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Non-violence has it’s place. But marches alone will not change anything. What the US needs is actual disruptions (i.e strikes and sabotages) as well as a credible radical flank
What US needs is some coherent political movement from anyone but monsters. All the disruptions in the world mean shit if there is no proper followup from a group of people who has their shit together. If literal magical aliens come tomorrow and organise a total proper strike that will change absolutely nothing because there is no group that can do demands and see that they are met. American left doesn’t exist, and those small groups that exist are unified only and exclusively by their visceral hatred of liberals and smaller but still visceral disdain of other small groups of American left, and American liberals are stunned and terrified and can’t do shit.
The protests can in theory let people form those needed connections, but doesn’t seem to be doing it quickly enough.
501c organizations and feds
And nothing changed.
Fascists do not care about protests. Never have. Never will.
Fascists also don’t allow fair elections if they can prevent them.
This is why it was so important for Americans to pull their heads out of their asses and make the obvious choice in November, instead of giving total control to fascists, making it WAY more likely for the next election to be fraudulent. Americans failed.
I’m going to let everyone reading this come to the obvious conclusion for what will end up needing to be done at this point.
And I got chastised for insulting people who are intolerant, both to tankies and fascists. These bullies only understand and respond to force. Give them what they want and they will wish to have stopped.
I’m gonna guess violent revolution with a side of political cleansing?
Good for the USA.
They had a moment, made funny signs, took some pictures, felt good about themselves.
Now Trump is rolling a military buildup in the country’s capitol. We all know how this is going to end.
Good job. Pat yourselves on the back. You achieved fucking nothing.
If the protests were pointless, then why would trump bother to build up the military in cities? Seems to me that the military buildup is to discourage more protests, because they are not pointless.
Was he not going to do that anyway?
This is the stupidest take.
If anything, you’re arguing that the protests accomplished none of the goals of the protestors, and only managed to escalate and incite a response that was a “warning” that worse will come if we don’t keep it up.
So… it still seems fucking pointless to me? Like for fucks sake, we’re all just waiting for him to die of natural causes and hope that the coalition falls apart, doing a whole bunch of pointless shit until then because we all know that violence is the only way to remove him at this point.
Naive fucks. The people who support him are just as committed to keeping power.
Glad someone else is saying it.
No Kings was a joke.
This take makes no sense. One of the largest days of protests in US history is a joke to you? It’s a fundamental right of the citizens to protest and exercise this right.
Sure. And it accomplished nothing- if anything, it emboldened the far right who now know that they can accelerate their plans and AT BEST only be met with a “peaceful protest” on a Saturday (if the weather’s nice).
Meanwhile, while No Kings was happening, 4 members of democratic leadership were shot in their homes. They were racking up a body count while “the resistance” was congratulating itself for going outside and holding a sign on a weekend.
Even if a movement went all “blood and violence” it wouldn’t be done in a day. What makes you so certain that something is useless just because it doesn’t immediately solve everything?
It’s the lack of follow up protests, the lack of figure heads setpping up to champion the cause.
It happened and then nothing. Sure there’s small things here and there.
But functionally it was a good start and brought a lot of momentum. Which has promptly been squandered.
Who is our gandi, or MLK Jr, who’s speaking out rallying more protests. Who’s willing to actually turn those masses into something actually impactful instead of a history book factoid.
I disagree with the idea that some “great leader” would be helpful and not a liability. Or the idea that there aren’t already leaders in the movement.
Are you implying that what happened at No Kings was, if not escalating, even ONGOING?
Yes. It’s natural that participation will ebb and flow, that’s why it’s important for folks not to give up and say it was all useless after just one day. Having regular weekly events and a monthly “big” protest seems to be the strategy for maintaining momentum.
Escalation could also be useful - though of course that doesn’t necessarily mean jumping to blood-and-violence, there are many other tactics that can be used (like the targeted boycotts, for example, or a general strike). Even more “passive” things like voter education (where polls are, how to register, etc.) can add up over time.
Lemmy Canadians have a real problem when it comes to being completely self centered assholes.
You aren’t that far removed from U.S. citizens and your shit stinks too.
We’ve been friends with the US for years.
