I mean, you seem to assume these lefties are on the side of progress, but Occam's razor tells me that these people are not allies to any actual progressive movement.
If you apply the hypothesis that these people are rich, out of touch, crybullies plus some actual organized criminals following around the professional protestors then you pretty quickly come to the conclusion that internally these people fucking love Trump, or at least the chaos he brings, because it enables their psychopathic looting and vandalism in the communities they claim to represent while allowing them to feel like they're on the right side of history.
I'm not saying every protestor falls into this category but I think 99% of the nihilistic behavior you're confused by is perpetrated by these rich, woke bullies. Baiting Trump into escalating is their greatest joy.
"The polite protest set - much like the Waymo molotovers, actually - has a really hard time understanding that public demonstration is supposed to be a means to an end."
This is exactly the entire point. People do not even understand what they tangibly want. And because there is nothing to work towards, there is no possible win. And the reason for this is because
1. People are incapable of thinking outside the system. The amount of people that hated both Biden and Trump and just stood by and waited another 4 years shows how conditioned and brainwashed people really are.
2. Most of these people are not creative or smart enough to have an actual idea for how to enact change. How about Georgism? That's something worth protesting over, at least in my opinion. As it turns out nobody has any idea what that is. They want marginal gains, not to actually enact real lasting change that works.
3. Connected to the previous two points, people don't actually know who their enemies are, because instead of fighting for something and letting their enemies be determined by who opposes it, they pick their enemies and decide what to fight for based on what their enemies don't want. This is obviously fucking stupid
Because any solution to a problem must be in service of the Omnicause. If the solution can’t satisfy the Omnicause then it is tossed aside in favor of performative destruction.
Most think they want a French Revolution 2.0 but, as others have pointed out, don’t want to give up the door dash, WFH, Netflix, influencer online lifestyle.
Societial upheaval in general isn’t great but when done for lolz absolutely blows. I’m tired of it all. And while I’d like some well thought out change, I don’t want to toss the baby out with the bath water and definitely don’t want REVOLUTION!!!!
The left is all about performance. They want to protest on Saturday, get black out drunk celebrating their victory but come Monday morning that Starbucks barista better get their fucking order right or she's going to have a new asshole.
They want a revolution while they Netflix and chill.
They are punk rock, here punk rock meaning they go to concerts and buy all the merch.
The left has been reduced to Jerry Springer style antics and they don't realize that they are seen as Jerry Springer types.
Yes. I think that is why the left hates Trump so much. He does all the things they wish they could do. He cheats on his wife with pornstars. He is gaudy and loud. He lies without consequence.
He is the reflection of everything the left is and they hate that.
I've been friends with leftists my whole life. Schizophrenic ideals, double standards and a strain of authoritarianism dressed as liberartion were the norms.
Protesting is pointless when it's against things that don't actually exist or for things that can't possibly happen. There's plenty to hate about Trump's ICE policies but as far as I can tell, the protests were against the entire concept of immigration enforcement - something that will simply never be abolished in a functional country.
There's a lot to hate about Trump's executive orders but what policy change was No King's protest looking for? Even if there was some obscure list of demands I haven't seen it from any mainstream media outlet or politician.
On the other hand, protests with a clear purpose are really effective. YIMBY stuff has blown up like crazy with specific asks on rezoning, transportation and parking policy.
Even abhorrent stuff like Jan 6 was really effective. You might not agree with "stop the transfer of power bc of the alegedly stolen election" but that protest/insurrection was literally meters from creating the constitutional crisis the protestors wanted.
I didn’t say peaceful protest was bad, I said it was ignorable. As to what they should be doing, just a few suggestions: writing, running for office, primarying dead wood Dems, industrial action, civil disobedience (against the powerful, not against fricking commuters), and forming an actual policy slate that the movement can organize around. To start.
If you can’t name a specific law to change or action you want, which is measurable, achievable, realistic, with a schedule or time limit, you’re not smart (ba-dum). Seriously, though; if you have legislation you’re trying to pass, which COULD REALISTICALLY pass, demonstrations have been a useful tactic, but otherwise they just seem like group public masturbation. The majority of demonstrations over my lifetime have been the second sort (I was born just before Kent State, for possibly explanatory context), and I include the anti-Bush “no war for oil” demonstrations in that, possibly incorrectly.
Tldr: the right has moved on in it its thinking on these organized riots and the peaceful ineffective boomer protests.
They don’t give a shit about the peaceful protests because the media moves on in a week anyways and then everyone forgets. (Does anyone even remember the pussy hat protests?)
