As an American (I know some people will scoff at that statement but that’s what we would genuinely say), but I feel like protests are effectively pointless in the modern day. The people in power don’t care and even Amy Coney Barrett has said how she has people around her house day and night and that they are wasting their time. Protests are great for the morale of the protestors, but they effectively don’t have any impact on people in office. I like the idea of protests, I support what most protestors are doing, but I don’t feel like they are making any real difference to the political stance of those they are protesting.
That’s the thing. You have to get enough people arrested that the system can’t handle it. Its tough to find that many people willing to make that sacrifice until things get much worse than they are now
Eh, that’s not really a good example. The US already has more people incarcerated per capita than any other country. The biggest limitation is how many people they can arrest at one time, not how many people they will arrest total. You might be able to get enough people to protest at once that they can’t arrest them all at once, but they absolutely will arrest them over 1-3 years. They kept arresting Jan 6th people for 4 years under Biden, you don’t think that the current administration will be after you as long as possible?
Jan 6 is actually the example I was thinking of. The system was overwhelmed enough that it took so long that their guy took office and pardoned everyone.
Obviously people standing outside a politicians house with a sign are ineffective, thats just not how politics works.
Obviously large scale protests aren’t going to make Trump change his ways or resign.
However, I think large scale protests might activate a lot of apathetic people, and get them connected.
America doesn’t need Trump to resign and Vance to take over. You need societal change. You need your population to realise that your trajectory is pretty awful and that it doesn’t have to be.
Except there’s been no supporting evidence of that. Protests, large or small, get the people who protest to go vote. If they are the type to go to a protest then statistically they were already likely to go vote. The problem is the demographic of people who talk about issues but don’t historically go vote.
Historically conservatives go vote whether they protest, talk at work, or literally say nothing. Conversely, liberals and progressives historically do not go vote despite protesting, arguing, or anything else.
When I was in college I was still conservative leaning based on my childhood. I had a class with ~60 other people and we were given a group activity in which we could pick 2 guaranteed rights. The rights varied greatly, such as being accepted for your sexuality (as in from this day forth your sexual orientation would always be accepted without question), or you will have the right to universal healthcare, or you can move to any country you want without persecution. The premise of this question was that you would get the things you picked, but the others you would probably lose the other things. Out of that group of ~60 people only 2 chose the right to vote. The professor then pointed out that while each person had picked certain rights that couldn’t be taken away from them, two people now had 100% control of the political decisions for the rest of the group. With this they could give themselves more rights or even strip the unpicked rights from others.
I’m not sure how it happened, but conservatives instilled in their base that they need to vote no matter what while liberals don’t think it’s that important unless it’s the literal end of the world.
It’s a mixed bag in my opinion. I think the majority of people who show up to protest are likely to go vote, but the majority of people don’t protest. There is probably a small subset of people who would show up to protest and not show up to vote, but the biggest problem is people who say they dislike something, brigade it online, tell everyone at their work or school about it, but then don’t turn out to vote. The one side requires action, the other is just talk, the problem with liberals and progressives today is that they talk but don’t vote. For conservatives the majority of them vote, but don’t talk.
As an American (I know some people will scoff at that statement but that’s what we would genuinely say), but I feel like protests are effectively pointless in the modern day. The people in power don’t care and even Amy Coney Barrett has said how she has people around her house day and night and that they are wasting their time. Protests are great for the morale of the protestors, but they effectively don’t have any impact on people in office. I like the idea of protests, I support what most protestors are doing, but I don’t feel like they are making any real difference to the political stance of those they are protesting.
Agreed. Protests that don’t disrupt anything are about as effective as online petitions.
Except that protests that actually disrupt something get you arrested. Still doesn’t actually do much in the USA.
That’s the thing. You have to get enough people arrested that the system can’t handle it. Its tough to find that many people willing to make that sacrifice until things get much worse than they are now
Eh, that’s not really a good example. The US already has more people incarcerated per capita than any other country. The biggest limitation is how many people they can arrest at one time, not how many people they will arrest total. You might be able to get enough people to protest at once that they can’t arrest them all at once, but they absolutely will arrest them over 1-3 years. They kept arresting Jan 6th people for 4 years under Biden, you don’t think that the current administration will be after you as long as possible?
Jan 6 is actually the example I was thinking of. The system was overwhelmed enough that it took so long that their guy took office and pardoned everyone.
and also its only 1 side protesting, maga/conservatives almost never protest against the gop, they are more likely to follow the leader than anything.
Thats a generalisation.
It depends what the objective of your protest is.
Obviously people standing outside a politicians house with a sign are ineffective, thats just not how politics works.
Obviously large scale protests aren’t going to make Trump change his ways or resign.
However, I think large scale protests might activate a lot of apathetic people, and get them connected.
America doesn’t need Trump to resign and Vance to take over. You need societal change. You need your population to realise that your trajectory is pretty awful and that it doesn’t have to be.
Except there’s been no supporting evidence of that. Protests, large or small, get the people who protest to go vote. If they are the type to go to a protest then statistically they were already likely to go vote. The problem is the demographic of people who talk about issues but don’t historically go vote.
Historically conservatives go vote whether they protest, talk at work, or literally say nothing. Conversely, liberals and progressives historically do not go vote despite protesting, arguing, or anything else.
When I was in college I was still conservative leaning based on my childhood. I had a class with ~60 other people and we were given a group activity in which we could pick 2 guaranteed rights. The rights varied greatly, such as being accepted for your sexuality (as in from this day forth your sexual orientation would always be accepted without question), or you will have the right to universal healthcare, or you can move to any country you want without persecution. The premise of this question was that you would get the things you picked, but the others you would probably lose the other things. Out of that group of ~60 people only 2 chose the right to vote. The professor then pointed out that while each person had picked certain rights that couldn’t be taken away from them, two people now had 100% control of the political decisions for the rest of the group. With this they could give themselves more rights or even strip the unpicked rights from others.
I’m not sure how it happened, but conservatives instilled in their base that they need to vote no matter what while liberals don’t think it’s that important unless it’s the literal end of the world.
I think part of the issue here is not following through with that energy into elections to get progressive platforms in office.
It’s a mixed bag in my opinion. I think the majority of people who show up to protest are likely to go vote, but the majority of people don’t protest. There is probably a small subset of people who would show up to protest and not show up to vote, but the biggest problem is people who say they dislike something, brigade it online, tell everyone at their work or school about it, but then don’t turn out to vote. The one side requires action, the other is just talk, the problem with liberals and progressives today is that they talk but don’t vote. For conservatives the majority of them vote, but don’t talk.