When you own the media…
Tell me how many people first.
A handful of people in every state is not impressive.
If the people on lemmy constantly (CONSTANTLY) talking about how small/badly timed/ineffective/waste of time these were actually went to them, or set up their own, man what a sight that would have been.
But no, go to work, that’ll save you next month when ‘people who use leftist platforms’ are put in camps instead of immigrants.
There were a few thousand in California. Not crazy numbers but much more than i expected to see on a Wednesday in Sacramento. There were also protests in Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, but idk about numbers for those.
LA also had a protest the Saturday before, but it got drowned out in the news by the Grammy’s 🙃
Removed by mod
Because a half dozen people don’t get politicians attention. Don’t get me wrong, I love that this was pulled off at all, but protests are a numbers game.
Exactly
I doubt a politician would care if 200 people protested divided over 50 states.
We’d need millions to actually make a change.
The fact they said “simultanious protest in every state” and not the amount makes me suspicious that it actually wern’t that many.
More populous states tended to have more people there for obvious reasons. There were hundreds in Oklahoma as a reference.
Nice, that makes me smile. I respect everyone that got out there.
Has any protest actually exceeded 10,000 people?
Honestly, it doesn’t sound like many were protesting. Germany has had more than a million people on the streets in the last couple of days in comparison. Munich alone had 300,000 people protesting.
It’s not a competition but the US also has 4 times the population allowing for much larger protests if there is sufficient public support.
The US has a larger population, but its also massively larger. There were thousands in LA - tens of? No idea. But into the thousands across multiple protests.
That said, it usually takes a bit for momentum. The Great American Boycott (aka a day without an immigrant) had about a million people 20 years ago, but had large scale planning and coordination in other countries as well. The Floyd protests were in the tens of millions of participants, but that was also over a few years of protesting during the pandemic.
Then add in the short timeframe provided on this one (less than 2 weeks if you knew about it early, mostly the day or two before for many more) and its a solid turnout.
This is more like everyone getting to Berlin and protesting, but without good public transportation infrastructure and super short notice. So let’s take that Oklahoma example from earlier - hundreds were there. The population of OK is about 4 million people for the whole state. In terms of population, its about the middle most populous of all states. So this is like the population of Berlin, spread across a state about half the size of Germany.
Its not really a good comparison regardless.
You’re right, but you also have cities like NYC with decent public transit and a higher population density than any German city.
To be fair, the protests were held at state capitals but NYC is the far more nationally and internationally relevant city in that state. A protest with public backing would have little problem getting 100,000 people on the streets there, wouldn’t it?
Even Oklahoma City has 680,000 inhabitants and is larger than all but 5 German cities. If we assume 680 people protested then that’s 0.1% of the city… which isn’t a lot really?
The German protest series also had a somewhat short, though longer notice of around two weeks. Plus large protests are held on the weekend by design, to allow as many people as possible to join in. No clue what the turnout would’ve been on a regular Wednesday.
But in all honesty, the US reaction to open fascism has been rather apathetic so far from what I can tell an ocean away. Which should be particularly concerning because apathy does not defeat fascism, ever.
NYC is not where the protests were - not for this one at least. It was in Albany, about 3 hours from NYC by car, bus, or train. On a random Tuesday with short notice most aren’t going to be able to go.
There are other protests that have happened in NYC, just like with LA. That said - yes, youre going to have trouble getting people out in general despite public support. You’ve got people with families who need someone to watch their kids. You have people who literally can’t afford to miss a day of work. You have people who will get fired for taking a day off unexpectedly.
You’ve got all kinds of protections in the EU that dont exist in the US, and many places intentionally so to prevent exactly this.
The two situations aren’t comparable, as I’ve said.
If it’s useless, then why are you spending so much time downplaying them?
On Feb. 15, 2003, millions of people marched in over 600 cities against the plans of U.S. President George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
First time?
Many of those protests were shut down too. I was up in MA for the Blood for Oil/WMD protest. We were shut down due to a ‘bad actor’ that not one of us witnessed. Neither the bad actor nor the protest made the papers.
Props to the AP, Newsweek, and USA Today for covering 50501 while the rest show where their loyalty lies.
Where is the ap coverage?
thx, didn’t realize this happened 4 days ago already. I dismissed it because of that
But there was a massive amount of coverage on how disliked Bush was (man, in fucking comparison…) whereas op’s post is about how major the protest is vs. how little coverage there is of it.
The text in the image says it’s the first time, though. Don’t support misinformation just because it makes us look good
Was it all 50 states simultaneously?
That was my first experience organizing a protest. Fack I am old now.
By all means, protest. Push these bad actors. Stick up for democracy! But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
“If the institutions deny the President the Constitutional position he has legally won in the election, the voters will have to act directly. Trump will call his people into the streets—not at the end of his term, when he is most powerless; at the start, when he is most powerful. No one wants to see this nuclear option happen. Preparing for it and demonstrating the capacity to execute it will prevent it from having to happen.”
But Is anyone else mildly anxious that JD Vance’s hero, Curtis Yarvin, suggested in 2022, that all Trump needs to do is declare a state of emergency to extend executive immunity to prosecution, and to do it early on? So far, project 2025 combined with the manifestos of Dark Gothic Tech Bros are aligned.
Elon and the felon: “Does their protesting stop what we’re doing in any way? No? Then why would I care?”
fElon
protests accomplish nothing, people. when are yall gonna figure that out?