The violent riots though are funded and organized by a web of non profits and NGOs which is what should be attacked. The trump admin appears to be going that route in fits and starts.
The protest scene was good for the analogue age. But its utterly self defeating when you neither control the media or the narrative in our current digital age. progressives are currently losing both.
Fucks sake the right figured this out after the first time in Charlottesville and then the maga right normies figured it out after jan 6.
David, well written and thought out, your description of the dicodomy of the masked thugs breaking into stores and the arm chair liberals holding quick print signs is outstanding. Drove down the Main Street in Deland home to a small liberal arts college and the protesters were of two groups young students from the college (guess they got extra credit for partition) and gray hairs academia boomers. It was almost funny. I parked on a side street to watch and the best part was when about 10 pickup trucks and 20 motorcycles came through all flying Trump flags and the “protesters” backed up.
So what does an effective anti-Trump protest movement look like?
If it's about forcing his hand through popular backlash, then the protest-going set has no influence over that anyway - Trump will only change course when his own voters revolt.
“If one face of progressive agitation is the masked, black-clad antifa goon hurling a brick through the window of a Kroger’s for some reason, the other is the graying, Tevas and Patagonia-wearing Rachel Maddow stan who only buys organic, rides a bicycle whenever possible, and canceled their New York Times subscription because the op-ed page was getting “too right wing.” “
You left out the identity politics maniacs, but this is who the Democratic Party has become. Or at least, it’s the only people they listen to.
Maybe the real power of the protest doesn’t have anything to do with what Trump thinks. The real power is that 5 million people hit the streets and now everyone one of them knows that they are not alone.
Granted protesting is a tactic to produce a result. A single protest is like a running a single play in a football game. Keeping this in mind is essential and I agree too many aren’t.
And the peaceful protests have achieved some small results so far. In Congress, Democratic politicians are slowing down Republican actions & visiting Republican districts to broaden support. Plus Thom Tillis blocked a terrible nominee. Moreover after weeks of stating it was never going to happen, the administration brought back Abrigo Garcia. The contrast between the No Kings protests and Trump’s parade produced terrible visuals for Trump when he was looking for a demonstration of power.
I also think it’s likely that the protests have already and will encourage people to run for office, particularly the protests in areas that voted for Trump where sometimes Democrats don’t even field a candidate. Knowing that you aren’t allow combatting Trumpism matters to those outside of the blue urban areas.
I also think you are discounting two aspects of the protests. One, by definition of their size and breadth they show that some people are taken a political action they haven’t taken before. Action leads to more action.
Two, looking around while at the 5 protests l have attended this year, I would characterize the protest organizers as left, but the protestors are stretching from the left to the middle. Some unions and other activist groups are rallying members, coordinating signs/messaging, but more people seem on their own with their own signs. So while the protests don’t have a coherent message outside of opposing Trump, the lack of coherence comes from wide variety of individuals who prioritize different issues and speak out their concerns in different ways. At the moment, this far from the next elections, this soup of unrest expresses many different concerns out of which we might find which ones resonate the most.
And the anarchist left burning Waymos. Fuck them.
I almost forgot. One protest I attended actually had instructions for how to isolate anyone trying to encourage violence. It’s an issue that is being addressed.
Why do you see Trump's actions against illegal presence in the country, and against lawless riots, not as actions that need to be taken in and of themselves, but as "a trap" he "laid" for liberals?
This gives the impression that you don't actually care about any of these issues except as they can be characterized as "good for" or "bad for" your liberal cohort.
"I don’t want to dunk too hard on these folks. They really are good people, whose hearts are in the right place. "
A few things are being conflated here, and maybe that’s on me. To be clear, the people I don’t want to dunk on are the peaceful sign-wavers. They’re ineffectual, but harmless. No dunks for them, just nudges. I’m quite content, however, to dunk on people using surface-level political angst to justify chaos and lawless destruction.
The boomer Renaissance Fairs just don't resonate with average working Americans who can't fathom why anyone would spend their weekend attending.
Ha, gonna steal “ boomer renaissance fairs” what a great line.
I mean, you seem to assume these lefties are on the side of progress, but Occam's razor tells me that these people are not allies to any actual progressive movement.
If you apply the hypothesis that these people are rich, out of touch, crybullies plus some actual organized criminals following around the professional protestors then you pretty quickly come to the conclusion that internally these people fucking love Trump, or at least the chaos he brings, because it enables their psychopathic looting and vandalism in the communities they claim to represent while allowing them to feel like they're on the right side of history.
