Dusting off the old soapbox to share some observations about recent trends in street protests and what they say about the possibilities and difficulties in coordinating or unifying anti-Trump activism.
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“Shut up and get on board, we’ve got bigger fish to fry (click here to donate now).”
Additionally, there's also this whole blue crew, blue no matter who crowd that seems hyper focused on shutting down lefists, assigning them blame for Trump's election. Makes it hard to unify & take action
Okay, I know you guys are the experts and my sourcing might be too anecdotal, but this is not the sense I get *at all.* Also, I’m in New York (City), so perhaps that skews my sampling. Anyway, my sense is that the left is still focused on single issues— 1/
Palestine, trans rights (there have been a couple big protests in NYC), immigration—while liberals are focused on the big picture of what is happening: We are in the middle of a coup. (I use “left” & “liberal” very loosely, and I consider myself left in general, but not in this protest strategy.) 2/
To me, focusing on single issues misses the point that ALL of this is connected! But I think many leftists don’t want to protest the dismantling of a government and system that they don’t particularly like. And they don’t want to be asking Democrats they don’t like to take action. This is a problem!
^ 3/ . . . This is not unrelated to a basic problem with the pro-Palestinian movement, esp. since Oct 7: the refusal to work with groups/people who are not 100% on the same page. I’m anti-Zionist (& Jewish), but putting off liberal Zionists who wanted a ceasefire & a free Palestine was a mistake. 4/
I agree that liberal Zionism doesn’t make much sense, but the situation was so far from one or two states. We needed people who would march for ceasefire & arms embargo! If we didn’t alienate them, we could also probably turn them into anti-Zionists down the road. Instead, the pro-Pal movement 5/
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“Shut up and get on board, we’ve got bigger fish to fry (click here to donate now).”
Additionally, there's also this whole blue crew, blue no matter who crowd that seems hyper focused on shutting down lefists, assigning them blame for Trump's election. Makes it hard to unify & take action