- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/35928296
What naysayers don’t get about ‘No Kings,’ the biggest protest in U.S. history
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
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It’s easy to think protests don’t matter.
They do. Just not directly.
8 million people in the streets aren’t going to make literal traitors admit they were wrong and willingly leave their positions.
But 8 million people in the streets sends a signal to everyone else that the opinions they already hold about this treasonous government are valid and that they are not alone.
It’s a snowball effect. It’ll get bigger, if we’re persistent. Gotta keep the momentum building.
Oh yea? And then everything STILL votes between 2 asshole parties that both need to be dethroned and the cycle resumes.
Baby steps
Baby step IS voting in a neutral party, even without an agenda, and letting things settle down a bit.
My local protest had, easily, twice the turnout as June.
And a lot of Republicans were there. November is going to be a bloodbath for the red party. (Just wish it were possible to elect actual progressive Dems.)
I expected the place I went to have like maybe twenty people and there ended up being hundreds. This is in a deeply red area. We got so many cheers and honks of support from people in traffic. Like it was non-stop horns the whole time. It was only an hour long protest, but it was so incredible. I spoke to a group of 5 protestors who used to be MAGA, but realized they were wrong. They said they were protesting to try to change the minds of the people they used to be like and to make up for helping bring about the meds we’re all in. The whole thing made me a lil hopeful for the future and I was riding the good mood from it all the way through Sunday.
Don’t forget about the primaries! See if there are any progressive candidates running in the dem primaries on your ballot. Vote for them in the primaries even if you don’t think they have a shot. Even if they don’t win, a close race could be a sign to the establishment dem that things are changing and if they want to keep getting elected (to collect their bribes) then they need to change their platform. Plus every vote for a progressive candidate encourages them to keep fighting the good fight. If you have the time and resources, volunteering if also really good, but obviously not everyone can
All this being said though, yeah I still wish there were just more good candidates
Don’t forget about the primaries!
Maybe that’ll work locally, but Dems rig their national primaries.
It’s a start, but a general strike should be the goal!
May 1st has been announced.
Yeah I heard it’s happening after April 30th.
Context is a thing, you know.
I didn’t wake up today with the intention of being a downer, but the odds of a general strike happening are vanishingly small.
Just not gonna happen.
Americans simply don’t have that kind of solidarity or the breathing room to go without a paycheck or lose their jobs.
It’s the fastest and least violent way to bring this treasonous government to its knees, but I don’t see it happening. I’m not even aware of any historical examples of a general strike on a large scale anywhere.
will you strike on May 1?
Probably not. I work a critical local government job. Didn’t get to work from home during COVID either.
A general strike is just not really a feasible thing. Even in a country where most people weren’t living paycheck to paycheck, you’d still have to worry about getting fired as retribution for taking part. And savings don’t last long.
Again, I don’t know of any instance of a general strike in history. For a reason.
It’s great and important, but even a 100,000,000 person march in every major city every weekend isn’t worth a FRACTION of JUST GOING TO VOTE.
I might be wrong but it doesn’t seem the people protesting would be the types that didn’t vote.
The amount of anti-democracy statements online is so strong, especially on the online left, I bet a lot of those protesters don’t vote on principal. The irony of protesting what they helped to bring rarely hits those people.
You may be onto something but I always feel like people who are against voting are lazy shitheads that like to rationalize doing nothing whatsoever
On the whole? No, I agree with you. But there are certainly at least a few, just as certain as there are some who are out there protesting now who aren’t going to make their way to vote in November. People’s motivations fluctuate, and it’s important to remind people that protest is an extremely important PART of civic responsibility, but it’s only a part.
Yeah, but Americans are awful at voting. Maybe we’ll be better at allowing things to get so awful that we turn to mass protests and violence.
In a functioning society, the public mood would inspire the Congress to change their behavior. Unfortunately we just keep voting people back in 93% of the time for no reason other than familiarity.
Downvotes? Voting really is a good idea - in a democracy.
Also credit where its due: The biggest protests in US history is a good thing.Even in a flawed, crappy democracy, manipulating elections takes work, and the more overwhelming the voting the harder that work becomes, damaging election legitimacy, which ironically might actually lead to pressure for the changes non-voters insist are necessary before they’ll vote.
