- They help individuals channel their frustration, isolation and desperation
- They are a show of strength
- They typically lead to more political involvement
- They have already produced wins
- They must remain nonviolent to be effective
- They must be in small towns in the heartland, not just big coastal cities
Find one near you at nokings.org
This post uses a gift link, but some people do seem to be prompted to register. I can’t change SF Chronicle policy about that. They also have a history of sending lawyers after people who post archive.today links to their articles, so whatever you do, don’t plug the URL into that site.
The biggest win is getting more people involved and comfortable with protesting and non compliance. Today was the largest single day protest in American history and up 40% from No Kings I.
You can’t go from zero to prolonged protests over night. Each event needs to build on the last with increased experience and new participation.
Yes you can, but Americans aren’t willing.
I’m not calling for violence, none at all, but peaceful protests like these that one day are and the next day aren’t are just ignored.
At the very least make it a protest that bever stops. Every day people are on the streets. Block the streets, whatever it takes, within a non violent protest, to get their attention and keep it
Abolitionist movements, women’s suffrage movements, and civil rights movements were all successful non-violent resistance movements.
What did violent resistance movements achieve other than getting a bunch of people killed? Oh right sometimes the leaders of violent resistance movements get power and there is the 100% predictable result of putting violent people into power.
On the internet there’s always some foreign troll farm whispering “burn down your own capital” in everyone’s ears all of the time in every country they don’t like. But it’s stupid to listen to them, their motives aren’t to improve anything for you, they just want to create chaos.
Violent resistances don’t accomplish anything. Non-violent resistances have accomplished a lot if you actually study history instead of listening to the troll farms.
What do the studies say on countries free falling into a dictatorship?
Most fascist movements actually fade away. We tend not to focus on those too much since it’s not as interesting as the fascist movements that started WWII.
It’s not as exciting to do non-violent resistance, but it makes it difficult for authoritarians to accomplish anything and failed authoritarians don’t have a very long lifespan. There are those that respect authoritarians because “they get things done” but when the opposite happens and nothing works as good as it used to they aren’t respected by anyone. Even an authoritarian needs a base of support to have power and through non-violent resistance this can be accomplished.
Violent resistance actually helps a fascist movement in the early stages. See the assassination of Charlie Kirk… it didn’t weaken them in any way, it actually made them stronger. A loner with a gun isn’t going to change anything, even a small armed group can’t change anything. You need to build a significant base of support to accomplish anything and that’s what the No Kings group is doing. Most likely the non-violent resistance will succeed, and even in the case where the fascists use violence against a non-violent movement, there’s actually a framework for a resistance movement to succeed by other means.
You gotta have numbers to accomplish anything and No Kings is building up their numbers. That’s a real movement that can do something more than just whining on the internet.
Yep, for these things to matter there has to be no end in sight until those that want the change get heard and taken seriously.
Bonus points if they are headed up by sympathetic and visible politicians and/or other public figures. A well spoken orator in the vein of MLK at a podium giving a loud united voice to these sorts of movements are what creates something non-violent that is really hard for those in power or those on the side lines that would otherwise support the movement to sweep it under the rug as a one off.
this,
it’s shareholders who prop up trump.
as soon a protests start hurting the economy and their bank accounts they’ll drop trump like a turd
deleted by creator
They are there to give the illusion of doing something. So the peasants won’t complain that much.
Some months ago I was giving a coworker shit for not doing much of anything. No protests. No volunteering. No donations. Just works his mid six figure job, plays video games, and dates his works-at-google girlfriend. He admitted maybe he could do more. I said I could nag him the next time a big protest happened. He said sure.
Well, I messaged him with a quote from that conversation. He was like “oh it’s Saturday?” And then no further responses until I followed up a day later. He’s not going to do anything.
The other guys from that group also don’t do anything.
Something about rich white straight (-passing) men comfortably just keeping their heads down and not even doing a half assed minimum bothers me.
But I guess there’s nothing to be done. I’ll be doing my best.
Get a woman in the group to invite spouses and girlfriends. The men will mostly follow.
A handful will decide they like cybertrucks more than sex
Interesting idea. I know at least one of them is dating a Google employee who, from what I can tell, is rather “apolitical”. I don’t know about the others, though.
Yes.
Now get out there.
I’ll be there tomorrow with the frog guys!
They are empty vessels/pressure release valves provided by the oligarchy to prevent organic protest from rising that would actually threaten their existence.
