The No Kings protests are... I have a lot of issues with how much they feel like controlled opposition and pageantry. Also, weirdly, an excuse for camera nerds to flex (good luck taking that giant DLSR to a "real" protest where you will get tear gassed and people will panic and shove while trying to get away). And I forget if we ever came down on whether the national organizers were shady as hell or not?

But understand that the main point of "protests" like this are to get that list of names and to get people used to actually getting outside (which is also a complaint where it is a twice a year parade on a Saturday morning...). Those names equate to funding and getting more bodies for other protests.

And... the official line is going to be what people can do. And that is very much getting involved in local politics. We can't fix this hellscape through voting but we CAN do harm minimization at home. And understand that voting in local elections is how the christofacists got so much power. When everyone else ignores the school board, they are stuffing it so they can kill LGBTQ+ folk. When everyone else was laughing at not knowing what a comptroller even is, they were getting their people into a position where they can actively kill budgets and social programs. And so forth.

But also understand that a huge part of these kinds of protests is networking. Get to know the community organizers and spend enough time talking with them that they don't think you are a cop. At which point they obviously tell you to vote locally and nothing else.