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'No Kings' Rallies Against Trump Authoritarianism Could Be 'Largest Protest in US History'
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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The purpose of a mass expressive protest is threefold: 1. Demonstrate to the fascists that we are many, we are organized, and we will not stand by silently as they try to steamroll our rights, 2. Demonstrate to other anti-fascists or just those with doubts about the regime that they are not alone, and 3. Get casual protestors involved in more direct resistance activities. There are often tables with resistance organizations handing out flyers with ways to join up.
These big protests are just one piece of a healthy resistance movement.
Exactly. I think what I see on lemmy is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding where the American population is at right now. Lemmy has, on average, a far higher level of political engagement than the average American and there is a greater representation of activists on this platform. The American public is simply not at the 'let's improvise a mass work-stoppage' stage. We just aren't where we need to be to topple a fascist regime.
A primary benefit to these large protests is to drive political engagement and remove perceived barriers to activism. That is how we move things from 'useless protests' to 'impactful resistance'. You have to get more of the public to where we are already at, even if it is frustrating to wait for all these people to catch up.
While I agree on all points, I think many folks on Lemmy are pretty uneducated on how activism and non-violent resistance is work and takes time—leading to an expectation that if something unjust is happening, we should all just riot and engage in armed rebellion or whatever. It's like they're impatient with the slow progress, which honestly I am too. The difference is that I recognize that slow progress is really the only viable path right now.
For our part, I think we need to do better at surfacing progress so that it's clear that real resistance wins are happening even if the media generally prefers not to report on it.
(I expect there to be some serious progress surfacing going on at No Kings tomorrow.)