Fact: Trump and his goons were already crushing dissent and looking for any path to do so, regardless as to whether they had an excuse or not.
Don’t let Trump crush resistance to fascism too.
Guess my sign has to be even more ultra offensive to Trump then
- Thugs stir the pot and cause protesters to physically react.
- BOOM! Martial Law.
- BOOM! BOOM! No midterm elections.
I hope this doesn’t happen. Don’t let the thugs goad you, you’ll be playing into their hand.
What you do doesn’t really matter. The police will start a riot regardless of your actions.
The thugs are mixed in with the protectors.
It’s been my worry for the past few weeks, tensions are so high and the administration is itching for the excuse to become even more heavy handed and draconian. I’m of the opinion this(not this moment but the full situation we find ourselves in) is all gonna end in massive violence one way or the other but I worry about this protest specifically because of how it’s been organized.
Requiring full and and email to RSVP to it? And how they’ve been working alongside the cops to make sure it’s just a demonstration and not a proper disruption. To me that screams bad opsec at minimum and if just one of the protests gets violent the fascists will get that list and use it as an excuse to round folks up and scare the shit out of others who want to stand against them.
I don’t want to tell people not to go, I went to pretty much every associated protest all summer in my area. But everyone should be extremely careful, don’t RSVP just show up, be wary of any bridges, and most importantly DONT BRING YOUR FUCKING PHONE
It’s now clear that most people never cared about freedom of speech, or even understood why it’s important. They only care about freedom of speech as it applies to themselves. I suppose that’s distressingly true for all of the rights we used to take for granted.
Regardless, it’s still law, and the courts are still limping along, so there’s still hope.
I think the biggest hope we have left is that our military leaders swore an oath to the Constitution, and that they’ll honor that if Trump tries to stay in office come 2028. That is, assuming he hasn’t kicked the bucket before then. Exactly what this would look like, I don’t know. I suppose it just means the rigged-elected VP would become President, and we’d still be in a mess.
Bring it on, fascists.
This is no surprise, I’ve been waiting for this a long time.
I’m assuming that this protest the trump admin will do everything possible to escalate and by sheer statistics, people will respond and there is a good non zero chance that fire will hit the shit that will hit a fan…
It is what it is. I fully applaud those that protest, I curse those that won’t, no matter your excuse. We’re talking about a future.whereany Americans may very well end up dead or well, imagine the excesses of nazi Germany. “But they will fire me if I protest” sounds empty and hollow at best.
Either way, god speed, don’t let yourself be tricked into violence, record record record, don’t let them take you either because when you disappear, good chance you won’t come back at this stage.
I’ll be leaving my phone at home, and writing my lawyer’s phone number on my body.
I strongly recommend others do the same.
Don’t forget your beautiful, very expensive paper. That’s the important part.
Well, then. I guess they’d better be so large, that local authorities have no choice but to stand back.
Friendly fire is a thing and it would be just terrible if it interrupted a couch interlude
This article is trying to crush the participation. Trump’s ego can not handle a protest like this.
Do you know how many National Guard they sent to Memphis? 9 so far, and they sent them to tourist areas as a Scare Theater along with the cops.
Exactly. They’re trying to scare us off. A little courage now may spare us the need for really scary things later.
Twelve year olds dude
The man’s a pederast
When do we put in for a general strike?
If you haven’t joined a union, do so. If you have joined a union, start agitating for a general strike and don’t let the legality of a strike stop you. People can’t force you to work. Air Canada recently told the government to get bent and “illegally” stayed on strike for 3 days until securing almost everything they asked for. You’re not slaves.
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The government shutdown IS a General Strike, one that really hits them where it matters.
We should embrace it in that spirit. We will hold the government hostage until MAGA understands that giving tax cuts to Sociopathic Oligarchs by cutting the health care to the rest of Americans is UNACCEPTABLE.
The government shutdown IS a General Strike
No it’s not a general strike. That is a lack of funding and OMB has a policy memo explaining how furloughed workers cannot work during a shutdown. It cites to 31 U.S.C. 1342. So, by law they are prohibited from working, thus this is not a strike.
