If you go to a No Kings rally on Saturday don’t bother to look for me. I’ll be enjoying the fall colors on the Fall Art Tour in the Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin — a much better way to spend my day.
I’m no fan of street protests in any event. I think about 90% of them are inconsequential while the rest are counterproductive. The only question about the No Kings rallies is if they’re more inconsequential or more counterproductive. They’re likely to be more of the latter, I suppose.
The problem with any political street theater is that it usually turns off the very people it’s at least nominally intended to persuade. Political moderates and independents aren’t generally the kinds of people who go to rallies. We don’t march. We feel ridiculous carrying signs. We most definitely do not chant.
And to make matters worse, the kinds of folks who do get into this stuff are the most passionate about their causes. As a result they’re likely to say the most intemperate things and its the splashy, extreme things that make news.
This is all true and then some about the No Kings thing. It’s all being organized by a big liberal group out of Washington called Indivisible. Here’s how that group describes itself: “We’re a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but this is hardly a movement springing up from a broad base. Rather, it’s being organized from the top down by the same liberal groups that have made the Democrats as unpopular as they’ve ever been.
And it’s the same tired old liberal Democratic approach: bring together a bunch of liberal interest groups, each of which will compete to get its own agenda out front. So, you’ll see lots of keffiyeh scarves, Palestinian flags, rainbow flags, transgender rights messaging, Planned Parenthood pink and on and on and on. And each of those groups will subtract from the core message. The whole will end up being so much less than the sum of its parts.
Average Americans, to the extent they’ll pay attention at all, will look at coverage of their local rally and, to use a phrase popular on the left, not see people who ‘look like them.’
So, my advice is that if you’ve got tickets to the Wisconsin – Ohio State game, my God, pass up on that and, by all means, go to the rally. The experience there cannot possibly be any worse than the slaughter you would witness at Camp Randall.
But if you’ve got a better alternative, like the Fall Art Tour, take it.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
“I’m no fan of street protests in any event. I think about 90% of them are inconsequential while the rest are counterproductive.”
So you think 100% of protests in U.S. history have either been inconsequential or counterproductive?
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I think the civil rights protests led by Martin Luther King were successful. Unfortunately, some of that success had to do with the violence directed against them by Bull Connor and others. People, especially northerners, saw that and reacted against the southern white supremacists. It opened people’s eyes about just how vicious southern racism was — not that the north was all that much better.
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That’s where this is heading.
Protests are meaningful. Remember the tea party protests? Were you saying that was pointless back then, or is this opinion reserved for the left?
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I hope they succeed and we return to the halcyon days of (the good, decent man) Joe Biden unilaterally declaring a constitutional amendment into existence.
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Are you looking for pure political candidates or something? Ds must be infallible and completely perfect in every way, but Rs are ok so long as a few policy positions are there.
Biden had flaws. Trump has flaws. Do the balance sheet, Trump is worse.
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FWIW I don’t think that was “King” Biden talking, I think it was “Dementia” Biden talking.
And to your point- no I don’t expect any pol to be perfect. I think of them more like NFL players who will break the rules if they can. They may get caught and get penalized but thats just part of the game. They’ll be right back at it and try again.
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Dave I think you’re still thinking in a Madison bubble. I went to the first No Kings rally in Janesville. It was a very middle-to-old group of people, many of whom, I’m guessing, were at their first political rally. You are right: it may have no specific impact but when one feels powerless against everything that’s currently happening on a daily basis, at least it sends a message that we’re watching, engaged and not just letting it happen.
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Dave, if you had participated In the last two indivisible protests, you would know that they are not the hyper organized political types. They are everyday people who are disgusted with how Trump has conducted his presidency. I’ve never been part of a protest before, but I was there for the two first big protests. The second frew 5 million people across the country.
I was wearing my veteran’s cap and so were a bunch of other veterans.
This is not a top down initiative as you suggest The one in West Bend Was organized from the ground up by people who have never done this kind of thing before. They get some guidelines from the national Organization, but not much.
Have a nice time observing from afar.
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I’ll add the point Dave that I think you are missing is the delight participants garner by being in the crowd, realizing we are not alone in our disgust and rejection of this current administration (even as we accept some of the actual conservative criticisms are totally valid) and the pure joy of recognizing so many Americans are not all hate-filled-in-their-hearts and greedy MAGA sycophants.
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I understand that part. But as a political strategy I don’t think it will accomplish much.
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I agree too but still hope it does. How else are tax paying citizens going to speak out? The media bosses love their reporters chasing click bait (part of why Trump and his reality show is so good for the media business). The worst part of all this is the display of how few politicians in positions to do something about this mess continue to demonstrate they have no spine.
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I just want to defeat Trump and MAGA. I’m for anything that advances that cause. The country is evenly split with about 40% for Trump no matter what and 40% against him no matter what. So, the question is what can we do to win over the persuadable 20%? My problem with these marches is that I don’t think they do anything to move that 20% and, in fact, they could push some of them away. Sad to say, I don’t think that 20% cares much about civil liberties. They don’t see anything they want to do or say threatened and they’ve got more bread and butter concerns. So, marches focused on civil liberties look to them to be focussed on things that aren’t of primary concern to them. If this movement was built around something more like the cost of living and housing in particular that might be more useful.
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“So, my advice is that if you’ve got tickets to the Wisconsin – Ohio State game, my God, pass up on that”
I’ll add the point Dave that I think you are missing is the delight participants garner by being in the crowd, realizing we are not alone in our disgust and rejection of this current administration.
Also there’s lots of alcohol.
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“As a result they’re likely to say the most intemperate things and its the splashy, extreme things that make news.“
This is a plausible idea, based on other protests, but I have not found it to be true about this one. The organizers say in their handbook the demonstration is about these goals: We call on our government to uphold the Constitution and End Executive overreach.
I did not see many signs for extreme and unpopular causes. The downsides you discuss didn’t happen.
Part of our political problems is that people don’t talk to each other as much at in-person activities. A wide random group of my neighbors with different opinions talked at the bus stop yesterday about how we’re united against fascistic words and policies, self-dealing, and people in the government openly flouting the law.
Are you saying you agree with these goals, but my neighbors and I should be petitioning for reforms in some other way? What way?
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This is a dead horse that I just keep beating. But my idea is to form a Moderate Democratic Party, not as a third party, but as a party within a party. Have our own platform, nomination process, etc. But nominate candidates for the Democratic primaries. And if our candidates don’t win the nomination we still support the Democrat in the general election. Might move the party to the center without a true third party which would just help elect Republicans.
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