I’m shocked that I haven’t seen one protest yet. Is the media suppressing them? If there aren’t any, why?
There are regular protests of thousands of people all across the country, but it never hits top headlines. There aren’t nearly as many as there should be, but we’re largely a broken people, a collective beaten dog cowed in the corner. We’re burnt out. Literally every direction we turn, things are falling apart. The working class is almost entirely one or two paychecks from homelessness. Minimum wage hasn’t increased in 15 years despite year after year of record earnings and productivity. A third of the country genuinely believes a rapist conman is their literal biblical savior.
We’re fucking tired, man.
This is the fucking answers.
There are protests, they are just way too small.
Trump hast at least 40% of the population behind him, and a good 20-30% don’t care. Still.
You can’t organize “mass protests” with 20-30% of the population.
I mean, you can, but they are literally a loud minority.
That’s just wrong
Put 20/30% of the population of any city or county out on the streets and it will make headlines
It’s technically a loud minority but a very loud and significant minority
The problem is that of those 20/30% only 10% will actually get out on the streets so you are left with around 2% of the general population. And that ain’t much
The problem is that of those 20/30% only 10% will actually get out on the streets so you are left with around 2% of the general population. And that ain’t much
So you do agree?
Getting mass protests organized is a tremendous effort. If you have 80-90% support for something, getting 30-40% on the street is a huge accomplishment. If only 30% support the idea in the first place, there is no chance.
The “mass protest” has to be at a scale, where it’s basically a general strike where society shuts down because people are protesting.
That it doesn’t work right now doesn’t mean they should stop trying.
but a very loud and significant minority
This is meaningless in a country that chooses to ignore public voices. Authoritarian regimes can stay stable with 10-15% support of the population, ignoring protests and complaints.
No, I disagree. If things are really fucked (as they are) 30% of a population is more than enough to enact change. If they are really motivated to do so. Get most of those 30% only the street and you see what power it has.
Of course with 80/90% it’s easier. Much much easier but that’s just fantasy land. You can get 90% of the population to agree on many basic facts, so you can forget about having then agree to protest together.
Plenty of revolutions were made, and dictatorships overturned with much fewer people on board.
I very much disagree on how much power 30% of the population has. Yes the electoral system you have in the USA is beyond stupid. However voting is only the easiest and most polite way to make change.
Go on strike, protest, build some guillotines. If the population really wants it, change will be made, even if it’s only 15/30%. Because the remainder of that population will not opposite necessarily. They just don’t care enough to protest.
Luigi Mangione is just 1 person for example.
Alright. I hope that I’m wrong too, after all.
Chicago has had a few. In particular at the protest for science there was a dude in a trump in diapers blow up costume.
What would “a protest” accomplish? What have they accomplished in my lifetime?
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/peace-protests-dallas-response/
Some may not have been in your lifetime but peaceful protests do get results. Outside of revolution all our civil rights around the world have been won through protest.
Downvotes, but no answers.
What good has ever come from people standing in a street waving a cardboard sign?
deleted by creator
I’m going to guess
- poor media coverage
- media is explicitly hostile to protests and pro trump/right-wing-extremism
- many people are living paycheck to paycheck + we have minimal labor protection
- years of left-wing organizations being kneecapped (eg: the murder of fred hampton)
A lot of people are angry but there’s not really much organization. As much as I would love someone to take 50,000 of their closest friends, march down to DC, and shoot every republican in the head, without years of organizing that’s just a fantasy. Unfortunately, the right wing has been doing years of organizing and it’s now bearing fruit for them.
Wholly agree. Vast majority of US Americans cannot afford to lose what little is left. We are two to three paychecks away from homelessness. Economic subjugation has been in the works across political parties.
In Luigi we trust.
I’m glad we have the freedom to say this shit here.
There’s no leader. Most people are followers.
I think the reason more people haven’t started to openly organize is mostly concerns about self preservation. This govt obviously doesn’t care about civil liberties and are openly calling anyone not with them “the enemy”. It becomes much harder to publicly and civily organize if there is a substantial chance you’ll be branded a terrorist organization. That’s obviously just my take from my perspective.
Hmmm then we are deeper into this than the world has realized. I think the gilded sheen is still there—but the rot underneath is deeper than the outside thinks.
