Why aren't there mass protests in the USA?
Why aren't there mass protests in the USA?
I'm shocked that I haven't seen one protest yet. Is the media suppressing them? If there aren't any, why?
126 comments
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there are pretty significant protests in recent months. Tesla, the federal government, unions etc. It's just that nobody really care about them with all the funny shit happening in the federal government right now.
Realistically, they also won't do much, so you'll have better reach doing more traditional on the ground campaigning anyway.
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- Because the people protesting represent in the single digit percentages of the voter base of America. An extremely vocal minority, but still a minority of Americans.
- Boy who cried wolf situation. Protesting every single thing endlessly for years on end has made the average person stop caring about whatever you're protesting about. Not saying it's right but that is how many people view continual protesting.
- The far left protests lost most of their corporate backing this time around. As soon as the bean counters up top realized that pandering to the social stuff on the left wasn't going to net them record profits they all dropped supporting the issues like a bad habit. They saw the popular vote change and they all dropped their masks immediately. Remember this in 10 years when the balance swings back again and you see target suddenly pretending to give a shit about gay right again or whatever it is at that time. They only ever cared about money.
- Lack of unified direction of protests. There are tons of local and small group protests as many people have linked in the comments, but outside of these small tight-knit online communities planning these things the general public has absolutely no clue any of them are happening. There isn't a single unifying "thing" to rally around like the BLM protests had with George Floyd. When the angry mob can't direct their anger all in the same direction it loses power.
- Since modern media runs on outrage (clicks) and they have seen that most people don't care anymore they have moved onto other things in order to generate the clicks they want to make the money for the big guy.
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Mass media is actively suppressing them:
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Not only mass media, but social media algorithms as well. Big tech is complicit in the coup
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Canada here. We see nothing about Murcan protests, if they exist. We just hear Canadians/politicians reacting negatively to pretty much everything coming out of the white house.
We ask each other how can Murcans be okay with being treated like this. Don't they understand what's happening?
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Don’t they understand what’s happening?
No. Overwhelmingly, no, they don't. The MAGA crowd is stuck to their pants with glee, the liberal crowd is going "oh well, we'll get em in the midterms," and about another third of the country is just brain-dead clueless about all of it. Maybe a few thousand people in the US actually understand just how close we are to cascading systemic collapse.
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Thanks! This is the graph I was looking for
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Did you forget the BLM marches already or are you talking about a specific issue?
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Damn, I wish I lived under the rock you apparently do.
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50501 is very active, we're hitting the streets all the time. I've been at a demonstration almost every week for the past month and a half. Please, join us!
Edit: From one of my other comments in case you're uneasy about getting involved:
I don’t even like talking to people in the first place.
SAME SAME SAME. When I started confronting these [Trump supporters] people in my life my anxiety would flare up to the point my voice would shake lol. And I never in my life thought I'd be out marching in the streets.
It gets easier, but it takes practice (Prozac helps too). Now the anxiety has become anger. But not anger at them, rather anger at the system. Anger at what we let this country become. Anger at how lazy and complacent I've become.
Do your best, stay safe, and most important of all don't get scared. Get angry.
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Whenever I attend a protest, there is 0 media stations in attendance or covering it.
By design. They're under control.
Honestly, I think everyone's waiting for the masses to be just pissed off enough to kick it up a notch.
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It's being suppressed, I can't find the graph I saw yesterday but cumulative daily protests this year have far outclassed the protests from 2017, yet there's very little coverage of it from the major outlets.
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Getting sick of Europeans falling for the blatant suppression and propaganda that our corporate-elite overlords are spoon-feeding them and using that to act superior.
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That being said, if you have a hard time getting the word out on your protests, then the suppression is working.
Publicizing your actions is part of the protest.
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@Yazer@lemmy.ca there is also the 50501 group organizing protests in all 50 states April 5.
As others have commented, there haven't been protests this large and often in the US since the Vietnam War. Organizing this takes time. Organizing without using billionaire owned services with questionable privacy policies takes even longer... but it is happening.
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I'm not sure where these questions are coming from, there are tens of thousands of people conducting dozens of protests across every single state at every level of government, and multiple stories about those protests in this feed.
there's absolutely some media suppression since Trump is friends with the owners of some media outlets, but there is also a lot of media documenting the literally Nationwide protests.
there's a super popular post like a few tiles up about the dozens of ongoing Tesla protests going on that are tanking the company.
