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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Trump and MAGA don't care about people holding signs.
Peaceful protests have proved time and time again they do nothing.
This exact defeatist thinking is what led to all of this nonsense. Banding together gives people a sense of hope and community that gets lost when everyone is so isolated nowadays. These protests remind everyone that there's a like-minded community around them that all support one another, and gives them the strength to do more than just protest. One person cannot do much to make change, but a collective community bandrd together can. Rolling over, going "protests don't work, just give up" is actively harmful to a movement.
It isn't defeatist. I'm saying ramp that shit up.
Trump and MAGA aren't the usual government. They hate you. Making you pissed and angry standing outside holding signs is funny to them.
Start burning and breaking shit.
Nobody but you is saying "just give up" you're mischarachterizing others by adding that on there.
Protests can work, but they work via disobedience, inflicting other harms to those with power and (most importantly) threatening violence if things do not change. Anything that doesn't do all 3 of those things isn't a protest, it's a parade.
Parades can build community, but pretending parades are inherently some sort of engine of social progress is insane.
Yeah, we need a place to organize for the real stuff. Unfortunately they keep censoring things that “incite violence against property or encourage illegal activity” like sit-ins or sabotage. You aren't going to win by playing by their rules. They keep making executive orders, and disappearing people, and nothing is being done to actually stop it.
It's not for Trump's benefit. It can help build momentum and encourage further action. It reminds people they are not alone. Action starts with getting off your ass, and organizing in the real world.
And what are you organizing instead?
We're not buying American products here in Canada. Almost the entire country is revved up in this boycott.
That's an incredibly whitewashed history you're going off of. It's not your fault, that's (very intentionally) the version of history that is taught within the US school system, but it is wildly inaccurate.
You're correct that the women's suffrage movement began in the early 19th century, but the 19th amendment didn't get passed until the early 20th century. It was a century (and arguably still counting) of men not just going “tut, tut, darling…” but using extreme violence, murder and sexual assault to try and supress any sort of equality. It took WW1 (and cross-pollinating with other global suffrage movements), a shift to a "deeds not words" approach, militant self defense and don't forget the women's suffrage and prohibition movements were tightly linked within the US (the 18th amendment passing just 2 years prior). Good luck characterizing the prohibition movement as any form of "nonviolent".
The "60s and 70s were rife with protests that made a difference, and they were peaceful" is a real nasty piece of, very intentional, amplification/veneration of MLK and deamplification/villification of everyone else. That's not to say he was ineffective, but the carrot doesn't work without there also being a stick.
If you're instead referencing the hippy movement, then even a cursory glance should be enough to realize those were not effective tactics and not anything you want to emulate...
If your focus is on the 60s-70s I highly recommend reading Kwame Ture's "black power" speech