From emancipation to women’s suffrage, civil rights and BLM, mass movement has shaped the arc of US history
Trump’s first and second terms have been marked by huge protests, from the 2017 Women’s March to the protests for racial justice after George Floyd’s murder, to this year’s No Kings demonstrations. But how effective is this type of collective action?
According to historians and political scientists who study protest: very.
From emancipation to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to Black Lives Matter, mass movement has shaped the arc of American history. Protest has led to the passage of legislation that gave women the right to vote, banned segregation and legalized same-sex marriage. It has also sparked cultural shifts in how Americans perceive things like bodily autonomy, economic inequality and racial bias.
Why do those in charge get so upset about protesting?
Does it make them look bad? Yes. Does it raise awareness about an issue they would rather stay quiet about? Yes. Does it garner sympathy from like minded individuals and groups? Sure does! Does it get in the way of their plans and cause a scene? You got it! Does it generate news coverage, spreading the word of what’s going on far and wide? Often.
Boy, all that sure sounds pretty ineffective to me! If they don’t want you to do the perfectly legal thing, it’s because it is effective against them.
So when do the protests force them out of office and stop them from having influence and power?
Weird, it should have happened over night? I mean, that’s what all the history books say happen.
It should have happened ever
Idk what year or decade you are expecting Nazis to give up and go home because people stood outside of their town hall for a couple hrs every month or so on a weekend day.
Personally i don’t think the Nazis are going to give up and it requires we remove them by force just like every other fascist government ever.
You don’t move the government, you move the populace. If the government feel a move will get them unelected, they are less likely to do so. Protesting is documented to have worked countless times, so maybe read a book or something?
Non violent protest often turns to violence when it is not respected. You don’t have Nazis, you have Magats. They are also white supremacists, but they aren’t from 1940s Germany, they are from 2020s amerikkka. They are dollar store Nazis.
This is all assuming we have free and fair elections which we absolutely don’t anymore, from gerrymandering to the electoral college to shoddy infrastructure, to rouge poll workers who were told to occupy the positions by a sitting president.
Yeah, I get it. We are talking about the effectiveness of protesting though, not the effectiveness or condition of government. This current US government is only going to be removed by torches and pitch forks, French style.
With the peaceful protests I’ve been to or that have happened at my university, most of the time they haven’t tried to stop anything aside from cops being stationed waiting for it to deescalate, then the protest eventually fizzles out and people forget it happened. There are a couple exceptions to these though:
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One protest happened at the same time as a bunch of other protests on different campuses, and a large number of troopers and other law enforcement with weapons shut it down and arrested dozens of people for refusing to leave an area. There was a lot of shady (and illegal) actions happening between the university admin and Texas government, where even Zionist Reddit shitlibs thought it was extreme. There was an investigation going on led by a student-run newspaper since then, not sure if it’s still happening. As far as why they did this, my guess is: (1) fear of property damage based on actions in other protests and (2) governor Abbott wanting to put on a political show by exercising his power, but I highly doubt it was because it posed a real threat to their power.
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The official student newspaper reporting on pro-Palestine topics painting the university in a negative light, eventually leading the university to fire the entire newspaper. Probably due to a fear of reputational damage so they wanted to impose additional obstacles (which of course backfired).
Overall these didn’t result in any actual policy changes so there wasn’t much of an outcome. It did cause some reputational damage, where even FIRE thought our admin was too fascist and ranked us almost last. It’s probably impacting their enrollment and hiring faculty at least a little bit (but there are a lot of other factors negatively impacting this as well). Also resulted in more financial burdens for the protesters involving bail fees and needing to fund their new independent newspaper in different ways.
There was another (non-peaceful) protest I heard of in the area involving an ICE agent being hospitalized and protestors facing terrorism charges. This also didn’t result in any policy changes, but did have some real-world harm to fascists and threat to their security, but also larger financial burdens and a lot more difficult to build popular support over.
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Protesting was effective in the past but it doesn’t mean it still is.
Boycotting and protesting with your money also works
If everyone just organized together and said … ‘hey, let’s boycott this one company and just this one company’ … and everyone did it, it would drive that one company to its knees and bankrupt it and even drive it out of business.
It wouldn’t affect most people terribly … we’d still be able to shop, go around do things and go about our lives without much disruption … but at the same time, it would scare the shit out of that one company.
Once one company gets destroyed, then everyone organize again and target another company and boycott them … then just keep the ball rolling and keep boycotting and driving out companies one at a time. After a month of doing this, every major company would be shitting their pants knowing that they would be next on the list.
These assholes don’t understand if you hold a sign up that says you dislike them … they never listen to that … but if a large enough group of us just stood back and withheld our money from them and told them to go fuck themselves, then they’d listen.
Boycotting and protesting with your money also works
I’d say it’s the only thing that works right now.
They don’t expect to be voted out (hell, I’m not sure anymore they expect people to vote at all next time); but they can’t control what you do with your money, they can’t force you to buy X or Y, so if you want to fuck them badly, take the money from them.