Then they hired a felon, pedophile, rapist to shit in our poutine.
I’m perfectly fine being called a self centred asshole for being mad about this and laughing as the USA eats it’s own head.
Have a nice day.
You aren’t that far removed from U.S. citizens and your shit stinks too.
- Canada gets most of its food from the U.S. . 2) Laughing at us means laughing at yourself, you’re now positioned squarely between the U.S. and Russia — and the U.S. definitely controls your southern border. Did I mention that the U.S. is where you get most of your food and that the U.S. has military dominance in the region? How many Canadians do you think will starve before any legitimate help arrives?
There are many emotions to be had about this, schadenfreude has to be the most intellectually devoid one. My, still very much a child, nephew could understand that.
Yes, getting defensive online is the best possible use of your energy right now.
Merely stating facts.
Assuming one day of protest is the complete picture is what is comical. The Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955. The Civil Rights Act signed in 1965. One day is just part of the overall story of history. And having the largest protest be against Trump is part of our history now. It will take much more for that be a good story, but it is a good sign.
You don’t have 10 years to work this out. Particularly when every media company is capitulating in advance. No Kings was not part of some ongoing movement. It was a weekend and it was as far as Americans are willing to go.
I hate reading the comments of all the capitulators here, carrying water for the regime by trying to discourage people with this constant drumbeat that protests are useless and ineffective. Bullshit. Are you magats? We’ve seen examples in history where protests and the movements they enabled have brought down those in power.
Protests are necessary but not sufficient in themselves. They’re how resistance starts and builds, not how it ends. Did you ever think it might take time to form the momentum to get to a critical mass, especially after decades of complacency? Real momentum and effective action was never going to happen immediately or in just weeks, or even in less than eight months which is where we are now. There are already people grouping and doing things other than protests (iykyk) and will be more, made possible by the support and cover that large numbers participating provide.
Troops are being moved into cities and they will keep being sent to more cities. Blue cities. There’s one reason for that–they want to intimidate people from turning out and use force to stop those who do. trump keeps saying so and plans are being implemented.
Point is, you may think it’s all useless and ineffective, but the regime obviously doesn’t. Why do you want to help them? If you think it’s hopeless, fine–stay home and doom scroll, but stop trying to dissuade others.
Troops are being moved into cities and they will keep being sent to more cities.
Which is important. Make them want to cover every city in America. The problem for them is that they can’t. There aren’t enough regular troops, National Guard, and ICE agents put together to make it work. They’ll be spread too thin.
That really highlights the importance of protests. If it was just New York it would fail. If it was just Chicago it would fail. If it were just LA it would fail. If we signal that we’re all going to work together on this, they can’t possibly do it.
I agree. The negativity in this forum has utility beyond providing a stupid counterpoint. It also saturates attention and screenspace in long threads of people arguing nonsense. The goal is disruption, and in a space far from corporate control like Reddit, yet somewhat under-moderated, it’s alarmingly effective. At worst, there’s an acutual playbook for this exact thing.
They think that going out and shooting Republicans will help. Because of course the ones with control over the military will be easily brought down by randos with guns.
Depends on the ones you are shooting. If you kill the 80 year old Republican who has barely any cash? No it won’t do shit. If you snipe Charlie Kirk or a senator, then yeah cause it breaks the illusion of their immunity.
Violence is a tool and much like any tool you need to know how to use it. Taking out the propaganda welps and the money movers would be a good first step. It’s also a lot harder to work against if done with variable tactics since asymmetrical warfare is a bitch to work against.
If done in a well-organized strategic manner, agreed! But somehow I don’t think that’s how it would go down.
Only need the organization level of a WW2 resistance cell or an IRA cell. Squad level is more than large enough to execute effective operations on a strategic level so long as said cells aren’t entirely singular, 5 cells each with 5 people for example even when working independently could probably bring a cities infrastructure to its knees let alone kill random politicians and their buddies.
Here’s hopin’!
You don’t have to be well-organized nor strategic. Being chaotic and uncaught often works. I listen a lot to Behind the Bastards and Lions Led by Donkeys. It has given me the impression that effectiveness of a given behavior is a horseshoe, where the ends of the shoe have greater impact than a balanced style.
uncaught
That word is doing a LOT of heavy lifting. But I agree. If only it were easy to do.
