Protesting with a sign and snarky message doesn’t do much. Everyone agreeing to do one simple (non violent) thing would work much better. It has to be just one thing though. The “don’t buy anything” day is ineffective and confusing.
“No kings” day should be more like “No Kings & uninstall Twitter/X” day. At rallies, people could give advice on how to delete their accounts on that platform.
Then at the next rally, it’s cancel Amazon Prime.
Snarky signs still welcome of course.
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I think you’re all wrong. Protest do need to evolve. I’ve been saying this since George Floyd and my karma on this site has tanked because of this. I’ve had tons of abuse from people here because of it. But it’s the god damn truth. Protesting is as is done now is working against us. I also suspect it may be a situation where these protests are organized by the opposition because it benefits them so much.
It’s 2026, we cannot be protesting like its 1910
I’m not a fan of Scott Galloway’s on several subjects but he’s on the money here.
These protests need to actually be disruptive.
It’s the organization and collective action that are important. The protest is just a chance to demonstrate how many people are aligned on the topic enough to spend the day proving they can’t be ignored. You have to do the organizing and action outside of the protests too, just be careful about who you trust.
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I think protests work(not the sign carrying ones), and are constantly evolving.
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This “No Kings” day was a rally at best.
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You need to be clear about what you’re protesting against, put forth actionable demands and threaten some action if the demands are not met.
I remember being part of the Reddit API protest, where we protested the new policy by logging off our accounts, closing hundreds of subreddits for 2 days. Some of them had millions of subscribers. We asked Reddit to withdraw its new API policy and threatened to leave Reddit if they didn’t change the policy. They didn’t, and many of us who did the 2 day blackout followed through. We mass deleted our accounts and many of us migrated here, to the fediverse. Reddit does remain, but it has lost many people who built and maintained the community.
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Most people can’t even be bothered to cancel Neflix. My gf just found out that her Netflx cost $17.99 a month. She was under the impression that it was still the $9.99 a month that it was when she signed up. She was pissed.
But she didn’t cancel. She didn’t even go to her account and downgrade to the cheaper prices available. lol
97% of the country isn’t showing up to these protests.
You’re right, OP. But I think a lot of Lemmy overlooks at just how much most people don’t care about the things that Lemmy is mad about.
I considered going to a No Kings protest with a sign that reads ‘China is not my king’ and see how many people get it vs get pissed with me.
All joking aside, the only effective protest is one where you change your habits. I’ve deleted my Facebook, cancelled YouTube Premium, when my debit cards update I take audit of what I really want to start subbed to, I’ve replaced Google Photos with Immich, and I’m about to go to farmers markets instead of the big box stores for my grocery shopping.
Some of these are big pivots, others are simply mind over matter. Like, I plan on keeping Reddit until it asks for my ID, so I default to it before I scroll through here. I have Peertube installed but I still get onto YouTube until they ask for my ID. I’m as ready for not being able to access certain platforms as I can be, and I plan on keeping going as long as my ability to stay as anonymous as I want to is threatened.
My parents were taking me to protest marches before I could walk, and they learned from old school comrades who went to Spain to fight Franco.
The ‘disunited’ Left has been a problem for decades.
Back in 1968 there were hardcore Leftists who were working for Hubert Humphrey because they knew how back Nixon was. Same thing in 1976. People thought Carter was no good because he wasn’t trying to force South Africa to drop apartheid.
The protests include rallies, at least all the No Kings ones I’ve been to. They have speakers for community organizations, unions, and local politicians or people running for local offices who make it publicly known that they are standing up against Trump’s madness. There are calls to action, to mobilize with local groups and to call existing representatives to make our voices heard.
They don’t bring out the guillotines, no, but it’s more than just people standing around being angry.
Anyone who wants to speak at an event or make a different call to action can easily find a way to address the crowd. Bring up your idea with the organizers at your local events, make your case for including Twitter/Amazon/etc boycotts, and see where it goes. These things aren’t put together by the untouchable “elites” or celebrities you can’t easily get ahold of, they’re organized by ordinary people just like you. That makes them relatively easy situations where you can be the change you want to see. Don’t let our conditioned disempowerment hold you back from making your case. Your idea sounds solid, why not give it a shot?
Definitely need to add guillotines…
Protesting with a sign and snarky message doesn’t do much.
If you say that, then you are probably in Usa, where they are used to not do any more than that.