Meaning, the mass protests that broke out in the millions across the country from 2017 to 2020–that era was the “protest era.”
What are we in now? Sure as hell not a protest era. We are way beyond.
As someone who has closely studied the evolution of spycraft from Ancient Intelligence to the development of the modern Intelligence Community—I know that because of my knowledge—I feel exactly as you say here. If I am taken out now for being too open or too loud, the side of humanity loses me in the fight. And it is so god damn easy to misstep.
We are and have been under massive constant surveillance. The facial scanning at airports has expanded to the physical border if you’re crossing by land. They say they delete your photo—but I assume they’re instead storing the biometrics. This is and will be used against us.
The tech companies in control know most of us better than we know ourselves. We are tracked every second of every day. They don’t need warrants when they already have access to profiles of data on almost every human in America. Even if we were in a normal world—the constitution generally doesn’t apply to private corporations. This is and will be used against us.
There is no safety “protesting” or organizing unless it’s done in a tight, cell operations that have some communication in between but function so that if one goes down the network stays intact. Intelligence and resistance groups survive when they’re federated.
Master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house. Organizing on a mass scale across the country without using any tech that touches our adversaries right now is not possible. So, first we must figure out how to share information quickly and easily in a way that excludes big tech capture and government capture.
Figuring this independent communication hurdle out is more important right now than getting out on the street with a geotagged phone and smiling for a drone who is sure to snag your biometric data. And I’m saying this as someone who believes in the people protesting (and who has been in full scale car tipping rubber bullets everything on fire riots).
Unlike a lot of other countries where there’s been mass mobilization, there’s little recent memory of serious government oppression. Americans have generally had it pretty good when it comes to civil liberties over the last half century or so. They assume they can trust institutions like the courts to do the work of protecting democracy. So most people don’t realize how much worse things will get if they don’t actively resist now.
Ya… I think that’s a really good point, a scary one
Lol wut? There are. Where do you get your news?!?
They may happening, but they don’t really make the news. You are still far below the MLK threshold.
Yes, its all over the news. You must be using shitty sites that aren’t real news sites.
Ok so everyone wants one, right? Feels like it’ll be dramatic and big and change and fix everything, even if it gets violent.
But there’s problems with that, not only in execution but also results.
One problem is the US is massive. It would take almost as much planning as a moon landing to effectively organize a protest that large, even if you only do the continental 48 states. Some of those states alone are as large as some European countries, some are larger, so the size alone gets in the way of things.
Then you have the problem with getting all the people protesting to agree to a cohesive protest. Where to protest, what to protest specifically about, and to have a solid list of demands. Trying to get that amount of people to agree on anything alone would be huge. Like my mother says, it’s like herding cats.
And then there’s the matter of getting that info out there. Occupy wall Street and BLM did have a comprehensive list of demands but the media pretended they didn’t. Almost all media is owned by like, six corporations, so even getting the instructions for that protest would be incredibly hard. And lest people forget, those media companies are final, so most of the media in other countries hearing about this will have just as much information surpression and do already. So it would be incredibly hard to get a comprehensive plan, demands, and instructions out el to everyone.
Also don’t forget that we have the technological spying that didn’t exist before. Cameras are everywhere. Not only in your phone, but on almost every street. People even put those Ring doorbells on their homes and that company sells it’s video footage to the police, and doesn’t turn off, so any protest could be monitored and nipped in the bud. We have whole agencies devoted to surpressing protests and entire handbooks in infiltrating them.
Then there’s logistics and provisions. Most Americans can’t afford to travel, much less take a week or two off of work, or a month, to protest long term. We can barely afford to keep ourselves fed with what we’re getting paid, and if we were protesting in one specific location, most of us couldn’t take the time to get there much less afford to. We have to feed the majority of almost an entire continent in one location for an extended period of time.
And if it was one specific location, the hospitals, hotels, grocery stores and restaurants would be so overwhelmed that they couldn’t handle everyone.
Speaking of hospitals, if, as in when, the police and military attacked the protest, most people could never afford the medical treatment to be able to get patched up, much less their lives saved.
And speaking of the police and military, we have the most militarized police force on the planet. Our police don’t have just batons, they have live rounds of ammunition and full on tanks. And they are more than willing to use them on civilians, especially in protesters. Look up Blair Mountain and the Kent State shooting. Not only could this crush a protest, but people would have to be ok with the idea they would very likely die.
