Comment on What are the demands of the No Kings protests? What's the plan if they win?
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 19 hours agoYou’re not wrong—the protests in their current form aren’t going to achieve anything by themselves.
But adding some specific set of demands will accomplish even less: it will alienate supporters who don’t agree with all the demands, and it will allow Trump to claim to address the issues by cherry-picking and distorting the demands beyond recognition (see the Black Lives Matter protests a few years ago).
If we reach a critical point where mass protests can achieve some real, concrete good, it will be due to contingent circumstances that neither side was able to predict. But the contribution the current protests can make to that moment is to give everyone the confidence that the numbers are on their side, once a productive channel is found.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
That’s “means testing”. A classic move from neoliberals to turn a movement against itself and delay action. And why I personally don’t like trying to unite nationwide protests only a central authority or allowing a small unelected group to control a movement. The wealthy are going to try and corrupt it, and their money makes that easy for them.
It’s very easy to predict…
The only reason any protest every has worked, or ever will work is the threat of violence…
We can spend all day dressing it up. But it’s telling our government we won’t stand for what it’s doing. The different flavors of protests, riots, and even coups are all the same threat of violence by citizens against their own government, it’s just how explicit that threat is and how polite the tone we say it in is.
I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’m not saying it’s something to celebrate either.
But people need to fucking understand it is what is, because it might be like that soon.