A general strike would be to like not go into work for a few days en mass.
Never heard of this, thanks for the link.
lol, strike in America?
most American workers would rather lick oligarch boots than look like a commie.
there hasn’t been one since 1919, not even with unpopular Vietnam was.
and they are illegal, and Americans love loving police boot and following the law like freedom loving sheep they are
1934? When Americans won our new deal? Bloody Thursday? Teamster Rebellion? Little UAW?
Tend to agree we aren’t ready but study your labor history if you wanna be an even cooler Albert.
We actually had a left in this country before Stalin and FDR destroyed it. Time to rebuild
FDR destroyed it.
Uhm, he’s the one who deployed the social safety net, implemented a regular work schedule and 40-hour work week when we had 80+ regularly, implemented overtime-pay requirements, put forth food stamps, and built up social security when none existed before. Seems pretty leftist to me. So how did he destroy the left when he had the most leftist presidency?
Do you mean Regan?
Def Reagan too, firing striking air traffic controllers and then overseeing and writing off blatant union busting and attacks on workers rights at the dawn of neoliberalism was a disaster for us.
But the answer is in your question. FDR didn’t give those things away for nothing, it was a conciliation to workers demands. In 1934 a nationwide strike wave shut down a number of cities from coast to coast, and in 1935 we got our new deal. FDR rescued capitalism from the jaws of socialism with social democracy. But the great depression was long and regular people were tired.
During ww2 he asked the workers movement not to strike, and they didn’t under the direction of his political ally Stalin. But without the ability to fight, the unions were bureaucratized and businesses organized against labor. By the end of ww2 the american left was gutted and couldn’t even fight against passing Taft-Hartley. That last point can’t be laid at the feet of FDR as he was already dead.
But FDR doesn’t deserve to be lionized, he played his part, legalized a labor movement that had earned its right to exist through our power, not his blessing. And as soon as he died, the right started scraping back those legal protections, so that Taft-Hartley was an easy nail to hammer in our coffin.
“How is good thing bad,” you say? The new deal was a tactical retreat on behalf of the ruling class against the ascendant working class. The state exists to manage the interests of the ruling class. Roosevelt wasn’t great, he was a representative of his class using the state to maintain capitalist control over the means of production. Once that was assured our rights began disappearing immediately.
Next time there can be no deal. The international, inclusive working class have to take power and fight to keep it, or we will lose it. The old American communists understood this, so had to be destroyed. The sooner we realize the liberal economic order is what brought us here to these horrible conditions, the sooner we can leave behind old illusions about reforms and private property and start to create something real.
FDR rescued capitalism from the jaws of socialism with social democracy.
He might have in fact done so, but recognize the culture of the time. Was he actually intending to rescue capitalism? Or were his policies the best that the oligarchs would accept at the time?
During ww2 he asked the workers movement not to strike
right, because there was a war on. What was more important, improving the life of striking workers after they staked a few social reforms/victories? Or, was it rescuing people from the Nazis who used gas chambers? Maybe it was also revenge for the dead sailors from Pearl Harbor.
Italy just had a general strike.
and look at all those countries that have just had a revolution.
the Americans ain’t got the guts for something like that
We shut down our entire government rather than let them take away our health care to give the money to Sociopathic Oligarchs. That’s a better response than a general strike. We tie their hands, but we keep getting paid.
You need to have a theory of change.
compared with other countries, US working class is quite tame.
that’s why they have so little to none labour rights,
I dont define things like this. I dont care really what people are, only what they could become. Consciousness and radicalism is shifting left, hard.
The active left is growing rapidly. Democratic Socialists of America has become larger than ever. In less than 10 years, we grew from like 10-15k members to 80k members, and still growing. Our unions, many of which were mired in bureaucratic stagnation, are seeing legit reform movements in some of the largest industries, with admittedly mixed results.
