Keep hearing people say protests against first Trump administration were ineffective. Evidence suggests otherwise. - ThreadSky

owasow.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Keep hearing people say protests against first Trump administration were ineffective. Evidence suggests otherwise.

Many “savvy” folks argue protests can’t work. Evidence suggests otherwise.

“Muslim ban set off a fury of protests across US, garnering tremendous media attention and discussion… Portraying ‘Ban’ at odds with inclusive elements of American identity prompted some citizens to shift their attitudes…”

Comments

billthepony.bsky.social•5 days ago

Too many libs think "protest must stop specific bill X or else its failure"

As though protesting doesn't have multiple purposes

jess-murray.bsky.social•4 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/jess-murray.bsky.social/post/3ll5mhgi5rk2r

johnnyapplememes.bsky.social•5 days ago

Staying at home and not upsetting the apple cart is the true path to dramatic social change!

jemartinez.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yet Trump was elected a second time.

Protests can be effective political activation tools but they are just as likely to activate opposition as they are supporter. Protesting (mobilizing) without face-to-face base building is ineffective for achieving long term change

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

No, they are not "just as likely to activate opposition as a supporter.” Tactics matter and strategic protests can activate supporters *without* generating a counter-mobilization. See, for example, https://bsky.app/profile/owasow.bsky.social/post/3lhjiu5c7v22y

jemartinez.bsky.social•5 days ago

And like I said in my original reply, we’ve had “the resistance” since 2016, with tons of protesting, and Trump won again, more decisively than 2016

jemartinez.bsky.social•5 days ago

Those examples had a massive, grassroots base building program founded on face-to-face organizing, not the social media driven outreach of today, which any organizer worth their salt will agree is not an effective means of building long term power.

solenne-e-um.bsky.social•5 days ago

There's a growing movement of grassroots organizations and mutual aid groups. Sometimes the meetings are online and not in person but that can bring in more people, especially introverts like me. I don't think criticism without specific suggestions (e.g. read Mutual Aid or other books) is helping.

jemartinez.bsky.social•5 days ago

I’m making suggestions based on 30 years of experience organizing and training people how to organize. My tone was directly pushing back on OP’s claim that “savvy” people say that protesting doesn’t help. I’m tired of this academic, activist class claiming to have answers based on their theoretical

jemartinez.bsky.social•5 days ago

2/2 experience. Those of us who have been practicing and studying have valid critiques based on hard lessons that we can’t afford to make.

All the ways people participate are great and useful, but we need to be honest with what will create power

solenne-e-um.bsky.social•5 days ago

Then what are your suggestions? Personally I'm tired of people giving critiques without suggesting alternatives or ways to learn more. I'm genuinely trying to learn more and be more effective at making change.

randapanda03.bsky.social•5 days ago

Hey! Pls repost if u dont mind, it means a lot.. we’re living in our car rn.. https://bsky.app/profile/randapanda03.bsky.social/post/3ll7vzy7pxd2p

theultrasecret.bsky.social•5 days ago

Evidence also suggests that the BLM/George Floyd protests played a role in defeating Trump. There seems to be a concerted effort by the establishment press to diminish these movements, unsurprising given their revolutionary potential.

sierradelta328.bsky.social•5 days ago

If you do choose to protest in person, Alison Gary has some of the best, most useful, practical, real-world advice that you'll ever get:

https://www.wardrobeoxygen.com/details-on-the-april-5th-national-day-of-protest

euphoricfuzion.bsky.social•5 days ago

The only ones saying public protests don't make a difference are lazy bitches 😋

skylercsj.bsky.social•5 days ago

Looks like there’s something planned for 4/5 https://handsoff2025.com/

scrappygiraffe.bsky.social•3 days ago

Please sign and share this petition to get the media to cover our protests.
https://chng.it/pR5zW88hX5

solenne-e-um.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

carysmiller.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

oddman49.bsky.social•2 days ago

Why would they have ever believed this liar and fake. U see how they handle the lady student the abducted. They did not look like federal officers. They kept face’s covered. These were not federals. Part of the regime.

doug5301.bsky.social•5 days ago

💯

endoftheworldparty.bsky.social•5 days ago

Only powerful people and wealthy interests who don't want you to protest say that. Inspiring protest was part of the Trump 1 strategy, and it backfired, because the media and government, both parties, are all out of touch rich people.

bamamontana.bsky.social•5 days ago

There are also people who want to make excuses not to get involved using practicality and utilitarianism as a smokescreen.

endoftheworldparty.bsky.social•5 days ago

True, but the mainstream narrative manufacturing comes from capitalist establishments that will always actively oppose and downplay any populist left-ish protest. They want to make it easy for people to make an excuse.

juanfoxx.bsky.social•5 days ago

Media attention is a key word! The media is barely covering protest now.. people don’t even know they are happening except video/pics posted on social media..

marshawilder.bsky.social•3 days ago

This is great evidence. Found this site recently that lists local protests and other events: https://collectivedefiance.org/

chriroch.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think the simple mistake you are making is in defining what ineffective is for these folks. This reading is fine, but what folks probably mean is that Trump still stayed in the mix, and as we now know was able to come back to power.

