2d ago

Public Opinion Is Meaningless vs. Trump. Public Action Is What Matters

www.rollingstone.com Public Opinion Is Meaningless vs. Trump. Public Action Is What Matters

To defeat Donald Trump — and save ourselves — it’s time to stop reading polls and start leading protests.

I went to my Senators local offices yesterday, along with a few hundred others. We got one of them to send out a staffer to talk.

What have others here done? What have you got planned for the next few days?

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I've been wondering what people who are peaceful protesting think they are accomplishing. The ruling class obviously is trying to fuck you over, while you are asking nicely for these sociopaths to care for your problems. They have demonstrated they care little for you. Not your opinion, you as a person. They want you to shut up and work for them or die.
- This isn’t about convincing ruling class, it’s about building momentum and rallying the people. They don’t have the power to stop all of us.
  
  showing eachother we have eachother's back
  
  Absolutely. I also felt it was important to demonstrate to people that it is still safe to resist. A lot of people are already too scared to do anything even though the Trump administration hasn’t done a single thing to crack down on dissent yet.
  I saw so many people afraid this was a trick, or the police were going to swoop in and arrest everyone. But guess what, we all went out there, it was a great time and nothing bad happened. Hopefully more people will show up for the next one. One protest won’t do much it’s true—but a sustained campaign can shift the conversation.
  
  The last time a protest accomplished anything was when people burned buildings and a police precinct to demand the arrest of George Floyd's murderer.
- There are many layers to this.
  At the highest? It shows politicians there is public support for something. Many politicians still think there will be elections in 4 years (hell, probably not even 2) and will make it a point to act so that they don't get primary'd and so forth. We already saw shades of this with congress realizing what signs their checks and protesting musk dismantling the treasury two days ago. Albeit, the outcome of that is very much "okay, we'll keep most of the foxes out of the hen house but not all of them" but... baby steps.
  The next level is to show the american people there is support. That said... the news media basically refused to cover any of the protests. THAT said, I assume the usual talking heads on twitch et al did (although I think hasan is still on vacation and making videos showing he is bigger than a Japanese person?). It is well worth remembering that a ridiculous number of people didn't even realize biden wasn't running last year.
  And then we start getting to the point where lemmy admins will nuke stuff. So I'll just cut off after this point. Cops and fat white kids who want to shoot some n****rs are going to act sooner than later. That will be caught on camera.
  
  Is Hasan the horse porn loli pedo guy?
  
  I don't know what nonsense internet beefs he is in right now but I know there is someone dropping "bombshells" every day. I would be wary of associating yourself with that dumbfuckery.
  Hasan Piker is formerly an intern (and nepo baby) at the young turks who struck out on his own and gained pretty large fame around the 2020 US election because of his open support for Sanders and general willingness to watch and React to political content with a heavy emphasis on (American) socialist stances.
  In recent years a lot of us have mostly written him off as a tankie due to his initial stance on the war in Ukraine and his ongoing stance toward the genocide in Palestine. Most of the "genocide joe" takes and the like were regurgitated endlessly by him. He has still done a lot of good during that period (his coverage of the SAG strikes were spectacular) but... yeah.
  That said, he is still probably THE biggest pundit/Voice on the left and him covering the protests would go a long way toward making ordinary people aware of just how fucked everything is.
- I've been wondering what people who are peaceful protesting think they are accomplishing.
  Nothing at "the top" is going to change any time soon, no matter what anyone does, and certainly not on the basis of anything that happens on one day. Every bit of resistance, large and small, cumulative over time, will gum up the gears of fascism and give people a bit of energy to face another day - and maybe do a little bit more tomorrow.
  Today's protester can become tomorrow's mutual aid, next week's smuggler, next month's partisan.
- We can accomplish a lot actually.
  They're still responsive to people showing that they're organized enough to upset their hold on power.
  We can show people that they're not alone; courage is contagious.
  It's an entry point for getting steadily more aggressive forms of action.
  
  Luigi showed far more than you ever will with this waste of time.
  Be more like him, take action.
  
  And how many CEOs have you shot?

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