“but it’s cause the media doesn’t cover them!” - do you own the media? can you change that? then they accomplish nothing. like i said.
I asked before, why was the set up to be the middle of the work week, in the middle of the day?
Protests need to be disruptive and get coverage to work. They must be inconvient for everyone involved. Think of it like a Union strike there is a reason you generally hear about package delivery strikes around the holidays and not just in the middle of the year. The issue is most people in the US cant afford to just leave their job in the middle of the day currently cause they have something to lose. Though the less they have to lose the more they will skip their jobs to show up and protest. The average US citizen has not gotten desperate enough for these protests to rally enough people and as such work. There is also a problem with how the news and people in power have portrayed these strikes and protests as inconveniences to the common person, which reduces the solidarity the working class should have for each other.
The revolution will not be televised
I finally understand what that means.
I hate finding out how my great grandparents felt in the early 1900’s – so ironic their children couldn’t care less about repeating history
Many people’s great grandparents saw bad shit happen and then kept enabling it. Is it irony or plain ol’ stupidity?
its safer not to get involved. the downside is that the problem will not go away by itself.
After Elon’s announcement about the department of Ed, I’m feeling indescribable despair. The systematic dismantling of public education in the U.S. has been happening for decades and is a huge part of the reason we’re in this mess.
I know that’s what they want. For us to feel paralyzed. I’m trying to fight it. But as someone who is convinced the election was tampered with*, I am sick over the fact that they let him in again. Someone should have objected before the inauguration, when an objection actually might have achieved something. I worry that the protests are not going to be enough, as they stay locked in their ivory towers. I’m terrified that a distress signal at the state department was quickly swept under the rug. I thought this is why we developed so many international alliances and treaties after WWII. To prevent fascism from taking hold in our countries. But they’re not doing anything. I live in a blue state and haven’t heard a peep out of my governor. Why? Are they waiting for things to get worse? Does a certain person in a specific role have to contact outside help? If so, who? We know this is going to be disastrous for more than the U.S., we can already see it happening.
I feel like I’m doing everything in my power and it’s still not enough. I have friends who work for the government and they are just as scared and lost as I am. All I can think to do is be prepared for extreme hardship and try to stay involved in my community. What else is there?
*I’m just too tired to debate. If you disagree but are open to changing your mind, I have links in another comment that I encourage you to check out.
“Our little secret” and “he’s very good with computers” “like those counting computers” “landslide in PA”…
I’m rift there with you, man. He openly admitted it because he can’t ever fucking help it, either.
Leopards eat your face much Midwest?
There are people in every state that hate Trump. Unfortunately, in some states, those people are greatly outnumbered.
“oh my god we did this thing for attention and no one is paying attention to us”
Maybe because we’re burnt out because people are outraged every couple of minutes.
Do you work in the government? If not then these protests weren’t for you.
Apathy is a part of the problem. The road to Nazi Germany was lined with many of your type that complained that the damn left are complaining too much
Sure.
Now if only all these people upset at Trump could have done something useful about it when they had the chance, like I dunno, voting against him…
Remember the BLM protests under good watch? He just had them gassed so he could have a photo op. I don’t doubt he’s go further this time around. And with him gutting every federal agency that could protect Americans from foreign influence, they’re not getting a useful opposition any time soon…
Biden has us tear gassed too, for protesting a genocide…
It was on the 5th, not the 6th like in your title.
A couple weeks ago Trump stated the following: “and he (Musk) knows those computers better than anybody, all those computers, those vote counting computers, and we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide it was pretty good”.
No mainstream news source reported on it despite the fact that it’s a borderline confession, and the fact that back in 2020 they gave an insane amount of attention and signal boosting to election fraud claims that had 0 evidence.
Media is on the side of the money, they’re not a friend.
And here are some hard numbers on the Republicans suppressing enough Harris votes to cost America the democratic outcome
The largest protests in the history of the world were in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq still happened.
Protesting sends a message but it isn’t enough.
If protests aren’t enough to sway a democratic system, then the democratic system is broken and resistance becomes mandatory. To quote what the german constitution established after Hitler to prevent exactly what’s currently happening again in the US:
Article 20 [Constitutional principles - Right of resistance]
[…]
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
I do not know if there’s something akin to this in the US constitution (I know your culture very much thinks there is every time it’s about guns though). But even if it isn’t, fuck it. The system is evidently broken, do what’s necessary to regain the power of the people. Do it the French way if you must.
In US, I think it was the initial intent of 2nd amendment. Arm the population not to resist an enemy or an invasion, but to resist its own government if it endanger a free state.
Well with ±400 million guns circulating nationwide, and one in three people are gun owners, consider how many of them would use them in defense of the current government now. There’s a reason behind allowing 2A to go unchecked, when in the time it was written, it made sense. Now it’s a civilian army that, while keeping the population divided, a not insubstantial percentage will blindly defend any unjust actions this government decides to perpetrate.
This. This kind of unchecked gun permissions only elevate the necessary revolt to a civil war. It doesn’t help fighting against regimes, on the contrary; it makes the fight extremely bloody. Those who wrote it in 17-something couldn’t know that, in the future, it will be the very fascist supporters who are the most heavily armed.
(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
Wow I love this.
Anyone who knows anything about history has seen this story before
The media did the exact same thing too they had a bunch of Iraq war experts and nobody about why we shouldn’t go to war…
As much as I hate riots, I mean, yeah?