Is voting a magical panacea? No. But there is absolutely NO action that can be taken that has as much impact towards goals of change in exchange for as little effort, and voting does NOT preclude any of the other actions people want to take. It’s not an either/or.
Not sure it can even be classified as a “protest” being held on a Saturday… maybe a “march” would suit the tepid impact better.
The only worthwhile thing out of this is that they are FINALLY calling for a General Strike but, after seeing how amazing Americans are at coming up with excuses for inaction, I am not holding my breath
Not just voting, but voting BOTH sides of the same shitcoin out of power. 33.4% is easier to achieve than 50.1, but Murkan peepol bad math.
How many democrats in congress have voted against this administrations cabinet picks? I’ll give you a hint: it’s almost none of them.
In before the doomers start complaining that it was a protest and not <insert favorite civil disobedience here>
A Republican representative said “it went great, we now have all their data.” So, swings and roundabouts and that.
I’ll do you one better: even with fuel prices doubling and a completely unprovoked war starting without even a clear goal, all whilst the biggest coverup in the DOJ’s history, significantly smelling like the rotting mango may have done pretty sick shit with children, yanks together managed to care to the extent of not quite 2.5% of their population.
As a non yank, you bet I feel uplifted, and you bet protesting is really the absolute bare fucking minimum, preferably not just a few times per year.
The real uplifting news is that this level of civil obedience and inaction sure is fast-tracking that civil war which hopefully will result in the ones that still believe non whites need to be slaves will have their leader “dealt with”.
Who would have thought the country that pumps out hero movies faster than we watch them, has no heroes after all.
USA has uniquely bad public transport systems, which makes these events harder than in Europe.
Without suitable public transport, if you drive your own car, Americans often have to park several kilometers away from the event, and walk for hours to get there.I have criticized Americans a lot for their inaction against Trump. But at least this is something.
I’d wager most in the USA would have difficulty getting time off work or childcare to have the ability to attend a protest. Also for those living hand to mouth its as much a financial decision as it is a political statement.
Absolutely agree. And the fuel cost plus the endless devaluation of labour there makes it harder. But these are truly unbelievably unprecedented times. Another thing I tend to forget is that every week they let their own kids get shot into pieces at their schools and they have yet to change a gun law.
There are actions that don’t require transportation. I mean in 2-3 months of this, nobody will be driving to a low wage or gig economy job anyway. Capitalism will hopefully activate auto-general-strike mode that way.
USA has uniquely bad public transport systems
Letting aside you have known this for years and never done anything about it either… this does not stop the average American from participating in their soul crushing jobs. It only seems to be a problem when it has to be done for other reasons
Americans certainly get the gold medal in making up excuses
No, soul crushing jobs have a predictable amount of people in a larger distributed area so the infrastructure is planned and built for that many people to be there. It’s mass gatherings in a centralized place (like a protest) that are underserved by our infrastructure design. This is of course intentional by the powers that be.
as if everyone in the USA, or their neighbours, or some friends would not have a car already PRECISELY because your public transportation infrastructure is horrendous
Next excuse up: “I didn’t have protest-appropriate clothes to wear”
I am from Denmark, so you are jumping to all the wrong conclusions, and using extremely poor judgement comparing a huge demonstration to going to work.
yes, because buses never go downtown… that is the least serviced area
Yup, here it is.
Sorry for complaining about USA destroying the world asshole.
? The thing you want to downvote because reality is too hard to swallow, but you have no rebuttal to, so all you’re left with are “In be4” and “here it is” platitudes?
You haven’t raised a point worth discussing, you’re just sitting over there thinking how if you were in the horror movie you’d definitely punch out Jason.
Ah yes, more wise words from … fartmaster69…
An excellent ad hominem!
It’s not an ad himinem. It’s literally their name.
Wiser than the “king of RAS”.
Next year’s will be even better!
My feeling is that like the occupy wall street movement, this one doesn’t really have an objective which will cause it to fail or peter out. Yes, people got out and said they hate trump but what did that accomplish? He’s still president and his ilk are still fucking up our democracy and will continue to do so for at least 2 3/4 more years.
Umm, the objective is literally the title, no?
We already don’t have kings.