So no, the protests against Trump were not very effective.

petradeasis.bsky.social•5 days ago

At the time, protests helped avert certain disasters. Right now, some actions are being undone because people brought attention to them. But the social media & media landscape has a right wing bias. Billionaires deciding to side w/Trump made it worse. Dems don't have the infrastructure to fight it.

chriroch.bsky.social•5 days ago

Right, it is important to define what 'effective' means here. Specific issues were effectively prevented or responded to, but I think you could reasonably infer the response to Trump was ineffective, as he was able to regain power.

petradeasis.bsky.social•5 days ago

1 - Dems were attacked by the right and by the left, powered on by a horseshoe right-left messaging ecosystem of misinfo/disinfo
2 - voter suppression
3 - racism & xenophobia

#1 and #2 could be addressed in the future. #3 appears enduring

chriroch.bsky.social•5 days ago

None of which changes the reality that Dems were ultimately ineffective at preventing Trump from regaining power. I think it's short sighted to blame that on solely external factors. Dems kinda sucked as a power bloc. They failed to use the power they had, nor consolidate effectively.

petradeasis.bsky.social•5 days ago

Outside of voter suppression/voter depression, it is tragic that voters were either misinformed/disinformed, voted out of racism or xenophobia, or once again, prioritized all or nothing, purity politics to not vote for a qualified & competent WOC who would have kept our republic thriving.

tkocreations.com•5 days ago

If you decide "effective" to be "force him out of office before the end of his term" sure... they were ineffective.

But nothing short of a violent revolution was going to be "effective" by that definition... and I don't see anyone getting their gunpowder ready.

Lotta talking about it, tho.

lurkermclurkface.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's all relative ain't it? If our goal of protest was to temporarily get some milquetoast Democrats in power, hoozah! But if we wanted to actually prevent the GOP from doing the things we protested against how is it anything but a failure considering they're doing it all and more now?

fighterlawyer.bsky.social•5 days ago

If protests were effective against PINOCHET, then protests definitely work here.

candyworks.bsky.social•5 days ago

When something outrageous occurs it’s always good to make a lot of noise about it, not sitting around calculating what’s the possible result or lack thereof.

I just that despite 100 lawsuits filed against them, *they* had been prepared for even MORE pushback & were astonished.

purekimminess.bsky.social•4 days ago

📌

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

Working paper uses weather to approximate random assignment to participation in Women’s March. Finds “protesters in 2017 increased political preferences for women and people from ethnic minorities in 2018 House Election.” https://mlarreboure.com/womenmarch.pdf

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

“Popular resistance in Trump’s first term accomplished more than many observers realize; it’s just that most wins happened outside the spotlight.” https://theconversation.com/social-movements-constrained-trump-in-his-first-term-more-than-people-realize-248843

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

Arguments that counter-mobilization to Trump seems “quieter” now not borne out by data on the number of protests. https://bsky.app/profile/chenoweth.bsky.social/post/3lkqrdxha3k25

monkeypeter.bsky.social•5 days ago

That chart doesn't show head count though. Protests can work, BUT YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO DO IT EN MASSE. Where are the feet in the street?

https://bsky.app/profile/euronews.com/post/3lktf6gvdji2r

purekimminess.bsky.social•4 days ago

Most manners in which we traditionally approximate crowd counts can be wildly inaccurate. Methods with more granular accuracy risks identifying individuals and exposing them to despots. The more ppl more likely news en mass is reporting. Mobilization drives coverage.

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

Study of “counties more exposed to coverage of BLM protests by a TV station owned by Sinclair, a conservative media conglomerate, were *less* likely to support Republican candidates…” Suggests this may be due to Sinclair “raising salience of racial tensions,” https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4815800

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

Using “data collected from media, election returns, and surveys…We find strong evidence that BLM protests were associated an increased likelihood of voting for the Democratic candidate, with this effect concentrated among the less contentious protest events.” https://nealcaren.org/publication/caren-black-2023/

owasow.bsky.social•5 days ago

Study: “BLM protests shift public discourse toward movement’s agenda and dramatically amplify use of terms associated with agenda.” Further, BLM “successfully leveraged protest to engender lasting changes in ways Americans discuss racial inequality.” https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2117320119

momoprops.bsky.social•5 days ago

If what we are doing has been effective why are they still plowing forward with ripping folks out of their job, SS being dismantled and screwing the VA?
Why is ALL of that still moving forward?
I’m holding on to hope but just barely at this point.

conundrumk.bsky.social•5 days ago

Because movements take time & have to build. We haven’t got enough people out in the streets & pushing back in other ways yet. But the more we get out there, the more the numbers will grow. Don’t give up, dig in harder.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world

momoprops.bsky.social•5 days ago

I will keep praying and keep my fingers crossed that we can crawl our way out of this mess.

conundrumk.bsky.social•5 days ago

Take whatever actions you can, even if they’re small - it really helps with how you feel! Talk to everyone you can about what’s happening, a lot of people don’t know how bad it is. Maybe print some flyers about the April 5 rallies & put them up in coffee shops. Whatever you can do helps. ❤️

differance.bsky.social•5 days ago

there are actually far more protests going on this time around, and they are getting next to no attention from the media and are having very little effect. the reason the Muslim ban protest "worked" is that it could feed into official channels in ways that is far harder today.

pinksim.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sitting at home joining nothing certainly doesn't help

jess-murray.bsky.social•4 days ago

Word.
https://bsky.app/profile/jenmercieca.bsky.social/post/3ljb5klvwhk2o

kelly363.bsky.social•5 days ago

Why don’t you read another the “3.5% Rule” and study some history of how other totalitarian regimes were overthrown with nonviolent protests by 3.5% of the population
Do some research and stop wondering about speculation

doctorbluebird.bsky.social•5 days ago

They either aren't very savvy or they are making that argument in bad faith. Direct action in combination with many other tactics are always necessary for successful movement building.

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