Remember that a general strike is illegal in the USA, and our people are very legalist minded. But reformer UAW president Shawn Fain is encouraging unions to renegotiate their contracts to end on May 1 2028. If all the contracts expire on the same day and all the different industries renegotiate, it isn’t a general strike. Its many small craft unions and a few big ones renegotiating at the same time. So no, we aren’t ready to have one today, but we are getting ready to have one in less than 3 years. While Trump keeps ruining everything, the people are getting prepared to shut it all down.
The die isn’t cast but its a good start and we are growing rapidly and improving in radicalism, experience and audacity. I’m very close to it because I’m an organizer, so I may have my biases, but I can also see the changes occurring.
i joined the DSA, and I want more unions, class solidarity, strikes.
it’s just so fucking frustrating how many workers will die protecting their oppression.
every protest where the organisers speak more about how to make sure the protest doesn’t inconvenience anyone.
Fuck, use No Kings protest to block the roads they are protesting in for a few days and the government will collapse and a new one who is terrified of the people will make good policies.
They can’t send the police to arrest half the nation. And if dems had balls they would state that they will pardon all the protesters who are detained. (Dems with balls, that’s like a horse with a horn)
but we can’t inconvenience a single driver. no no no.
When I lived in Barcelona, I think most protests blocked the whole road.
otherwise it is just a party, not a protest.
From someone with a mis-spelled user name.
That sounds like something a king would try to do. Just saying.
Don’t you love it when they prove your point for you?
- House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said in a Tuesday Fox Business interview: “We call it the ‘Hate America’ rally because you’ll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up. … The rumor is that they can’t end this shutdown beforehand because this small but very violent and vocal group is the only one that’s happy about this."
It’s afraid.
Well, good luck. Gonna need a much bigger group of fascists to crush any dissent.
They seem to be doing fine so far
I have a lot of mixed thoughts regarding the No Kings protests (and have discussed them with many organizers)
At the best of times, a parade protest is mostly just there to “show solidarity” but risks people thinking that is at all enough. But the crowds back in June? They were not equipped for any pushback. Even just tear gas (let alone “rubber bullets”) would have caused widespread panic and trampling. Not to mention the people who are dumb enough to bring a “concealed carry” gun to a protest.
I am weirdly less worried about police/ice/soldiers unloading and more about “something” happening (false flag or not) to trigger a panic and a stampede.
Usually I make it a point to be either at the core or near the “front” of a protest (think: The dude what pays attention to exactly how many inches from the sidewalk we are). This Saturday? Mad props to the brave bastards who are going to fill that role but me and the old heads I am close to are staying near the edges and encouraging all our friends and family to do the same. This is really feeling like the kind of protest where your exit plan is basically Plan A.
Where I was we had easy evacuation routes. An attack would have dispersed the crowd, but not done more.
OTOH a massacre would likely destroy Republican legitimacy among a chunk of their supporters
Violent government reaction may achieve the short term goal of ending the protest and terrorizing citizens, but it often backfires badly in the long run.
During Vietnam, protests were common, they covered them on the news every day. Lots of people were against them.
Then Kent State happened, and 4 students were murdered by National Guardsmen because they were protesting the evil Draft ( and several others injured, some permanently), and a LOT people changed. They may not have liked the protests, but murdering students who were exercising their 1st Amendment Rights was too much.
It was an enormous change in perception, and it was the beginning of the end for the draft, and the war.
If they react violently to the protests, especially if they use live ammunition, it will be very, very bad for them.
And watch out for agents provocateur among the crowd, encouraging violence, maybe carrying weapons, Molotov cocktails, etc.
OTOH a massacre would likely destroy Republican legitimacy among a chunk of their supporters
I think you over estimate the humanity of many of their supporters.
Fox and friends would cover it like a massive terror of burning the city.
We dont need to flip most of their supporters to change things radically. Flipping 1 in 10 would do it
That’s what people aren’t getting. We will never have 100% come back to reality. Many are lost to the MAGA fantasy forever. We’ll deal with them later.
We just need to wake up enough of them to weaken their voting base to either switch parties, or refuse to vote at all. Nothing is worse than someone who has been converted. Ex-MAGAs will be Trump’s worst nightmare.