I'm not saying every protestor falls into this category but I think 99% of the nihilistic behavior you're confused by is perpetrated by these rich, woke bullies. Baiting Trump into escalating is their greatest joy.
Thank you for your sanity and humor. This oatmilk latte is for you!
"The polite protest set - much like the Waymo molotovers, actually - has a really hard time understanding that public demonstration is supposed to be a means to an end."
This is exactly the entire point. People do not even understand what they tangibly want. And because there is nothing to work towards, there is no possible win. And the reason for this is because
1. People are incapable of thinking outside the system. The amount of people that hated both Biden and Trump and just stood by and waited another 4 years shows how conditioned and brainwashed people really are.
2. Most of these people are not creative or smart enough to have an actual idea for how to enact change. How about Georgism? That's something worth protesting over, at least in my opinion. As it turns out nobody has any idea what that is. They want marginal gains, not to actually enact real lasting change that works.
3. Connected to the previous two points, people don't actually know who their enemies are, because instead of fighting for something and letting their enemies be determined by who opposes it, they pick their enemies and decide what to fight for based on what their enemies don't want. This is obviously fucking stupid
Because any solution to a problem must be in service of the Omnicause. If the solution can’t satisfy the Omnicause then it is tossed aside in favor of performative destruction.
Most think they want a French Revolution 2.0 but, as others have pointed out, don’t want to give up the door dash, WFH, Netflix, influencer online lifestyle.
Societial upheaval in general isn’t great but when done for lolz absolutely blows. I’m tired of it all. And while I’d like some well thought out change, I don’t want to toss the baby out with the bath water and definitely don’t want REVOLUTION!!!!
Its like the left took the place of the old boomer conservatives by being a rearguard to change.
Except the change is now driven by the right.
Maybe in a decade the left will pretend to have always been maga.
The left is all about performance. They want to protest on Saturday, get black out drunk celebrating their victory but come Monday morning that Starbucks barista better get their fucking order right or she's going to have a new asshole.
They want a revolution while they Netflix and chill.
They are punk rock, here punk rock meaning they go to concerts and buy all the merch.
The left has been reduced to Jerry Springer style antics and they don't realize that they are seen as Jerry Springer types.
Are we saying Trump is not all performance? He’s a fucking reality TV show performer. 100% fake.
He’s the President from a Coen brothers movie. An autocrat wannabe that’s fucking cruel and incompetent. Ingest disinfectant…eat pets….
Yes. I think that is why the left hates Trump so much. He does all the things they wish they could do. He cheats on his wife with pornstars. He is gaudy and loud. He lies without consequence.
He is the reflection of everything the left is and they hate that.
Wow! You know how others feel. You should be able to become rich with that magical ability. Quite the smear of the left. So hateful.
I've been friends with leftists my whole life. Schizophrenic ideals, double standards and a strain of authoritarianism dressed as liberartion were the norms.
More baseless, irresponsible smears. Right on brand for MAGA.
With friends like you, who needs enemies?
🤡
That is hard fought practical experience, friendo.
One could be forgiven for concluding from this that protest in general is mostly pointless.
Protesting is pointless when it's against things that don't actually exist or for things that can't possibly happen. There's plenty to hate about Trump's ICE policies but as far as I can tell, the protests were against the entire concept of immigration enforcement - something that will simply never be abolished in a functional country.
There's a lot to hate about Trump's executive orders but what policy change was No King's protest looking for? Even if there was some obscure list of demands I haven't seen it from any mainstream media outlet or politician.
On the other hand, protests with a clear purpose are really effective. YIMBY stuff has blown up like crazy with specific asks on rezoning, transportation and parking policy.
Even abhorrent stuff like Jan 6 was really effective. You might not agree with "stop the transfer of power bc of the alegedly stolen election" but that protest/insurrection was literally meters from creating the constitutional crisis the protestors wanted.
Okay so if rioting is bad and peaceful protest is bad what should the left be doing instead?
I didn’t say peaceful protest was bad, I said it was ignorable. As to what they should be doing, just a few suggestions: writing, running for office, primarying dead wood Dems, industrial action, civil disobedience (against the powerful, not against fricking commuters), and forming an actual policy slate that the movement can organize around. To start.
If you can’t name a specific law to change or action you want, which is measurable, achievable, realistic, with a schedule or time limit, you’re not smart (ba-dum). Seriously, though; if you have legislation you’re trying to pass, which COULD REALISTICALLY pass, demonstrations have been a useful tactic, but otherwise they just seem like group public masturbation. The majority of demonstrations over my lifetime have been the second sort (I was born just before Kent State, for possibly explanatory context), and I include the anti-Bush “no war for oil” demonstrations in that, possibly incorrectly.