Actually, they are extremely effective methods to put flyers in hands. It’s where people sign up for mutual aid groups or find union advocates
It’s a networking event. The protest aspect is just to pump up the energy and set the theme for the event. This is how you turn liberals into leftists, and connect them with local organizations.
I feel like both are true. They are pressure releases that keep fast and dramatic change from occurring and the elites do prefer we do polite protests instead of the guillotines we should be building.
But they are definitely great for turning libs into leftists and networking. They have produced some benefits.
My experience has been that most are excited to participate in mutual aid and organizing while they are attending an event like NK, then they ghost and are never seen again.
… what? First, how could you possibly “experience” that? Are you recording every single attendee and then going to every single organization and informal collection of people doing mutual aid and organizing to check to see who shows up? That’s literally impossible on multiple levels. At best you could say that about the people you personally know.
Secondly, even it’s true, even if only 1% of people do anything meaningful afterwards, 1% of millions is tens of thousands of people organizing and activating their communities.
When flyers begin handed out for specific organizations and they never show it’s kinda easy to track
And you are present at every single organization to check? Maybe people just don’t like the ones you frequent.
Liberal mental gymnastics are shooting for gold aren’t they?
Stop calling your rent gofundme mutual aid
How come one side apparently MUST remain nonviolent but not the other
Because violent revolts elevate violent leaders. Because violence is the last, worst option for influencing the behavior of your fellow humans. Nonviolence isn’t more effective than violent political action if all you want to do is swap out who’s in change, but it is more effective (I would argue necessary) if what you want is a nonviolent society governed by a nonviolent democratic government. Once both sides have devolved into violence, really the only thing that sets policy is which faction is able to inflict the most pain. It also proves the fascist rule of “everyone is ultimately violent, so your best bet is to stick with the violent team that shares your religion / skin color / flag / etc.” and dominate through might, rather than trying to build a genuinely peaceful coalition that could, if empowered, build a genuinely peaceful government that makes its citizens’ lives better.
Or, to put it another way, you can use The One Ring to defeat Sauron, and you may succeed in defeating him, but you will corrupt yourself in the process and become the very thing you sought to destroy.
Just look how stupid the administration is sending troops to Portland because all of the “violence”. If Portland was more violent then they could carry the narrative rather than people dressed up in costumes. People will remember the frogs and the absurdity of the situation.
Because of propaganda and state power. It’s not a symmetrical conflict.
It certainly isn’t
They don’t have to, but data shows over and over that non violent ones more often end to being more successful at regime change.
Benefits for the non violent:
- more people are willing to join protests
- much harder to use force to squash protesters (they can still try, but that often motivates more people to join, that is what for example happened in Euromaidan)
- it is much harder to frame that those protesters are there to hurt ordinary people
- sends signal for good people in power to do the right thing and that we have their back
- validates people that they aren’t alone and that it is a lot of us
We actually have more power than them, they only succeed if we get scared and think there’s nothing we can do. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
but data shows over and over that non violent ones more often end to being more successful at regime change.
What data is that, exactly?
I’ve seen many statements to that effect. I have not seen political science studies that support it though.
It’s a little more nuanced.
Violent resistance tends to swap one regime for another.
Non-violent resistance tends to create more positive social change.
If the only goal is to get rid of Trump, either one can work. If the goal is to have a brighter future then a revolution with minimal violence is preferable.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2452292924000365
Thank you for the links
Not much history to support it either.
Because there is none. The state always preaches nonviolence to keep us passive and not a threat to the status quo. They want peaceful from us but subject the working class to violence with every action.
Solidarity movement in Poland was a peaceful protest and last to end of the communism there.
Color revolution (including orange revolution in Ukraine)
Euromaidan (it was peaceful, although the government wasn’t).
Statistically peaceful protests succeed 53% of the violent ones succeed 26%
Note though it isn’t just showing up one day and be done, it’s about having a sustained protest with at least 3.5% of population involved.
Basically, if we start shooting, that will result in a military response, and the US military is really good at massacres.
“Give me liberty or give me 40 more years of wage slaving consumerism and hoping my demographic isn’t next”
Not sure if you are aware but the military are already responding
They are fucking begging for violence to break out so they can start a massacre. They’re doing some heinous shit. It can get infinitely worse.
Has to be better than letting them slowly boil the frogs
What we want is to create a broad understanding of popular support for antifascism so that the military takes the side of the people. A huge public rally is part of that
Im aware. The Guard did in a few Republican-controlled places last time too. But what they did was stand around instead of massacring the crowds. And that’s a good place to bem
There’s an Adam Friedland Show episode where he pitches Richard Kind on a movie about the story of The First Jew to die in the Holocaust. And its just a guy complaining about how long he’s been waiting to take a shower.
