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Republicans mostly silent as millions of Americans protest Trump on No Kings day (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world
157 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Outside of typical remarks from Donald Trump, JD Vance and Mike Johnson and a Fox News report, party stayed mum

Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the “hate America” depiction advanced by senior members of the party.

Instead of provocation, there were marching bands, huge banners with “we the people” references to the US constitution, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance.

It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.

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[–] barkingspiders@infosec.pub 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan are absolutely smarter than me but I still think it's a red herring. Focusing on a number like that risks missing sight of the ultimate goal of overthrowing fascism, regardless of what it takes. Plus the math is not settled, it's a complicated number and every situation is unique.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And to quote an especially important part about one of the Author's views from that Wikipedia article:

(emphasis added)

Subsequently, Chenoweth has noticed that both nonviolent and armed resistance have been decreasing in efficacy since 2010, concluding that this is the result of authoritarian regimes learning from history, coordinating with one another, and training their armies and police to discourage defections within their ranks. Consequently, Chenoweth has advised that civil resistance movements take these changes into account and alter their tactics accordingly.

To quote even more from this publication, also by one of the authors. (emphasis also added)

The 3.5% participation metric may be useful as a rule of thumb in most cases; however, other factors—momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability—are likely as important as large-scale participation in achieving movement success and are often precursors to achieving 3.5% participation.

New research suggests that one nonviolent movement, Bahrain in 2011-2014, appears to have decisively failed despite achieving over 6% popular participation at its peak. This suggests that there has been at least one exception to the 3.5% rule, and that the rule is a tendency, rather than a law.

Large peak participation size is associated with movement success. However, most mass nonviolent movements that have succeeded have done so even without achieving 3.5% popular participation.

The key point is this:

The 3.5% figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements. It is not necessarily a prescriptive one, and no one can see the future. Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future.

The very people who publicized this theory in the first place have been repeatedly, publicly trying to clarify that this is descriptive, not prescriptive, yet if you ran with the wording of 50501 and other related movements, you'd think that 3.5% is a magical number that if you pass, the administration instantly backs down. (source: 50501 - Hands Off protest statement: "History shows that when just 3.5% of the population engages in sustained peaceful resistance – transformative change is inevitable.", emphasis added ofc)

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago

The 3.5% participation metric may be useful as a rule of thumb in most cases; however, other factors—momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability—are likely as important

Another factor is how deeply entrenched the fascists you are trying to dislodge are.

The more levers of power they control (and the longer they control them), the stronger and more sustained the pressure against them needs to be.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

People want to think if we just get to this. Umber it well change but it isn't true. Also a protest once every couple of months don't even think counts as a protest.

[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago

It counts as protest, but not sustained protest, which is usually a decisive factor for if a protest will succeed in affecting anything. Even if every employee of a company left for a day, if they all came back the next day and resumed working, it wouldn't be hard for the business to get back up and running, then just put systems in place to account for that in the future, but if those employees strike for months, suddenly all the business's systems begin to fail without maintenance, customers leave because of no service, and the business goes bankrupt.

[–] iloveDigit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

I'm smarter than them and I can assure you the magic number is 2.4% not 3.5%