Surprisingly, it happens more often than one expects. Just listen to the podcasts I mentioned, all sorts of people, good and bad…usually the bad, get away with being weird in all the ways. Audacity is bit of a cheat code, because most people don’t want to disrupt their daily life. This cedes agency to people who do things.
Chill with the fedposting. You know you’re not actually anonymous here, right? You’re putting yourself at risk. People have had the FBI knocking on their door for less.
Okay and? Id tell a fed I want to fill the reflection pool with the corpses of every member of the legislature, executive, and judicial. They’d probably dismiss as a non actionable pretty damned fast since white dude from redneck land is probably a pretty damned common thing to hear this shit from.
Trump could get overthrown tomorrow and Lemmy Europeans would find a way to bitch about it
Damn those Europeans, always bitching about Trump being overthrown. Well, he isn’t overthrown actually, instead he has more and more power by the day and Americans don’t do anything effective about it. And those pesky Europeans keep bitching about things that happening instead of being happy about imaginary things that aren’t happening.
I wish I could sticky this.
Largest days of protest so far
And awesome to see how effective it was, glad we got the regimen to rethink its policies… Oh wait they doubled down.
That’s why there needs to be a clear line that people know exists between performative protest and concrete protest.
For anyone confused:
Performative protests, like the No Kings protests, serve to:
- Get people energized to either take concrete action or donate/join organizations that can
- Reduce feelings of hopelessness/despair
- Make people more aware who were previously not following the news much if all
Concrete protests actually delay or stop the bad thing in question (e.g. blocking exits to ICE facilities)
A lot of people are hoping No Kings and similar protests will stop Trump. They won’t. Of course they won’t. But you can bet there’s a lot more people donating to charities that either legally fight the administration’s actions, or disrupt fascist policies on the ground, and a lot of people end up breaking off from these more liberal protests to later go to more concrete ones.
They’re not worthless, but nothing beats direct, concrete action.
https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tool/dont-expect-a-concrete-outcome-from-a-symbolic-action
Performative protests are INCREASING my hopelessness and despair.
“WOW, biggest protest in the history of the U.S.? And did fuck all? Welp, if that can’t do it, nothing can. We’re fucked.”
Maybe it’s just me, but seeing regular ass people who were previously entirely disinterested in politics start marching in the street, actively educating themselves about the political landscape, and even seeing some break off into actual blockades of ICE facilities gives me a lot more hope than seeing people do nothing in the first place.
You have to remember, the average person mostly just cares about their family and personal financial circumstances, doesn’t take risks, and just reposts platitudes on facebook from time to time.
This is an improvement from the status quo, and any progress toward a better direction is good. I guarantee you, you will see many more people engaging in concrete actions as time goes on, because these sorts of protests help spur people into further action. Hell, we’ve already seen that happening.
These protests are gateways to concrete actions, not something that replaces them.
This is a very good way to explain it. We need both kinds, both are important.
So double down right back at them. What are you doing to stop what’s happening? How else should we disrupt the regime’s efforts? What do you recommend? Or do you think shitting on people’s efforts is helpful somehow and will lead to a good outcome?
My mom was a huge speeder. She almost never went below 10 over the limit. Any time someone told her something along the lines of “The sign says 60, and you’re going 80.” she’d respond along the lines of “Well, good thing signs can’t stop me then, huh?”
She’d always slow down if she thought she saw a cop, though.
I always think about that when people talk about protests as if they’re the final step and not just the warning before a revolt. If you want self-centered people, like the ones running our government, to listen to your signs, you need them to fear what comes afterward if they don’t.
Interesting analogy, and a great point. I think it’s a lot like poker. They place their bets, we place our bets. They raise the stakes, we raise the stakes. Eventually one of us is either going to fold or we’re both going to end up going all in, and then we’ll finally end up seeing what our hands end up being once that happens. Are any of us prepared to fold on this? I’m not. Are they prepared to fold? I don’t know. Are they bluffing or are they holding all the right cards? I don’t know. If it comes to that, I guess we’ll find out.