That’s the energy a lot of these protests give.
The Germans didn’t have any kind of huge protest movement. They executed people for doing things like holding a private dinner in honor of Einstein.
Big protests are a key part of how we avoid that situation.
The Germans didn’t have any kind of huge protest movement.
That’s well before the Nazis had power
Both should, one does. Don’t sink to their level.
“When they go low we go high” got us Donald Trump
If your country doesn’t sink to their level soon you won’t have the right to protest them any longer
Until when? The world wars are clear evidence that eventually violence is the correct response.
Where’s the line?
For me there is no line. I do not have a military super power at my disposal.
If the US military is on one side of the violence, there is no force on earth I’m aware of to counter that.
We have to protest peacefully and in larger numbers to be sure if that time comes, they are on our side.
You’re 98% of the way there.
There is only one force on earth that can counter the US military, and that is the US citizenry.
Despite how little power people think they have, the citizens of the united states in large enough numbers can stop the US military dead in it’s tracks. Preferably through democratic means, but they could also do it physically if they wanted to.
Americans outnumber their military by over 100 to 1, and with enough cultural pushback, you’d see a lot of those military members resigning, refusing orders, or just strait up walking out on top of that.
A general strike that lasts a month will stop all of this nonsense.
Wasn’t that long ago in the evolutionary timeline that humans diverged from sheep. For safety reasons we still want to be part of the biggest flock. Seeing huge numbers of people at protests stirs something in our DNA.
Fuck yeah they do, see you there comrades
They typically lead to more political involvement
Only because people have started to become affected personally by government policies. Many of those who voted for Trump regret are also in No Kings protest.
I’ll happily welcome anybody who flips because they recognize how awful Republican policy is. That’s important if we are going to have a durable majority
Republican policy has always been awful but these people thought it will only affect certain groups until they got affected.
Thats why these parades will do nothing, they are ‘protesting’ a cog in the machine instead of the machine. Our current state didnt form in a vacuum over the last few years, its been building for decades. With Democrats being as complicit in its rise as Republicans.
I’d love for protests to have wins, someone teaches what they are.
What i see: politicians fervently getting in photo op moments vs fixing this cluster fuck w living in. I swear every dem wants to get arrested for the gram…while I actually need them to unify on voting agendas.
If the GOP leadership won’t even allow Congress to be in session for votes to happen in the first place, it doesn’t really matter.
Protests like these are weaker than direct violent action. The government finds these easy to ignore since they give an exact time of how long it will last and know it won’t really have any direct impact on them or their families lives since it’s happening far away from them. The better thing is to DOX every member of government and ruin every part of their life, including every second they spend out of the house and ruining their time at home by causing havoc in front of it. Annoy them, threaten them, hurt them till they either resign or stop being pieces of shit.
I’m just happy people are gettin out of the house and communicating with eachother. Society needs that.
I’d be happier if people were discussing how to get rid of the problem in ways other than just believing Dems are “our savior” or “the lesser of two evils”. That their hearts and minds could also be swayed by protests when the Biden administration showcased they care about them about as much as conservatives do since they used the police and guard to deal with Israel protestors.
then set an example, give us some ideas on how to get rid of the problem
This country has a love boner for guns. Put them to use and shoot every fascist in the face no matter who they are or what political alignment they have. Look at Malcolm X and the Black Panthers as perfect examples of what we should be doing at bare minimum and only go up from there.
Believe it or not, a lot of those protesters actually prefer pragmatic institutions, and will accept reform over radical change.
You haven’t been paying attention have you? The government wants violence to justify them taking away more rights and gaining more power. Everything they’re doing so far is under the made up emergencies because of made up threats. These actions can be challenged in court.
If there were real violent actions they’d have real power not the phony power they have now based on phony claims of violence.
Who’s side are you on? The things you’re saying serve to help the fascists. One unhinged loner does violence and you get what? Another Charlie Kirk kind of thing? What did that accomplish?
Right now it’s a time to organize. Not organize online, that’s bullshit since the powers that be mostly have control over. Organize face to face with people in your community. If only there were some event happening where people could do that…
The Charlie Kirk thing failed not because it was violent, but because it targeted someone who was ultimately a nobody who held no real power. Target people who actually have power and we’d have much better results.
See you out there folks!
