I’m shocked that I haven’t seen one protest yet. Is the media suppressing them? If there aren’t any, why?
Because protests don’t do shit. There were mass protests over police brutality in 2020. Didn’t do shit and the right wing media reaction arguably helped kill off police reform legislation that was in progress before the protests.
The reason protests from the left don’t do shit is because the most popular media is controlled by Maga. The top social media network for news, the top podcast, and the top cable TV news are all outright maga propaganda. A narrative can arise without them, but they will determine what happens to it. So last time, the protests arose due to George Floyd, but the right wing media turned it into a narrative about lawless riots, using exaggeration and fake images.
See also Palestine protests.
Basically, the left is fucked in the US until something changes in the media so there’s no point in trying.
Sadly, this is the correct answer. Protests really only look effective on paper, (or social media) however, gathering in protest is only ever going to work if those they protesting against, actually care to listen with an open mind.
There is no way the current administration has any plans to listen to anyone that disagrees with their attempts to personally own America.
protests represent the threat of violence. the threat went away and the rulers stopped listening.
I think the nice thing about a protest is that it’s a show of power, strength, and unity. It sends a message to those on the outside that there is a number of people who believe in a common goal. And really, the message is one all Americans can pretty much agree on and that’s trickle down isn’t trickling and corporate profits are soaring.
The longer the protests, the worse taxes become from tariffs, the more cuts they make to social services, the more people could snowball this into a movement.
The power of protests are People.
Because protests don’t do shit.
Occupy Wall Street had an impact.
This is not true, protests have a measurable impact and the defeatist nonsense of “there’s no point in trying” is exactly what enemies of democracy want.
Because the Americans don’t know how to protest.
To a Frenchman a protest is storming and taking control of the representation of authority in the country.
To a Greek a protest is filling the streets of many cities throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of people.
To an American a protest involves standing in a square by the few hundreds, holding signs with semi-sarcastic or passive aggressive messages written on them.
Such ferocity.
Eh, I feel like every day there’s a new story of Tesla’s being torched. That’s a pretty directed and forceful form of protest that gets no credit.
Also, it’s not like America never has large scale protests. Hundreds of thousands of people fill the National Mall pretty regularly, skimming Wikipedia I counted 14+ since 1950 of over 200,000.
Just 5 years ago 15m-26m people participated in some especially roudy protests across all 50 states, but no credit for that either.
Large protests that get even slightly out of line in the USA usually end with:
- well armed, paramilitary police violently dispersing everyone
- the CIA assassinating protest leaders
- and/or the 6 media conglomerates suppressing coverage at the behest of the ~15 people that own them
If you’re criticizing Americans for anything, it should be for their response to that and not their ability to organize and orchestrate protests.
protest is storming and taking control of the representation of authority in the country.
Jan 6. 2021… just the other side protesting though.
Yeah, I hope every American here realizes that the lunatics behind Jan 6 are more effective protesters than they are.
J6 was an astroturfed operation by the current dictator in charge. We currently have several grassroots protests around the country being suppressed, and have a long history of protesting and rioting for civil rights in this country.
You clearly get your news from corporate media or else you’d be aware of this.
Jan 6 had a lot of money behind it. People fundamentally do not understand how hamstrung leftists groups in the U.S. are. Yeah, the people who received millions of dollars were able to charter busses to bring people to the capitol, and the people who are receiving tens of dollars are barely able to have a media presence. No shit.
It’d be really cool if maybe some of the people who wanted Americans to be doing more would actually put their money where there mouth is and work to get large donation efforts going towards leftist groups in the U.S. The way I see it, you can start funding partisans here now, or you can start doing it after Trump tries to invade/destabilize whatever country you’re living in.
Yeah, insurrection is a form of protest, I guess.
I’m pretty shocked by this as well.
I always thought that America was on the ready to stand up against fascism and tyranny.
I guess they aren’t.
Many of those same people simply weren’t equipped for the media blitz of the 21st century. Commerical Social Media has most of them on a string.
Because a lot of Americans think he is the warrior fighting the evil gub’ment
The people who were super vocal about stockpiling guns to “stand up to tyranny” dont think this is tyranny. They are actively cheering for it.
They think tyranny is the government passing laws that amount to “don’t be a dick”. They hate that. To them “freedom” means being selfish, obnoxious, and racist to their hearts content, and Trump has finally given them permission to do so. That’s why they cheer him.
Remember, these are just simple people of the land. The common clay of the new west. You know, morons.
Low density and car based infrastructure neuters protests. I usually work from home but I had jury duty a few weeks ago in the courthouse in my downtown area. There were several protests daily the entire time I was there.
