so them breaking shit is what I see as the added help we need. Here’s just an example of one done during the week.
I did take a look at your site, but I didn’t see any real answers to most of my questions in terms of numbers and plans. Sorry. Did I miss those?
So you stayed home and scrolled online and did less than nothing. Good job.
They serve to build networks between the participants and skills for organizing and mobilizing.
Organizing for what? Skills to do what?
I’m pretty involved in be anything on the left in my city. Maybe 50 people “signed up” to be in various groups I’m in. 10s of thousands walked around on a nice weathered day.
will you strike on May 1?