And our prison system, being for profit, would salivate at the idea of getting more slave labor en masse, and the current administration is more than happy to detain people over trivial things. So everyone would have to be ok with life imprisonment if they didn’t get shot.
On top of that, not everyone is on board. About a third to a half of the country is in favor of what’s happening and have a cult around Trump and Musk. A lot of people voted for this and are in favor of it, because they really, really hate the liberals, Democrats, gays, minorities, etc. There’s a whole media pipeline for this that they listen to, especially young people who normally are the type to protest this stuff. So there would be resistance from civilians on top of not everyone being in favor of the protest.
Then there’s the problem of what that protest would actually accomplish. Even if you pulled it off, because of the supply issues, it would be short lived. Maybe a week or two, being surpressed by the military and police, and demonized in the media. The oligarchs would simply wait it out. It wouldn’t enact long term change, even if everyone could agree with what they want changed in the first place. So it might not be effective even if it was pulled off.
And the primary opposition party, which should be doing anything, has adapted a strategy of self preservation. Concede to the fascists for now, bide your time, then come election season tell everyone that you are the better and only choice (because winner takes all so they are the only alternative) and hope for a blue wave in four years. Can’t make any changes if you’re not in power, so do what you can to keep it now and believe that if things get bad enough now people will come crawling back. So very little actual support for a protest would come from on top.
And then, if we look at history, a lot of rebellions needed other countries to support them in order to be successful. Most of them had outside influence from other major powers. The other major powers right now are either in favor of the government, turning fascist themselves, or if they did intervene would risk starting a war with the US which has the biggest military in the history of humanity. So not a lot of help would come from the outside, if any.
So while we also would like a massive protest, there are huge issues in the way of effectively pulling it off.
So what’s been happening has been local efforts. You might not hear about town hall protests or stuff in individual state capitals in other countries, but those smaller fires are burning. There’s been economic protests, like the backlash against Tesla and the no buying day, which apparently was started to get people to dip their toes into a national protest. There’s been a lot of smaller community organizing, which hopefully adds up. I think and hope there will be more individual direct action, perhaps more Luigi strategies on specific individuals, as things get worse. Maybe more guerilla tactics, French resistance style efforts, are what is going to happen rather than a massive protest.
Tldr: We ARE doing stuff here. We hate this more than anyone. The change will have to come in less exciting ways than a big, national rebellion, so sorry you’re not getting as much of a spectacle, we’d like that, too, but there’s a lot of prep work that would need to be done to pull it off that needs to happen first. We aren’t sitting by and letting this happen, and we are working towards fixing things.
You’re describing a fascist government in many ways.
Yeah my guy I’m pretty sure we’re one “this election was cancelled Trump is president for life” legislation away from it being official.
After trumps 4 years are over, I hope those filled with fear, like yourself, see the light and seriously ponder where the roots of your fear come from, or rather, WHO they come from.
we’re watching an unprecedented purge in only a couple months of an administration. led by people who have openly admitted they want to destroy American democracy and institute a dictatorship.
me personally I think Trump already crossed the Rubicon. but in the very near future there will be an order by the Supreme Court for Trump to stop doing something. He won’t stop doing it. And then it will be abundantly clear to everyone we’re in a new stage of US history
US History: 1774-2025.
Roman history didn’t end after Julius Caesar. In fact, Rome would reach its peak a couple hundred years after that moment and then continued to dominate for hundreds of years afterwards.
It just wasn’t really a Republic anymore.
Of course that isn’t to say the US will get stronger, I think the opposite. Just that the end of democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the country.
Lol… my god, man! This is good stuff. Real story book stuff.
It’s honestly surprising to see the level of fear that you and others have been sold. You people need to come back down to earth.
then please wise one- assuage my fear by showing me how the purge isn’t a purge. release me from this trembling terror by convincing me that the administration is not actually breaking federal law. save me from this horror and show me the light
what does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment really mean? explain to me please how these ideologically aligned billionaires (who happen to control the white house) that say they want to end democracy aren’t actually planning on ending democracy
They’ve never said they want to end democracy. And they won’t try to end democracy. You’ve been caught up in the fear mongering, my friend.