Because it turns out they were just little afraid bitches the whole time. Russians in waiting. Little goblins waiting for an overlord.
Yes. The media is suppressing them. See c/50501
Explain this?
50501 refers to “Fifty States, Fifty Protests, One Movement” (originally “One Day”). While some states have more presence than others, it has 50 chapters for the 50 states.
I don’t think there’s as much presence on Lemmy, but lots of media gets posted to Reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/.
Their website also links to social media accounts covering more of it: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/
There have been protests in every single state for awhile now. At least that is what I have heard through the grapevine. I’m Danish so I haven’t seen the protests with my own two eyes, but I have seen pictures, read posts and talked to Americans who are out protesting. From what I have been told, it is unheard of that there are protests for the same cause in all 50 states at the same time. It is historic, but I’m not surprised that the greatest president who ever lived wouldn’t want that information to slip out in the media. It would hurt his fee-fees bigly.
Maybe you just aren’t where it’s happening?
“Protesters in Philadelphia and at state capitols in California, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana and beyond waved signs denouncing President Donald Trump; billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency; and Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society.”
Sorry but there are like 100 people at each protest. There should be a million marching through Washington… What are we talking about here
Getting a million people to Washington D.C. is a tall order when places like CA, OR, WA are 3,000 miles away, plus people have to, you know, work and stuff.
Yes I hear this all the time. So what you are saying is that 1)people in Europe don’t have jobs and 2)the population density in us is low. Regarding 2) yes it is lower in the US however Washington dc and surrounding area (maybe 2h drive by car or so) have several million inhabitants. Let’s assume 5, if only 1% of them are going we would be talking about at least 50.000 people joining a protest. I don’t have seen any reports about that, are those just not reported?
I guess I’m just shocked that they only waved signs. In France, the guillotine would have been out. Here in Canada we entirely shut down our capital for months, and both for way less. When will the real protests start?
In the US, protests are largely performative. People want to make a show of it do they can say “Look, I did something!” even if they’re doing nothing. They’ll break their own arms patting themselves on the back.
I live in Portland which is protest central. We had 100 days of Black Lives Matter protests which meant and did nothing as the city largely agreed with the sentiment.
You want a protest that matters? You take it where the action is happening. In the case of Trump, you can set EVERY Tesla dealer on fire, it means nothing.
Take that shit to D.C. and shut that city down for 100 days? Assuming the Feds don’t kill everyone, that’s a protest that would matter.
That’s a big “assuming.” It wouldn’t be treated like Jan 6, those were his friends.
Trump would order them to be squashed and that could easily trigger a civil war.
I’m not a historian, but my guess is that we have lived too many generations without major political incident; the kind you’re supposed to make heads roll over.
We’ve been indoctrinated since birth to blindly love our country, to mind what we say; we have seen other countries and their political unrest, and we ignorantly convinced ourselves that it will never be like that here.
And despite the cop out response of “we vOtEd fOr it”, otherwise good, hardworking Americans were lied to by their friends, family, church, and beloved government for so long that they can’t know any better.
Make no mistake, we fucked up and let our hubris get the better of us. I hope we can see the error of our ways and fight back before it really is too late.
I’m not a historian, but my guess is that we have lived too many generations without major political incident; the kind you’re supposed to make heads roll over.
Really though? Just off the top of my head:
Eisenhower to Nixon
- Vietnam
JFK
- Rigged elections in Illinois with aid of the mafia.
- Bay of Pigs
Nixon
- Watergate
- Being Richard Nixon
Reagan
- Illegal invasion of Grenada
- Iran-Contra
Clinton
- Executing a developmentally-challenged man as a campaign stunt.
- Lewinsky Affair
- Many rape allegations over decades
- Whitewater
Bush II
- Illegal invasion of Iraq
Obama
- Bugging of Merkel’s phone
Trump
- Everything
Biden
- Medical incapacity
I’m surprised Nixon gets: “being Richard Nixon” but Reagan doesn’t get: “being the sack of shit that took the massive clear steps to destroy your country through corruption”
How the fuck did they let Reaganomics slide?
There’s that old thought experiment on who someone would take out of time travel existed. I used to think that Hitler would be a good target. However, seeing how many of the current issues started because of something Reagan gutted, reduced, or schemed to disrupt or remove makes him my new target. So much of our current shituation can be directly tied back to Reagan.
You gotta remember. The majority of voters wanted this. Trump won the popular vote. He still has almost a 50% approval. Half of Americans are good with what’s happening. Let that sink in.
Half of Americans who cared/knew enough to vote.
