Politics

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The Golden Age of Protest Is Now (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)

submitted 1 day ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

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Until recently, if you had asked us to guess whether a mass movement to protect democracy is growing in the United States, we would have expressed skepticism. We’ve watched law firms and universities capitulate, heard little from business leaders, bemoaned the Democrats’ geriatric leadership, and nodded along to many of our friends telling us they’ve needed to stop following the news to maintain their mental health. “News avoidance” has reached an all-time high, with some 42 percent of Americans reporting that they “sometimes or often avoid the news.”

We study social change, and even we were surprised to learn that, by some estimates, six of the eight largest protests in U.S. history have taken place since 2017. While careful counts are not yet available, the No Kings marches this past Saturday will almost surely have earned a top spot on the list. In Philadelphia alone, early estimates were that more than 20,000 people would join the protest downtown, with dozens of parallel marches planned in surrounding counties.

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[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Isn't this kind of the opposite? The effectiveness of protests diminishing? Like people are doing shit and trying their best with the limited time and resources they have and people are actively getting involved resulting is the largest protests in american history.

And yet the needle doesn't even twitch. People are also doing their best to non-violently show that they are completely against the actions of the government, and yet the government doesn't even care enough about the will of the people to acknowledge them or their concerns outside of an AI generated meme...

There are only so many non-violent steps you can take with those in power completely ignoring you. Haven't we gone through this already throughout history?

[–] Sina@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Of course, peaceful protesting means nothing, took a long time for the evil politicians to realize this, but here we are.

Could large scale targeted rioting, where the damage is surgically aimed work? I don't know. People will not risk their lives/livelyhood as long as they are well fed. I wouldn't either.

[–] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 1 points 20 hours ago

This is my personal opinion, but I believe peaceful protest does mean something. It's shown me (and hopefully others) that largely people are good and strive to be good people. Society is incredibly patient. Probably too patient.

However, it also shows that at some point peacefully protesting might get met with violence by the state, which in turn shifts public opinion towards acceptable levels of counter violence to protect their communities and loved ones. ICE abducting people is just the beginning, but public opinion is slowly shifting. Eventually, if the government continues to overstep, people will be much more likely to do something.

The fact that the snap benefits are not being accommodated during this shutdown is awful, but i think it's also the best worst situation as hungry people will get even more angry towards a corrupt government.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 2 points 23 hours ago

Well.... yes and no. Violence can have both positive and negative effects on a movement, it really depends on what kind of violence, who is committing the violence (racism sexism etc. all come into play here), and what kind of resistance they are met with. Here's two great reviews which outline what the literature has to say on this.