They come from the concern that stupid, willfully ignorant, and brain washed people can affect our lives in a negative way. And I for one have had enough of it.
Well, I hope you die in a fire. I’ve got real people who are in real danger, danger I see in person and not just as a hypothetical, and it’s bullshit that you’re trying to pretend it’s some sort of delusion. I’ve had to deal with literal Nazis threatening to shoot people and you’re trying to play any reaction to that as some media based trickery? Eat shit.
You’ve " got real people" who are in “real danger?” Who exactly are they, and why/how are they in danger? What are they doing that is putting themselves in danger?
I don’t owe you shit for answers, especially if you’re already going to act like I’m making this up. You’re coming out the gate not taking me seriously so why should I give you any respect, much less enough respect to answer your questions? Go fuck yourself.
The only people that have anything to fear are those who are doing something wrong, legally, and probably morally. I didn’t actually need your answer.
We all know you are talking about jewish people.
… what?
Boy, I sure hope another country doesn’t take advantage of our nations turmoil
There are, they are being reported. I couldn’t speculate as to why you are missing them.
Can you provide 3 links to different protests?
Not being snarky. Just haven’t seen any reporting on it.
Check out @usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml posts. They are posting pictures of grassroots protests across the country every day. Like has been said, there hasn’t been THE big mass protest, but there is constant local activism and protest, just mostly ignored by media.
Glad to hear my posts are going noticed. Indeed, there are lot more than you might think. I’ll repost one of my long comments with details about protests here. Wrote this five days ago so mentally subtract 5 days from all the times
They are being suppressed in media coverage, but there are people protesting. Media coverage paints a false picture that no one in the US is fighting back
Here’s one from today [meaning five days ago] with 1000 people in Boise, Idaho
Here’s a super incomplete timeline with just a handful of the nationwide protests. I’m missing a lot, I’m just showing your the photos I had from recent memory
8 days ago there were national protest for science funding cuts. Here’s the main one in DC
11 days ago there were nationwide protests in all 50 US state capitols + DC + Many cities within those states. This was part of the 50501 movement
Portland, Oregon
Monroe, Wisconsin
San Fransisco, California
Albany, New York
Raleigh, North Carolina
Richmond, Virginia
Austin, Texas
Protests Outside Fox News in New York City
16 days ago there were large protest in the Iowa Statehouse
19 days ago, a protest in Cherry Hill, New Jersy outside Tesla Showroom as part of a nationwide movement protesting Telsas. There have been tons more than just this one and these happen basically every day
21 days ago, large protests in DC for Ukraine aid
And so on. There’s a lot more going on than just this
Thanks for documenting and posting all these. Keep at it. I appreciate your coverage.
What are they doing that isn’t easily ignored?
Ahh… THAT is the difference.
In the US, most of the media is complicit in what’s being protested. And online social media coverage is being contained to small bubbles.
50501
Represent baby!
It’s being suppressed, I can’t find the graph I saw yesterday but cumulative daily protests this year have far outclassed the protests from 2017, yet there’s very little coverage of it from the major outlets.
The revolution will not be televised.
Not when the class that controls the media is the one being revolted against.
It will however be recorded and streamed and shared peer to peer.
You picked the right time, but the wrong guy.
Kenfolk found
In Usa, “protesters” are not allowed to do anything further than waving a few signs.
Even when they start shouting too loudly, they go to jail immediately. And then they need a president who releases them (but he releases only the right ones).
Have you noticed how many, many police and national guard troops they can afford? Massa Musk does not cut down on police, only on schools and scientists and caregivers for the sick…
Why do kids, who mainly get their news from Tik Tok, not get mad?
Maybe look at who controls the algorithms
A lot of people said they weren’t going to protest this time. People voted for the guy 3 times. A lot of people said, “fuck it! If this is what you really want, let’s learn this shit the hard way.” Right after the election and right after inauguration I saw this sentiment all over. In practice, a lot of people have taken to hoarding cash and have adopted a seige mentality. There is no help coming this time.
It sucks that protest is the only lever we have
There’s lot of ways to protest. Already refused to help my Trump voting family members with $. They wanted this lesson. I’m gonna make damn sure they learn it.
They exist, if it gets to the point like with the Floyd protests you can bet Donnie won’t hesitate to point the military at the citizens, then things would get very interesting.