Absolutely correct. More people need to understand what flipping just 10% on the end of the spectrum would do
Last time I ran the numbers in 2024 it would take more than 10% to get the 17 Senate seats needed to impeach. While that may have changed I still feel folks over estimate the impact of something like this on that voting population with the propaganda engine in place.
Agreed; if the State Regime Media was able to cover up the terrorism of J6 and paint the terrorists as the victims that needed a pardon from the felon-in-chief, AND have most of their audience feel that “cities burned to the ground” during BLM protests (and one of their more idiotic viewers - Taco - seems to think that Portland is still burning, FFS), then there is a sizable chunk of this country that will believe all kinds of obvious bullshit.
We’re at the point most of their base would cheer and depending on if any progressives were also taken out both parties would party for days in celebration
Doubt it. Some talking heads on Fox would simply be instructed to parrot some bullshit about “the protestors started it” and their base would lap it up. These are the same idiots who just take it at face value when El Presidente claims that Portland is “burning to the ground” even though it’s trivially easy for anyone with an internet connection to determine that this is bullshit.
A lie like that would just confirm the beliefs that these bozos already have, the fact that it’s totally divorced from reality notwithstanding. Pure confirmation bias.
Remember that a huge swath of not-coincidentally Republican rednecks wholeheartedly believe that the North fired the first shot of the Civil War even though this is manifestly false.
You can know which alleyway to run down. During a stampede? Even the 10-20 feet it would take to get to that alleyway can feel like 10-20 miles of getting elbowed, kicked, and stomped by panicking people.
Under a “normal” protest? When the tear gas starts flying, people pause to pull their mask up or wrap a scarf around their face. When the rubber bullets start flying? People take cover and suddenly you realize why that woman had a really heavy sign. Eothas forbid, a gunshot? You have people from The Hood who are tragically well trained in identifying what kind of gun that was and what direction it came from. And so forth.
When you have a bunch of shirtless dudes trying to pick up chicks and people focusing on the choreography for their protest dance? They haven’t read up on what to do. They aren’t listening to the hippie with a glass eye talking about what happened the last time the cops rushed them. When the tear gas starts flying? They get the fuck out no matter what it takes. Which turns a protest into Black Friday at a Toys R Us. Same with that car backfiring (or that dumbass having a negligent discharge…).
Newbies at a protest is good. We need more bodies. But you need newbies who actually “care”. Rather than people who are just looking for an excuse to show off their gym bodies because they painted a message on their chest.
That said: I am REALLY happy that the frog suit protests in Portland have gotten so much (social) media coverage. It is pageantry but it is also REALLY effective PPE.
OTOH a massacre would likely destroy Republican legitimacy among a chunk of their supporters
A “stampede” where a protest turned on itself because of an inciting incident (false flag or not) just paints the victims as rabid dogs. It is an extension of “The LA Riots were full of looters” and so forth.
But also? I dislike how much people have decided their lives are Call of Duty and they are going to John McClane their way through The War. But I still think “Who are you?” from Andor is essential viewing for anyone who at all cares about the world. Because it depicts exactly how a false flag can be used to incite a powder keg and turn genocide into “both sides”. And the follow up episode makes it 100% clear what happens when the fascists control the media that is reporting on what happened.
The one I was at did training on how to respond. Remember: people are at a protest in their own community
Which, in a situation where you have people who understand what it means to protest, works great. I’ve given that training myself on quite a few occasions over the… decades.
When you are just grabbing as many warm bodies as you can and most people are there because it is a party and isn’t TOO much harder than using an app to put a watermelon on top of their facebook profile picture? You can “train” them but they aren’t paying attention to the scrawny woman who has seen some shit and is trying to explain that the first thing you do if you hear a gunshot is to duck down, take a breath, and figure out what direction it came from so that you can move for cover. They are instead thinking about how fun it will be or what they’ll be able to put on instagram.
