If we try to do a proper protest, we’ll get killed by subpar gun laws and a shot by some members of the official Kyle Rittenhouse fan club.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
913 points (93.9% liked)
Political Memes
12722 readers
1981 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
"Having a conversation" is a stall tactic.
I see the problem. You heard something from leftists, and then brought up something said by liberals.
Easy mistake in the bullshit US discourse
Yeah the monolithing OP is doing is honestly impressive. Here, let me try another:
"Americans say trans rights are human rights, but then they also say trans people should be banned from public restrooms. Wtf lol????"
I will never forget when the neighborhood Facebook was alight about the hoards that were going house by house through the suburbs. That was almost 10 miles of suburban sprall...my nerd brain can't fathom the logistics of that and where that force would have come from.
Keep in mind, the property damage after the murder of George Floyd was started by a white supremacist, too. "Umbrella man" smashed windows on an auto zone and spray painted it "free shit zone," it would later be set on fire. Out of 20 people charged in Minnesota for rioting, only 4 were actually local to the state.
and msm and fox was showing mostly the looting and not the protest itself.
I still remember when students at the local high school organized a BLM march from the school to the police station (a 30 minute walk) I saw so many posts from people in this town itching to shoot them if they even looked at their house weird.
One day the world will come together and form an army of therapists and send you guys the humanitarian aid you deperatly need.
During the BLM demonstrations right wing provocatours deliberately caused damage to discredit the demonstrations. Two were caught and prosecuted in Cleveland where i live. Don't be a tool
Yep. Pretty much all of the negative issues from the BLM protests were off duty cops or non-local white supremacists trying to provoke violence.
Remember the conveniently placed pallets of bricks?
Um, all BLM has to do is wear merch and hold up a sign and the police start lobbing CS grenades.
The point of protest isn't to riot, but to get the state to over-respond, brutally. Its why the entire world knows about and sympathizes with the BLM cause.
At least that's the game, according to COIN. Hearts and minds. Though in the Civil Rights movement, we added lawsuits.
And Trump and the red states are quick with their riot squads. Left wing movements just have to represent and make booga-booga faces to trigger anti-riot shooting civilians with rubber bullets. (They're plastic and steel, actually.)
And then two years later, the victims are awarded millions from the districts or the US treasury, depending on the department of the officer who decided it was time to bust heads.
Law enforcement in the US has already lost its legitimacy in the public eye, worldwide. We know they're just thugs of the state, and their response to protest, especially minority protest, especially black protest, figures largely into that paradigm shift.
So, just because protesters in the US still carry signs instead of molotovs, doesn't mean the protests are weak. It means the state's responsers are incredibly easily trolled into initiating violence while camers are watching.
The point of protesting is not to provoke the state to kill you so that people will watch it.
There are many points to protesting. Provoking the opposition is one of them. We see this in civil disobedience protests and noncooperation actions.
Provocation of state responders is one of the effects of protest, regardless of whether it is intended. But it's so consistent, especially in authoritarian regimes, that it is absolutely figured into the calculations of organizers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for instance, staged actions expecting casualties, but knowing they would ultimately further the cause by orders of magnitude.
It's unlikely you (a specific person) will get killed at a protest, but we see casualties at protests all the time, and they are often honored, such as the Kent State victims, who have a folk song written about them. It also sparked a student strike four million strong, and helped to speed the end of the war.
Not all antagonistic responses have to be lethal or even injurious to to create a backlash in support of the cause. The No Kings Snapchat account shutdown by Meta is already resulting in backlash against the Trump regime, against Zuckerberg, and against the tech bro coalition in general.
But again, all a state really needs to do is manage a protest with grace. Authoritarian regimes just jave a tendency to take visible dissent personally (or any criticism, really), and then more liberal states often fail to instill in their law enforcement a predisposition of deescalation. I suspect right-wingers just enjoy the notion of cracking dissenter heads so much they can't help themselves.
Return2ozma: posts accurate meme
Americans: (insert excuse or bad reaction here)
Always happens
But if the protests are supposed to go against the status quo why are they worried about whether those status quo liberals are angered by the protests that would be going on against them?
It is usually local people harmed by property damage when the people who are the problem point fingers from afar at strawmen. It seems no matter what you do, tribalism will overcome any change.
All these people saying that Americans can't protest forget that we literally host hometown hero Luigi. Arguably the best way to get the message across. Needs more consistency, but It's certainly effective.
a lot of people somehow missed the fact that luigi's actions worked to force change immediately.
"somehow" as in the media kept that part quiet as best they could.
Temporarily IIRC. Didn't they quietly revert their changes later, denying just as many claims again?
I've said it before.
People are alive today that wouldnt be alive if someone hadnt shot that UHC CEO.
The entire insurance industry got so scared and so panicked that they stopped denying coverage for curable issues for like.. the next year. Hundreds, thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people are alive today, and are in better health today, because one vile piece of shit got shot and died.
Thats an easy trade to make any day of the week.
And that change was the mass deployment of Flock cameras Nation-wide.
view more: next ›