That’s a great analogy as well, though with the stakes as high as they are, I don’t think either side is likely to fold. I think we’ll have to show our hands and see who wins. I’d love to hear that the government caved in to our demands and everything is fine, but if that doesn’t happen we need to understand that our work isn’t done until we get what we need, regardless of whether or not they decide to give it to us willingly.
I don’t think their hand is really that strong, as much as they’ve been trying to convince people it is. Their media is powerful, the image they project is powerful. They have convinced us to fear of a massively powerful military-backed surveillance state, as we should, but is that really something they can achieve? Only with a lot more apathy and cowing to authority than they’re actually going to get, I think. Americans (and even the military is made up of Americans) are an unruly bunch at the best of times, and the powers that be might think they have enough money and enough security in place to protect them as their popular support dwindles and the MAGA wave they rode to power begins to realize that these authoritarians are not giving them back “muh freedumbs” like they promised but are in fact taking more of them away. As the famous quote goes, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The regime has been ignoring and laughing at protests like 50501 and No Kings. They will have to fight eventually. Would the current regime survive more LA riots? Vietnam war protests? Another million man march? Probably. That’s obviously what they’re preparing for, as they should. But how far are they actually going to be able to go? And how far will the resistance go? I agree, we’ll see once the cards are all on the table. But I think there’s still plenty of room for hope that the actual future isn’t going to be as bleak as it may seem right now.
What are you trying to accomplish here?
Everyone else: next one is September 1st.
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/I think he’s correct in stating this administration won’t care if we protest or how large it is. What we hope happens is that the protests get more momentum amongst the politically inert. That momentum could build us up to a general strike which would have more influence once the capitalists bottom line gets impacted. Maybe. IDK. This all sucks.
I’ve been to all the 50501 protests in my area as a show of support, but I’m not trying to accomplish anything. I’m just of the opinion that protests without action accomplish nothing. I am all into exercises, some real civil disobedience.
Mr Trump thanks you for your support.
Very welcome where do I collect my medal of freedom
Our great grandparents armed themselves and took over the factory floors. We need some of that energy.
but I’m not trying to accomplish anything
This is the problem. Co-conspirators don’t grow on trees, and protests are for networking because online chatter is too obvious. If you’re going to protests, but not trying to accomplish anything by doing it, you’re doing it wrong.
And yet it seemed to change nothing
Good, and we will do it again and again!
- Trump and his goons are traitors
- A corporate takeover of the US has been planned for a long time
- We will not vote our way out of this
1 and 2 completely agree, but 3 is quitter talk. We don’t need any of that.
Who said anything about quitting?
Pick up a history book.
You don’t vote fascists out.
To be fair, we did vote him out once before.
However, I doubt they’ll allow it to happen again.
that was due to a fluke and technicality, that is covid.
It’s not quitter talk. It is opening a discussion for a workaround.
The last three elections had the highest voter turnout in recorded American history. This isn’t a voting problem anymore, because our voting system, our very democratic process, has been compromised with social manipulation and leveraged against us.
We will not rush the polls and fix this.
We don’t necessarily need to do an armed insurrection to fix this, but we have to get a LOT more active and a LOT more involved in our local leadership and representation, we have to argue a LOT more with our shitty uncle who gets all his news from Newsmax and nobody ever pushes back on him. We have to fight ICE in the streets and post it to social media and make resistance cool. We have to stop buying shit. Not a dumbass protest against a single company or product, just start saving your damn money and stop wasting it on games and booze and drugs. Seriously, take the money OUT of their hands. Start getting healthy, active and smart.
It will take generations to fix this, but it starts now with you getting up and walking somewhere and telling a total stranger “I can’t believe how much we pay in taxes and they couldn’t lower the price of groceries!” No wokescolding, no lectures, just do everything you can to make people mad at the actual enemy, the corporations and the wealthy.
edit: to the three people triggered by the idea that we can’t get out of this just by voting and telling people their shirts are problematic, you are the problem. You are ammunition for the orcs and monsters who have sabotaged us all. Get your priorities in order. Get off discord and get away from your polycule of shut-ins and ass-kissing introverts and get fucking busy. Phone-bank, march, throw a sandwich at an ICE agent, just stop thinking you can intellectualize your way out of this. Nobody is coming. This is on YOU.
just start saving your damn money and stop wasting it on games and booze and drugs
No
You’re going to lose porn if you don’t get serious. Make a choice.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that the porn always wins.