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I think this is a factor of your media echo chamber. I've personally attended protests nearly every week since January. I'm going to one tomorrow. They are all over my news feeds.
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There's considerable more happening now than in 2017. They hust aren't getting media attention because the media has been folded in.
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@Yazer@lemmy.ca my kids didn't have school yesterday because their teachers were protesting.
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I visited family/friends in the US recently (i've lived in europe for many years).
Everyone is super upset about the current state of things, angry at Trump etc.
However, they are also generally just convinced they need to wait out these four years and then everything can return to normal.
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Because the Americans don't know how to protest.
To a Frenchman a protest is storming and taking control of the representation of authority in the country.
To a Greek a protest is filling the streets of many cities throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of people.
To an American a protest involves standing in a square by the few hundreds, holding signs with semi-sarcastic or passive aggressive messages written on them.
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Eh, I feel like every day there's a new story of Tesla's being torched. That's a pretty directed and forceful form of protest that gets no credit.
Also, it's not like America never has large scale protests. Hundreds of thousands of people fill the National Mall pretty regularly, skimming Wikipedia I counted 14+ since 1950 of over 200,000.
Just 5 years ago 15m-26m people participated in some especially roudy protests across all 50 states, but no credit for that either.
Large protests that get even slightly out of line in the USA usually end with:
- well armed, paramilitary police violently dispersing everyone
- the CIA assassinating protest leaders
- and/or the 6 media conglomerates suppressing coverage at the behest of the ~15 people that own them
If you're criticizing Americans for anything, it should be for their response to that and not their ability to organize and orchestrate protests.
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protest is storming and taking control of the representation of authority in the country.
Jan 6. 2021... just the other side protesting though.
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Such ferocity.
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Just remember, the media is owned by the rich.
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These days i get quite a lot of US news off Lemmy, and aside from Tesla torchings (great start) I mostly just hear about people going to rallies. Are there actually americans out there obstructing something? If so, why aren't they sharing their own news for solidarity and motivation of masses? How is capitalist media causing fediverse content to be censored?
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Yes, the media is suppressing news of protests because most of the media companies are owned by billionaires who’ve kissed the ring.
The protests that are happening are also smaller and somewhat decentralized. The media likes a big show and these protests don’t get clicks or eyeballs on screens.
There are many smaller protests happening such as the ones outside Tesla dealerships literally everywhere. This is having an effect on Teslas stock but TBD if it’ll have a lasting effect.
People are also attending town halls with their congresspeople and getting confrontational. This has led to many representatives cancelling town halls or screening for only Republicans like fucking cowards. Chuck Schumer just canceled his book tour because he knows he’ll get run out of every city he shows up in after his capitulation.
Pro Palestine protests continue on campuses.
There’s a lot to dig into on why there isn’t a large mass protest like 2020 but my simple answer is that things aren’t bad enough yet.
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The revolution will not be brought to you by xerox without commercial interruption, the revolution will not go better with coke, the revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath, the revolution will put you in the driver’s seat
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Lol wut? There are. Where do you get your news?!?
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They may happening, but they don't really make the news. You are still far below the MLK threshold.
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Yes, its all over the news. You must be using shitty sites that aren't real news sites.
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There have been but i suspect they may have slowed down.
I feel like one reason why trump has crashed the economy is to hurt people so they are too busy working and struggling to be able to protest his fascist policies.
It's hard to help your neighbor when you are drowning yourself
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Heh … massive unemployment is going to be like Covid all over again. The crazy shit is coming for sure.
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There are. Heaps of them.
The US is just a big place and very spread out. And the ruling government and its media conglomerates are trying to keep them out of the media.
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There absolutely are not. There are anemic little marches scattered here and there.
Americans were protesting George Bush in 2004 more forcefully and in vastly larger numbers than they are protesting now.
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Apparently there were about 375,000 people protesting the Iraq War in New York in 2003 compared to about a million people marching for women's safety in 2004 in DC
In the years since there have been about 5 protests the same or much larger than that. In 2017 2.3 Million people protested the Trump inauguration, and protestors also showed up for Trump's 2025 inauguration which was held indoors for reasons including harsh snow. The exact number estimates for the 2025 inauguration protest and the 50501 protests are unknown at the moment, but it is occurring in all 50 states which is comparable to the George Floyd protests.