They enjoy protesting, whether violently or peacefully, it's what they do for fun and fulfillment.
Good companion piece to:
https://blog.exitgroup.us/p/the-twilight-of-americas-flower-wars
Tldr: the right has moved on in it its thinking on these organized riots and the peaceful ineffective boomer protests.
They don’t give a shit about the peaceful protests because the media moves on in a week anyways and then everyone forgets. (Does anyone even remember the pussy hat protests?)
The violent riots though are funded and organized by a web of non profits and NGOs which is what should be attacked. The trump admin appears to be going that route in fits and starts.
The protest scene was good for the analogue age. But its utterly self defeating when you neither control the media or the narrative in our current digital age. progressives are currently losing both.
Fucks sake the right figured this out after the first time in Charlottesville and then the maga right normies figured it out after jan 6.
David, well written and thought out, your description of the dicodomy of the masked thugs breaking into stores and the arm chair liberals holding quick print signs is outstanding. Drove down the Main Street in Deland home to a small liberal arts college and the protesters were of two groups young students from the college (guess they got extra credit for partition) and gray hairs academia boomers. It was almost funny. I parked on a side street to watch and the best part was when about 10 pickup trucks and 20 motorcycles came through all flying Trump flags and the “protesters” backed up.
So what does an effective anti-Trump protest movement look like?
If it's about forcing his hand through popular backlash, then the protest-going set has no influence over that anyway - Trump will only change course when his own voters revolt.
“If one face of progressive agitation is the masked, black-clad antifa goon hurling a brick through the window of a Kroger’s for some reason, the other is the graying, Tevas and Patagonia-wearing Rachel Maddow stan who only buys organic, rides a bicycle whenever possible, and canceled their New York Times subscription because the op-ed page was getting “too right wing.” “
You left out the identity politics maniacs, but this is who the Democratic Party has become. Or at least, it’s the only people they listen to.
Maybe the real power of the protest doesn’t have anything to do with what Trump thinks. The real power is that 5 million people hit the streets and now everyone one of them knows that they are not alone.
Granted protesting is a tactic to produce a result. A single protest is like a running a single play in a football game. Keeping this in mind is essential and I agree too many aren’t.
And the peaceful protests have achieved some small results so far. In Congress, Democratic politicians are slowing down Republican actions & visiting Republican districts to broaden support. Plus Thom Tillis blocked a terrible nominee. Moreover after weeks of stating it was never going to happen, the administration brought back Abrigo Garcia. The contrast between the No Kings protests and Trump’s parade produced terrible visuals for Trump when he was looking for a demonstration of power.
I also think it’s likely that the protests have already and will encourage people to run for office, particularly the protests in areas that voted for Trump where sometimes Democrats don’t even field a candidate. Knowing that you aren’t allow combatting Trumpism matters to those outside of the blue urban areas.
I also think you are discounting two aspects of the protests. One, by definition of their size and breadth they show that some people are taken a political action they haven’t taken before. Action leads to more action.
Two, looking around while at the 5 protests l have attended this year, I would characterize the protest organizers as left, but the protestors are stretching from the left to the middle. Some unions and other activist groups are rallying members, coordinating signs/messaging, but more people seem on their own with their own signs. So while the protests don’t have a coherent message outside of opposing Trump, the lack of coherence comes from wide variety of individuals who prioritize different issues and speak out their concerns in different ways. At the moment, this far from the next elections, this soup of unrest expresses many different concerns out of which we might find which ones resonate the most.
And the anarchist left burning Waymos. Fuck them.
I almost forgot. One protest I attended actually had instructions for how to isolate anyone trying to encourage violence. It’s an issue that is being addressed.
Why do you see Trump's actions against illegal presence in the country, and against lawless riots, not as actions that need to be taken in and of themselves, but as "a trap" he "laid" for liberals?
This gives the impression that you don't actually care about any of these issues except as they can be characterized as "good for" or "bad for" your liberal cohort.
"I don’t want to dunk too hard on these folks. They really are good people, whose hearts are in the right place. "
Really?
A few things are being conflated here, and maybe that’s on me. To be clear, the people I don’t want to dunk on are the peaceful sign-wavers. They’re ineffectual, but harmless. No dunks for them, just nudges. I’m quite content, however, to dunk on people using surface-level political angst to justify chaos and lawless destruction.