Trying to fight apathy here is like swimming against a current of pure laziness and despair.
Ya’ll need to take some walks and eat a salad.
Traitors and child fuckers.
child rapists. FIFY
We will not vote our way out of this
Nope. That option disappeared on November 5, 2024.
You cannot allow fascists to have total control of a government and then expect to vote your way back to normality.
Lots of people are going to have to die to end this. And we’ll probably go through a prolonged period of a decline of our quality of life before that happens. Then a prolonged period of recovery. And it could have easily been avoided if Americans had pulled their heads out of their asses and rubbed a couple brain cells together.
Buckle up kids.
Agreed, but this has been brewing for over 18 years. Today’s MAGA were yesteryear’s Tea Party members. They liked to wear funny “patriotic” hats and discuss conspiracy theory level politics. Easily guided and basically brainless, if you hold up a picture of a liberal they would run at it screaming profanities like some weird carrot on a stick. They ALMOST destroyed the Republican party with that craziness … but the party just steered into it and now rides the wave.
It disappeared before 2024.
There has been a massive, multi-pronged assault on just our rights and our values, but our very attention-spans and cognitive capabilities to resist the corporate takeover.
Do ya’ll really think that they’re collecting your personal data to sell you targeted products you want?
They want to know what everyone’s limits are, they want to know how much you pay attention, they want to know how much discomfort you will endure before you get mad, they want to know what placates you, they want to know what makes you feel good and comfortable so they can distill whatever that is and turn it into concentrated slop to keep you in your chair.
This isn’t conspiracy, this is the same thing that’s been to other countries by dictators and oligarchs in the past, usually with things like alcohol or drugs, but the modern world in America is much more complicated so they need a lot of people to click “agree” so they can find out what your weaknesses really are.
A lot of people’s limits are pretty much already reached. Some of us are old, tired, and just not that interested in keeping the greed machine running.
Your average Joe may not grab a rifle and run at the illegal National Guards that have been deployed or do a Luigi… but if those average Joe’s happen to see someone else do somwthing like that it will be good odds that they won’t remember what the person looked like or which way they ran after they did it.
Now if we could just repeat that success consistently.
Next time on a weekday, please.
Yeah preferably the first Tuesday of November. Maybe we can give that a try.
This guy Fawkes
Coordinate another date, and I’ll participate in that one too.
Next one is Sept 1st.
No Kings III
Thank you!
There’s not a single one listed for Wisconsin?!?
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Signed up but didn’t like idea of giving my name and email to do so.
Then don’t to do so.
No need to sign up. I sure as hell don’t. The less data out there on me the better IMO.
Thank you for saying it. I’m not putting my name on a list, but I’ll certainly participate. I bet we aren’t the only ones. Whatever the signup count, it’s probably at least double that willing to also take action.
I don’t like how two of the protests they’ve scheduled have been on holiday weekends when people are traveling or have big plans and cannot safely participate (Easter weekend and now Labor Day weekend). The No Kings protest was huge partly because it wasn’t on a holiday weekend. It seems very counter intuitive to have them on holiday weekends.
If NYC residents could do one on 9/11 that would get some solid coverage. Fill the memorial. Remind people Saudi Arabia is a part owner of this regime with Russia.
Putin, the House of Saud, and Netanyahu all have serious hooks into the orangeboi regime - and to a lesser but still significant extent, the vast majority of the entire US political apparatus and media sphere.
The fifty fifty one movement has been organizing protests usually about monthly and you can find them pretty easily on their site
Next widespread one I see planned is 9/1 for Labor Day.
History teaches us when protests and marches go unacknowledged riots and civil disobedience follow
While media attention is often focused on actors acquiescing to Trump’s demands, in the streets the popular protest movement continues to push back against the administration with notable persistence over time.
No lie, that’s some good news.
I think it’s still Trump’s conspiracy
Needs to be done weekly