In other parts of the world, people know already that it doesn’t do much :)
Very good idea. Tackle actual issues in manageable chunks. And I think society needs a more hybrid approach anyway. Can’t be just a small minority who goes to the streets and the rest doesn’t care or can’t be bothered and they’ll keep doom-scrolling online. I mean most stuff online tends to be armchair activism. It’ll be a storm every now and then. But Musk, Zuckerberg etc have the bottle ready to contain that storm. So nothing ever happens. I think this could be just the right combination of things to do.
And I think US Americans need to educate themselves on what a general strike is. All agree and not come in to work for 3 days straight, like the French people do every now and then. And see if the ruling class likes that.
and the rest doesn’t care or can’t be bothered
Then make enough of them care? Every movement has leaders and followers.
Bernie Sanders? Maybe he can provide people with some of his wisdom on how to launch a third political party. Which isn’t just the same rip-off with just a different color sprayed on?
Bernie Sanders is older than Trump or Biden. Even though I don’t questions his motivation, it’s time for him to retire and it’s time for younger people to stand up and take the challenge. If the right wing can produce their grifters by the dozens, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think it’s possible to have a young left wing leader with (financial or other) backing from the public? Maybe Bernie could kick start it, start an NGO to achieve this. But it shouldn’t have to depend on him.
The idea of a general strike sounds great, but how does that actually work in the current economic climate? Are you going to pay my rent while I strike? How am I supposed to avoid ending up homeless and starving without engaging with the economy?
Good point. It’s way easier in other countries as they have labor unions, strike funds, solidarity… All the while you’re subject to systematic exploitation for so long, you don’t have anything. They have a tight grip on all of your balls.
I think sometimes we all need to recognize we’re still living in the richest countries on earth. Maybe we’re fine with eating rice and ketchup for a week to make it work. And not only that, it’ll cost some extra to pool money so even people at their credit card limit but with 4 kids to feed can participate. It just won’t work unless everyone is on board. I mean other people in other countries risk their lives, while fighting for freedom. And missing a rent payment is still a comparatively comfortable position to be in, in contrast to dying by the thousands in Iran. You’re gonna decide what freedom is worth to you. And maybe you want/need to reach rock-bottom first.
But I think if you decide to not pay the cost, they’ll still take that amount of money out of your retirement fund, or from your kid’s school lunch, or from your economy by doing some insider trading on the upcoming war, etc… The way I see it, that money is long gone. It’s just that you either find a way to muster it up right now and invest it in freedom. Or let them steal it from you over the course of the following months. Keeping the money is an illusion, that’s the one thing that won’t happen, either way.
But yeah, fighting for freedom hurts. It should come for free, but it doesn’t.
Retirement fund? Ketchup? Kids? Credit?
Food isn’t cheap, but compared to rent it absolutely is. Eating ketchup and rice versus something that will actually sustain you isn’t the difference between paying rent and not paying rent. And not paying rent means homelessness, which is rampant in the US exactly because income and living expenses are so detached from one another. For middle class people with savings and security, sure, they can take a few days off work without destabilizing their lives. For a lot of people, though, that’s literally not an option.
Praxis in this case for people who do have retirement funds and access to credit that isn’t explicitly predatory and aren’t struggling to pay the bare minimum to have somewhere to live may be a matter of actually being willing to help make it possible for the people who can’t to participate in something like a general strike. If the people who do have financial stability were willing to help prop up the people who don’t we might not need a general strike to begin with.
I don’t think the solution is for the poorest people in our society to let their lives implode with no assistance while the middle class takes a few vacation days.
If you can’t even afford to skip on three days of pay (collectively, not just you on a personal level), you are living in a feudal society already.
Hey, you get it.
(non violent)
Why would you limit yourself from using a wider array of tactics? Of course, violence isn’t applicable everywhere, but it’s an effective way of achieving change.
I always see this whenever people talk about protesting or trying to enact change. Everybody is horrified of the big scary V word so they have to make sure everyone knows they won’t use it ASAP. Like I went to a socialist meetup a couple weeks ago and the organizer made sure to bring up that violent actions are bad and should never be used cause they’re laughably stupid which everyone else seemed to agree with. Drove me crazy hearing people just ignore a massive aspect that even the implication of existing will actually enact change.
Direct action can be surprisingly effective.
You should just assassinate the billionaire pedophiles. No protest needed. Society operates like a giant machine and when some of the cogs
aren’t working properly, they need to be replacedare fucking children, they need to be killed.You don’t need to strike out that sentence. They’re doing both. They don’t work properly, are hoarding resources and wealth, and are fucking children.
Apparently advocating for the extrajudicial removal of pedophile billionaires is against the rules.