Stop buying/using something and you’ll see how short it takes for them to correct course. There’s one thing these bastards love: money. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it flowing.
they can’t force you to buy X or Y
Anti BDS laws: say syke
Strikes work even better
Yup. Stop the economy, they will buckle or start a civil war.
None of these protesters were one day scheduled way in advance in dedicated areas behind police lines meme displays.
It’s a great reflection of the peacefulness of the protesters, but they’ll only laugh at a scheduled state sponsored venting session with a dancing chicken.
Perhaps I’m too skeptical, but maybe the purpose of this kind of article (that’s written by a large paper and owned by who?) is to keep the oppressed, oppressed. Protests have done nothing for the us - the authoritarian leadership is here, and rights are being taken away quickly. Maybe protests work is certain regimes but not others.
Protests work as a show of force (to the target of the protests) and to generate solidarity and increase numbers (for the protesters).
For them to actually work as a show of force, there has to be a credible threat of violence (or political action) waiting in the wings. All of the successful non-violent protests in the past had this. The idea is that you work with us on these reasonable requests or we put your heads on pikes. Without leverage, the protests are just a means of venting pressure.
“This messaging was brought to you by billionaires that don’t want to be kirked”
“Keep at it guys, we’re going to give in to all your demands while you starve and we’re living in luxury bunkers with a lifetime of supplies. You’re so close.”
Data nerds (❤️) make gifs every year of the most popular search terms on Google for every day of the year.
It’s insane how effortlessly it highlights the fact that big megaphones = world consciousness control. Protesting works.
Idgaf if you have protested abortion since the 60s and are mad it’s still at issue. Idgaf if you hate traffic on your Tuesday commute.
I’ll go further; idgaf if you’re protesting something I disagree with; so long as it’s peaceful. Protesting works. Not much else does.
Do you think violence works? Wasn’t that Charlie Kirk backlash fun??
Protesting works.
Counterpoints: It is, in the present tense, not working.
Having had numerous discussions on different protests and pondering about what the most effective form of protest is, I find this article a nice addition in the endeavour of answering exactly that. So thanks for sharing. It’s interesting to see, that peaceful protests have been more effective in the considered cases. However, I am under the impression that a final judgement is still not possible. According to what I have gathered so far even more violent protests may be shown to be effective. A classic, prominent example are suffragettes and their bombings, arsony, destruction of property etc… How effective protect can become and the level of acceptance within the population seems to depend highly on further cultural and/or societal contexts as well. For instance, one could argue that suffragettes had more leverage due to the immense efforts and losses during WWI, which inevitably made the societal backbone more dependent on women. It’s important to note, however, that suffragettes were a long running movement that has started to shape public discussion far earlier than WWI and it would not be accurate to reduce their achievements to their more violent protests alone. More precisely, it is debatable whether violence even was a positively contributing factor at all. At the very least, it can be argued that suffragettes were successfull despite these violent acts.
Another important factor seems to be how directly actionable the goals of the respective movements are. Combining with that, also how much of behavioural change is asked of the people in general. For example, protesting against violent police actions shifts the focus away from the general public and shapes the state as the responsible actor while climate protests may demand significant changes of each individual (in addition to policy changes). Furthermore, in this example, protesting for a change in the education and regulation of policeforces appears to have less requirements while counteracting climate change is much more demanding as it comes with significantly more challenges.
If you read the guys who notices the 30% ish never. They have said it is becoming less successful as the oppressors learn from each other. Also probably better survalence.
What stops president from sending troops and shooting those protesters?
Thanks to the protests being effective, Palestine is no longer being genocided, immigrants aren’t being sent to concentration camps, and the US is not threatening random countries… oh wait
Short term gain. It’s more about long term awareness. It is unfortunate for those now. But it’s not something that changes overnight.
What is awareness going to do? People are already plenty aware of what’s going on, this was one of the first genocides to be livestreamed.
Awareness of the future leaders of the regions. Some things are not an immediate fix.
ok so it will get fixed after the damage has already been done, got it
A reductive way to put it. But hey. If you have any better ideas, go get em.
I’m not saying I have better ideas, but if it doesn’t fix anything until it’s too late, “very” is not a good word to describe its effectiveness
But you crap on mine for understanding that I don’t have any better ideas too, but am aware of what protests do in terms of change? Got it.
Know what works even better? Voting.
*People mad at me suggesting voting lol.
Where do I vote against genocide or for healthcare? Or hell I just don’t want to support billionaires, where do I vote for that?
Voting in a capitalist system is why we’re here in this mess. From pac money to [anti] voter laws to gerrymandering to banning 3rd party candidates, voting is a complete and utter sham disguised to give us agency over our lives. It’s anything but…
Voting for the “lesser evil” is also why we’re here in this mess. It doesn’t work. At all.
We aren’t “mad” at your comment. It’s just naive and wrong.