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I'm going to guess
- poor media coverage
- media is explicitly hostile to protests and pro trump/right-wing-extremism
- many people are living paycheck to paycheck + we have minimal labor protection
- years of left-wing organizations being kneecapped (eg: the murder of fred hampton)
A lot of people are angry but there's not really much organization. As much as I would love someone to take 50,000 of their closest friends, march down to DC, and shoot every republican in the head, without years of organizing that's just a fantasy. Unfortunately, the right wing has been doing years of organizing and it's now bearing fruit for them.
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In Luigi we trust.
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I’m glad we have the freedom to say this shit here.
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Wholly agree. Vast majority of US Americans cannot afford to lose what little is left. We are two to three paychecks away from homelessness. Economic subjugation has been in the works across political parties.
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There's no leader. Most people are followers.
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I think the reason more people haven't started to openly organize is mostly concerns about self preservation. This govt obviously doesn't care about civil liberties and are openly calling anyone not with them "the enemy". It becomes much harder to publicly and civily organize if there is a substantial chance you'll be branded a terrorist organization. That's obviously just my take from my perspective.
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Why do kids, who mainly get their news from Tik Tok, not get mad?
Maybe look at who controls the algorithms
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Maybe you just aren't where it's happening?
"Protesters in Philadelphia and at state capitols in California, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana and beyond waved signs denouncing President Donald Trump; billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency; and Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society."
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I guess I'm just shocked that they only waved signs. In France, the guillotine would have been out. Here in Canada we entirely shut down our capital for months, and both for way less. When will the real protests start?
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Hop on bluesky, there’s a Tesla dealership being vandalized and burned almost every day.
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We don't have the level of social safety nets that France does to allow people the freedom to pretest without starving or becoming homeless. It is by design. They keep everyone just on the verge of poverty so nobody can afford to be disruptive.
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Americans are notoriously terrible at protesting. I was in high school in the '00s and our American history textbook had a sidebar about the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. The bit that stuck with me: a French dignitary interviewed on the scene was unconcerned about the protesters. He pointed to an untouched BMW (or similar luxury car, I forget the exact make). "In Paris," he said, "That car would be burning."
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I’m not a historian, but my guess is that we have lived too many generations without major political incident; the kind you’re supposed to make heads roll over.
We’ve been indoctrinated since birth to blindly love our country, to mind what we say; we have seen other countries and their political unrest, and we ignorantly convinced ourselves that it will never be like that here.
And despite the cop out response of “we vOtEd fOr it”, otherwise good, hardworking Americans were lied to by their friends, family, church, and beloved government for so long that they can’t know any better.
Make no mistake, we fucked up and let our hubris get the better of us. I hope we can see the error of our ways and fight back before it really is too late.
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Are we really comparing the French Revolution and the annoying-ass, snowflake trucker protest?
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In the US, protests are largely performative. People want to make a show of it do they can say "Look, I did something!" even if they're doing nothing. They'll break their own arms patting themselves on the back.
I live in Portland which is protest central. We had 100 days of Black Lives Matter protests which meant and did nothing as the city largely agreed with the sentiment.
You want a protest that matters? You take it where the action is happening. In the case of Trump, you can set EVERY Tesla dealer on fire, it means nothing.
Take that shit to D.C. and shut that city down for 100 days? Assuming the Feds don't kill everyone, that's a protest that would matter.
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In Usa, "protesters" are not allowed to do anything further than waving a few signs.
Even when they start shouting too loudly, they go to jail immediately. And then they need a president who releases them (but he releases only the right ones).
Have you noticed how many, many police and national guard troops they can afford? Massa Musk does not cut down on police, only on schools and scientists and caregivers for the sick...
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There are, they are being reported. I couldn’t speculate as to why you are missing them.
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Can you provide 3 links to different protests?
Not being snarky. Just haven't seen any reporting on it.
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Ahh… THAT is the difference.
In the US, most of the media is complicit in what’s being protested. And online social media coverage is being contained to small bubbles.
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Check out @usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml posts. They are posting pictures of grassroots protests across the country every day. Like has been said, there hasn't been THE big mass protest, but there is constant local activism and protest, just mostly ignored by media.
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Loads of people in this thread saying they're happening but media not covering them...
I don't think that's really what is meant by "mass protests". In the not so distant past I would have thought every american man woman and child would be weeping in the streets at the corruption and despotism.
There are protests, and maybe they're not being covered, but it's not the type of civil unrest I would have expected honestly.
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Europe has roughly the same land mass as the United States and less than half the population. The population density and urbanization is even lower.
So for the USA it's actually quite a bit to have protests of hundreds in smaller towns and state capitols.
