cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37547935
‘Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go!’ protesters across the country chanted
Nearly 7 million demonstrators in small towns and cities across the country showed up for No Kings protests to rally against Donald Trump’s presidency, according to organizers.
The president declared he was “not a king” on Fox News Friday, but that didn’t stop millions of rally-goers in more than 2,500 locations across the United States from protesting the second Trump administration.
Saturday’s event marked the third mass mobilization since Trump reclaimed the White House — and one of the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in U.S. history, surpassing the more than 5 million demonstrators who turned up to the first iteration of “No Kings” protests in June, organizers said.
Honest question: have these protests accomplished anything of note besides setting size records? I could see them helping like minded people connect and network, but to what avail?
Honestly I think a huge part of their value is just mental resiliency to cope with the situation and keep going. To keep getting up every day and being dirt in the cogs, and keep trying to survive and be part of the solution
For the protesters, certainly- that’s how I felt when I was at the protests (more hopeful. More capable of coping), but I imagine the impact might be even higher for folks in worse situations who drive by the protest.
I think they serve largely intangible, abstract social functions. They bring people together. They’re a symbol of hope. They give us energy. They allow us to meet others who might be organizing in other ways (was chatting with someone at the last event who also went with a group to protest and disrupt a local christian nationalist meeting). And for the people who go having never been to a protest before, there’s a chance they become part of the subset who takes greater action.
But I think it gives people a sense of mental strength to defy power in their day to day lives that can’t be overlooked. If we’re gonna succeed it’ll take just about everyone refusing to go along with things, and psychologically that’s hard, especially with the kinds of consequences that a fascist regime imposes.
Fascism wins if we give into hopelessness.
One theory says that when 3.5% of a population nonviolently protest against a government, the government will fall… Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results but Americans are only 5 million to the 12 million threshold given by this theory.
It also makes the presidency look weak, which is important because the alt-right’s flood the zone strategy to divide and conquer people’s attention makes the government look hopeless to oppose, which lends them more power and legitimacy than what the billionaires and Supreme Court has given them.
At my local one (not in the USA) a prominent third party leader was there, and along with dancing and singing, various speakers’ messages were telling us to get involved with challenging laws we don’t like, aiming to pass laws that we do want, and look for potential open positions in government to run a campaign for. Generally it was encouraging people to get involved politically.
Also remember that the last election had a delta of 2.3 million votes. Yes, the American election system is absolutely messed up but it’s important to note that 7 million people coming together to these events protesting is in itself significant. It is changing people’s minds. It is encouraging more people to join mutual aid efforts like those food-cart buyout cyclists. Even if 98% of people just go out, wave and dance a bit, then go home, that still would be 140,000 people across the country actively looking to do more to make a difference in their region, and honestly it is likely more than 2% considering all these people with signs and costumes.