Like I said, Parade Protests. They are awesome for showing that people DO give a shit. But as things get more and more real, you are putting a LOT of uncontrollable variables into the mix.
It’s all about knowing a friend is looking out for you too.
Yeah I feel the same way. The last No Kings event in my area seemed like people were treating it almost like a street festival or parade. There was no confrontation, but had there been, I think everyone would have immediately complied and gone home. “Hey guys, the police said we have to turn the music down” type energy.
I like No Kings because it lowers the barrier of entry for regular people to become politically active, and it completely undermines the narrative in the article that someone had enough money to pay for hundreds of simultaneous protests across the country and in Canada Mexico and Europe.
Each person should participate to the level they are comfortable with and can manage their own group’s safety. But I also think that since it’s been a few months, the conversation should shift towards, “How can we help the immigrants and legal resident non-citizens in our city? How can we make the most of the power we have together to stop the actions of the fascist government? Can we raise funds and get support to pull off a national general strike? Can you sign a strike card?”, since by next year a “Pokémon GO to the polls” type campaign is way too little, far too late.
Let Fox News doublethinkers doublethink and portray whatever false narrative. The solidarity of people is built over time and I think they will feel more empowered each rally and be able to take more effective action. It’s up to all of us as much as core organizers to harness that energy into something useful.
Its a balancing act.
I will never stop criticizing the stupidity of “I changed my profile picture. I am helping”. But parade protests where you get EVERYONE out very much show the force that can potentially be mobilized/motivated. It is on a similar level to getting people to ACTUALLY call their representatives.
But, at the end of the day? Most people only give so much of a shit. And a parade protest, much like a profile picture “protest”, is going to that well. Obviously escalations tend to recharge (or demoralize…) that reserve. But we saw it with BLM and (the clusterfuck that was) Occupy Wall Street and so forth. Getting people out is good. But it makes them start looking for a way to say “I did my part. I basically marched with Marty King”. At which point said movement loses all meaningful support and is a few people dancing outside of an ICE facility (which, again, I think is actually frigging awesome and mad props to encouraging more people to costume up in PPE).
Like I said, I have a LOT of reservations about “No Kings” (and that doesn’t even get into the kinda sketchy way it was organized…). But I’ll be there and so should all of you who can. But… there is a time for parades and dancing and a time to be ready to get your shit rocked by jackboots and we are a lot closer to the latter than the former.
I agree on much of your points and definitely acknowledge the risks of movements losing steam after achieving only modest wins. My take though is Tantrump’s compulsive need for attention is why I think No Kings is not going to peter out on its own. Canada’s boycotts were thought to have gone away but constant remarks of annexation have helped people en masse to maintain it.
I think it’s important to recognize everyone’s tolerance is different and Americans aren’t used to protesting and striking like they do in Europe, Québec, parts of Asia and South America. Even top level commenters here voice hesitancy for the risks to their safety from the gestapo or provocateurs escalating things. The size and all-inclusiveness of these protests and sufficient advance preparation against violent provocations have kept it peaceful, and have successfully slowed down ICE agents’ escalation. Despite federal agents still acting recklessly, if only the most dedicated and prepared folks were there then the media narratives of ‘militant antifa rioters’ would be believed by the general public.
Portland has laid bare Trump’s entire plan is to “aura farm”, and that it falls flat when it gets turned into a joke. The goal seems to be to project power when his government sends in the military to end all the crime, homelessness, drug use and dissent. Trump is weak, his government departments filled with incompetent hacks. His strongman image leaks air each month the US survives, so the further the momentum can be sustained the better.
Always have a plan B, maybe even a C
LOL, who’s downvoting plan B???
They don’t even know WHAT they are downvoting.
This must be a Troll Farm, maybe a Republican troll farm, or even a Russian troll farm. Could be a bot, it could even be my Ex. We still don’t get along.
It also could be Nestle, my DECADES long boycott is FINALLY having an effect.
Honestly I’m surprised the previous no kings protests didn’t result in protestors being gunned down en masse by the military
they wouldn’t do that we were completely peaceful and submissive to any police personnel in the area!
