It’s also worth mentioning that there WERE mass protests when Trump was elected the first time, and people have been standing up against MAGA for a decade at this point. And none of it has kept MAGAts from continuing to put him into power. I think Americans are pretty justified in thinking the protests won’t accomplish anything.
I think places you can look for American resistance at the moment are in the courts, boycotts, and in the townhalls yelling at their representative. There are some people protesting, but most liberals are giving a lot of thought to what is strategically effective at this point.
I mean I think even the mass protests we did have are nothing compared to the size of protests in Europe. I think that’s a mix of general American attitudes both with people’s general apathy and the extremely individualistic ideals that Americans tend to have pushed on them from a young age. As well as a mix of the lack of worker protections like I mentioned before. I think if we could pull off the kind of numbers we see in Europe in even a couple of big American cities they would be very effective. Protests are the kinds of thing that can help build community since while you’re there you can talk to people and find groups to join to push for what you believe in. And I mean compared to the other forms of resistance you mentioned two of those, courts and town halls, effectively are protests as you’re going to a town hall to protest your representatives or you’re going out and protesting to tell the court to do more to stop this. That’s why I think we need to focus on building up communities to help breakthrough the apathy and the intensely individualistic attitude people here tend to have, as well as setting up things like mutual aid to provide more of those safety nets that the government is abdicating on right now to help those who normally can’t afford to come out and participate. So that when there’s a push against something it doesn’t just take the form of hundreds of people showing up at something but is thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people showing up like what you’ve seen in Europe. Of course that will take time and at least from what Ive seen the number of people being involved in community groups has gone up but definitely not as fast as the number of people angry at Trump and I think trying to funnel those people into groups to help organize is gonna be the big thing that actually lets us fight back and oppose what’s going on right now.
It’s also worth mentioning that there WERE mass protests when Trump was elected the first time, and people have been standing up against MAGA for a decade at this point. And none of it has kept MAGAts from continuing to put him into power. I think Americans are pretty justified in thinking the protests won’t accomplish anything.
I think places you can look for American resistance at the moment are in the courts, boycotts, and in the townhalls yelling at their representative. There are some people protesting, but most liberals are giving a lot of thought to what is strategically effective at this point.
I mean I think even the mass protests we did have are nothing compared to the size of protests in Europe. I think that’s a mix of general American attitudes both with people’s general apathy and the extremely individualistic ideals that Americans tend to have pushed on them from a young age. As well as a mix of the lack of worker protections like I mentioned before. I think if we could pull off the kind of numbers we see in Europe in even a couple of big American cities they would be very effective. Protests are the kinds of thing that can help build community since while you’re there you can talk to people and find groups to join to push for what you believe in. And I mean compared to the other forms of resistance you mentioned two of those, courts and town halls, effectively are protests as you’re going to a town hall to protest your representatives or you’re going out and protesting to tell the court to do more to stop this. That’s why I think we need to focus on building up communities to help breakthrough the apathy and the intensely individualistic attitude people here tend to have, as well as setting up things like mutual aid to provide more of those safety nets that the government is abdicating on right now to help those who normally can’t afford to come out and participate. So that when there’s a push against something it doesn’t just take the form of hundreds of people showing up at something but is thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people showing up like what you’ve seen in Europe. Of course that will take time and at least from what Ive seen the number of people being involved in community groups has gone up but definitely not as fast as the number of people angry at Trump and I think trying to funnel those people into groups to help organize is gonna be the big thing that actually lets us fight back and oppose what’s going on right now.