Reminder that voter turnout was still only 63.7%. Half of voters didn’t vote for Trump, half of that 63.7% did. Still way too fucking many, but it’s not half of the US.
The half that didn’t vote are OK with other people deciding for them.
Great point, there are at least 77,284,118 people who are OK with the current state of affairs.
And that 63.7% is of eligible voters. The disenfranchised, teenagers, and noncitizens aren’t counted.
If you don’t bother to vote, you’re not a voter.
This is the part that made me give up. No amount of anything will make up for the fact that roughly 53% of voters wanted this, which is probably like 40% of the country. A country which has like 3.5 billionish people, and 40% want racism. They want to support the wealth gap because they’re too dumb to understand they’ll never be on the other side of the gap, and this is just renforcing it. They’re more than happy to hurt themselves if it means the OTHER people get dragged down with them. Which just makes them a tool for the rich to use the poor to destroy the poor.
We’re alienating our allys, we’re destroying our country. We’re destroying the global economy, and this is just the start. The next 4 years this asshole gets to sit on his throne, and KNOW he’ll face no consequences. He’ll face no reprecussions for his actions for him and his little asshole buddies.
I’m hurt. I’m tired. I’m in pain. I have no idea if I even HAVE medicaide anymore. They say it’s not cut off, but it was supposed to get cut off Feb 28th because of lack of state funding. I think the state itself doesn’t know. But worst of all, I have no hope. I have no logical plan for what comes next to work towards making a better tomorrow. Yesterday sucked. Today sucks. Tomorrow will suck by all indications. The GOP at this point are actively trying to destroy this country. I’m not proud to be american. I’m ashamed. I’m tired of appologizing to others for existing. And right now, if Canada decided to just atomic bomb us, I’d understand. Go ahead Canada. Take us out. We deserve it.
I don’t disagree with what you said but there’s not 3.5 billion people in the US. There’s like 340 million.
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Are we really comparing the French Revolution and the annoying-ass, snowflake trucker protest?
Americans are notoriously terrible at protesting. I was in high school in the '00s and our American history textbook had a sidebar about the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. The bit that stuck with me: a French dignitary interviewed on the scene was unconcerned about the protesters. He pointed to an untouched BMW (or similar luxury car, I forget the exact make). “In Paris,” he said, “That car would be burning.”
We don’t have the level of social safety nets that France does to allow people the freedom to pretest without starving or becoming homeless. It is by design. They keep everyone just on the verge of poverty so nobody can afford to be disruptive.
Thr burning down of tesla cars and dealerships don’t happen during the protests so they have no boogeyman to give yet. Once the protests turn violent, which I have no doubt they will eventually if they keep getting ignored, thr media will be quick to pain all protestors as bad and ask “why didn’t they try peacefully protesting?”
I think this is a factor of your media echo chamber. I’ve personally attended protests nearly every week since January. I’m going to one tomorrow. They are all over my news feeds.
Chicago has had a few. In particular at the protest for science there was a dude in a trump in diapers blow up costume.
35k in Denver today
There are. I’ve been to a few. They don’t get covered by the media.
They only get coverage if police get to act a fool.
There is a qulitative change from protest to resistance needed.
Getting sick of Europeans falling for the blatant suppression and propaganda that our corporate-elite overlords are spoon-feeding them and using that to act superior.
Especially since far-right groups have been falling for Musk’s same bullshit in Europe.
There’s been reports that Germany’s AFD party fell out of favor after their news got to see how Trump played out. I seriously hope that ends up being true in their next election.
That being said, if you have a hard time getting the word out on your protests, then the suppression is working.
Publicizing your actions is part of the protest.
You’re making the assumption that these protests don’t have designated people to cover and publicize their actions. We already know Meta and Twitter have been literally suppressing and shadow banning leftist associated tags and keywords on their platforms.
People need to be sharing info here and through other channels. Pictures, videos, links to organised groups.
There have been. But, if I come across some I’ll try to remember to send you a link.
Europeans are so smug about this shit. It’s not a personal virtue that all of you can just hop on a train or a bike or whatever and be at your nation’s capital in an hour or two for between zero and fifty euros. Some of us are literally thousands of miles from DC. We are still protesting where we are, but it’s purely symbolic and also no one cares.
Why shouldn’t they be? Americans have long had a superiority complex, always confidently mocking the problems of others around the world as if they were immune to them. It may feel bad for you now but the schadenfreude the rest of the world feels is completely justified. Frankly, the way some of you are suddenly crying about the rest of the world being mean to you is only further contributing to this image of Americans thinking they are above everyone else.