Major cities can muster the large groups, but the consistent and widespread nature of the protests should not be discounted.
Incidentally I am also not seeing counter protests or demonstrations of support.
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The media is definitely covering it. If your media sites don't cover it, block that media site and follow one that does.
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That's... not really what I was getting at.
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They had that protest in every state did they not? But when I couldn't find much on it in the Canadian media, I went searching CNN and other American sites and found very little also, which was surprising to me. Here on lemmy, there were all sorts photos being posted from various cities, and it looked like a pretty big deal?
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There have been multiple protests like that one. And many more at Tesla dealerships, national parks, etc as well.
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You won't see much about protests until we're closer to the next election.
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What next election?
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Okay, I'm going to acknowledge that there are protests, yes, but probably what OP is thinking of something more like the BLM protests during COVID where shit started to get real. There's a few things going on here:
First: People don't have the time off like they did during COVID. They also aren't locked up and less able to ignore the news.
Third: Resignation. I think this is the bigger of the three parts. I know for my part, I consider this a complete loss of the federal government. Even if we somehow avoid a dictatorship and get control of the government back, the damage that's been done is so deep and complete that we'll likely never fully recover from it, we'll just have to move on with things as they are. My efforts are now focused on organizing balkanization. If Texas wants to be a fucking stupid theocracy with prosperity gospel televangelists and the antichrist at the top, who am I to get between them and a good time? Maybe without having to hear about what Daniel the terminally addicted Fox News viewer thinks about Critical Race Theory, we can get some shit done, fix healthcare, get some fucking trains and bike lanes put up.
Second: Lack of organization. The federal government has spent the last 100 years stomping any serious leftist movements both here and abroad. There is almost no living memory of what a real leftist movement looks like, or how to get one going, so we're all having to roll them from scratch, and there's still a lot of the old high-roading instincts that were implanted in us over the decades. It's just going to take time.
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There are, The media is own'd by the rich and now so is the government.
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Fortunately there's tons of great independent media that is covering it. Why would you subscribe to corporate trash?
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50501 is hard at work! Also check out https://www.mobilize.us/
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They exist, if it gets to the point like with the Floyd protests you can bet Donnie won't hesitate to point the military at the citizens, then things would get very interesting.
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Chicago has had a few. In particular at the protest for science there was a dude in a trump in diapers blow up costume.
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I don't have an answer but I have wondered the same. Serbia, Georgia and Türkiye have currently some very large pro-democracy demonstrations, but the USA hasn't. What there is seems to be pretty small scale.
Maybe pro-democrat Americans don't feel like their actions matter? Perhaps the opposition just isn't that popular? Maybe the USA just didn't have all that strong traditions of civil action to to begin with. At least when compared to countries lile Georgia or Serbia.
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Can't mass protest if you don't have a way to get people in one location. United States car infra prevents that.
Source: seen mass protests, seen "US protests". Night and day difference
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There are protests, they are just way too small.
Trump hast at least 40% of the population behind him, and a good 20-30% don't care. Still.
You can't organize "mass protests" with 20-30% of the population.
I mean, you can, but they are literally a loud minority.
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That’s just wrong
Put 20/30% of the population of any city or county out on the streets and it will make headlines
It’s technically a loud minority but a very loud and significant minority
The problem is that of those 20/30% only 10% will actually get out on the streets so you are left with around 2% of the general population. And that ain’t much
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The problem is that of those 20/30% only 10% will actually get out on the streets so you are left with around 2% of the general population. And that ain’t much
So you do agree?
Getting mass protests organized is a tremendous effort. If you have 80-90% support for something, getting 30-40% on the street is a huge accomplishment. If only 30% support the idea in the first place, there is no chance.
The "mass protest" has to be at a scale, where it's basically a general strike where society shuts down because people are protesting.
That it doesn't work right now doesn't mean they should stop trying.
but a very loud and significant minority
This is meaningless in a country that chooses to ignore public voices. Authoritarian regimes can stay stable with 10-15% support of the population, ignoring protests and complaints.
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What would "a protest" accomplish? What have they accomplished in my lifetime?
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https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/peace-protests-dallas-response/
Some may not have been in your lifetime but peaceful protests do get results. Outside of revolution all our civil rights around the world have been won through protest.
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Downvotes, but no answers.
What good has ever come from people standing in a street waving a cardboard sign?
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Because Americans are by and large complete cowards.
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Your mom's a coward!
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126 comments