Dude, it's insane. I live in the middle of nowhere. Hundreds of people showed up.

A lot of these protests, especially in bigger cities, have all kinds of booths at them too. The one near me had like 6 for just one congressional candidate, one for a mayoral candidate, and multiple for revolutionary socialists/communists, along with people walking all over the rally handing out fliers about a general strike.

Tons of people sign up for these things, or even if they don't sign up to strike/canvass, end up changing their voting habits accordingly. A lot of local stuff can be really impactful, since a lot of the policies most directly felt by people are local policies (e.g. is the pothole in front of your house fixed? Is your rent expensive? Is there visible poverty on the streets? Are the buses slow?) rather than federal ones (e.g. "we cut billions in research grants but you'll only really start noticing the overall effects yourself many years from now")

I do wish we could just get all the people going to things like this to head over to ICE facilities and block 'em day and night, but it's a good consolation that they're taking some other actions regardless.

I had to find it for myself because I couldn't believe what you wrote. But its true! He's not even hiding how much he hates Americans anymore.

Point and laugh. Those types of people hate being the joke (that they are)

Douchie McDouchefaces for long

a guy that brought his Charlie Kirk flag
‘what the fuck even is a Charlie Kirk flag?’

Well...can you tell us? You're the one who saw it, lol.

A lot of media outlets worldwide are ignoring these protests or covering them very briefly when nobody's watching. Most likely due to influence from the US.

Most people live their lives wholly unaware of reality. If their entertainment programming doesn’t consist of anything informational, they will never know about events except second hand from others, like your case. The silent majority doesn’t vote in elections, not because they don’t see the point, it’s because they likely had know idea there were elections.

I had to explain to my friends what “mid-terms” were. They vote in presidential elections..

Always has been...

Gil Scott-Heron - Revolution Will Not Be Televised

All media are complicit. Don't just look at one side. Both sides are causing division where there isn't any. Hate for dollars is quite a lucrative trade in this fucked up world.

And it's such an obviously organic and grass roots movement too.

This 💯. No kings was a protest, it is not a movement and is not trying to be a movement.

If these parades are ever to work, they need to stop being predictable. Stop giving the enemy info about them like how long they'll last of where they're being held. Find ways to spread the word without them finding out and make it a continuous thing that has no end in sight until demands are met. Make sure you showcase you will escalate if they feel they can safely ignore you.

When the enemy goes low, you kick them in the face as hard as you can.

The tricky part about a general strike is that you dont have much room for do-overs if it turns out you don't have the numbers you need. Protests are largely symbolic, but are also a good way for organizers to gauge how willing/able folks are to engage in more drastic action.

If a general strike is what you think the movement should go towards, I recommend your next steps be strengthening community support systems - food banks, free clinics, shelters, etc - since these things will be needed to support a general strike (folks will choose feeding their children over political action, so make sure they can accomplish both). In the mean time, it also helps out folks who have been hit the hardest by republican and trump cuts to services.

I highly recommend folks read up on some of ICNC's stuff, since they focus on the practical side of nonviolent conflict.

N IL?

car brain <---> fascism

It's almost like peaceful protest is a building block, not a final outcome.

You don’t understand how dictatorship works. Something as small as a busted escalator can bring down regime. You can’t afford to look foolish.

Fascism on a national scale requires the consent or fear of the people in order to maintain power. They have to look strong. Anything that disturbs their voting bloc or contradicts the official narrative, especially on a broad stage, is going to cause them exponential problems because it looks like weakness. That's part of why fascism is inherently weak. Being able to ignore dissent is a luxury afforded only to the truly strong.

The fact that they aren't saying anything in this case means that they've calculated that the erosion of their base is preferable to letting the news cycle keep running with this.

Protesting is peaceful, but honestly, it's a show of potential capacity for violence. I went to the protest, but I went with eye protection, respirator, and ear protection. I wouldn't put it past trump to order the military to deploy LRADs against protestors. Also brought medical supplies, multi-tool and a sign.

Also, for comparison, the largest right-wing protest I could find in the US was a mere ~650,000 people. We just put over 10x that amount on the streets in a single day.

The Woman's March, BLM, Occupy Wallstreet, and the first No Kings were all successfully ignored. Millions of Americans marching is clearly not enough for us to be heard.

While I love the idea, they'd probably just come back and always refer to the dems as the Woke Socialist Party.

it really only works if the media also gets onboard, and i doubt they'd get onboard with either of those.