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Ask HN: Why aren’t Americans protesting on a large scale?

29 points by lysace 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lysace 2y ago
I think e.g. Europeans and Canadians are quite surprised. You don't seem to care.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  - There have been protests, including some largish ones. As with things like labor action, they happen in the US but 99% of it doesn't get covered, you could think they don't happen at all unless you pay attention to fairly obscure media sources or happen to live near where they're going on, where local news might briefly mention it (after the fact). - Protesting hasn't accomplished anything in the US in 80 years (EDIT: Almost 60, LOL, usually I math wrong the other direction when calculating how long ago things were). As with letting our politicians tell obvious lies to interviewers with minimal push-back, not having effective protests is just... American, or at least has been for much of living memory. - Like 80% of the country's not paying any attention, they have zero idea how bad this already is and what's already teed up for the next month or two. Shit the people following this would never believe a person could have missed, they don't know about. - Civic knowledge is abysmal so a huge proportion of the population doesn't understand why stuff like normalizing open corruption (that one, we let slide in Trump's first term and the Democrats did nothing to draft laws to codify prior norms, when they had the chance, so that's... great) is extremely dangerous. Or that the President in fact does not legally have the power to do a bunch of the things he's doing, and that letting him get away with it anyway means the end of the rule of law and the beginning of authoritarianism. Like half of folks don't understand marginal tax rates and even more think foreign aid is some insane amount of our budget, like 20%. When it comes to our political system, I dunno about other countries, but Americans are, to be blunt, shockingly dumb. They don't know how things are supposed to be or where the guardrails are, so don't recognize how very far off-course we are.
  - lysace 2y ago
    > including some largish ones The ones I heard of were around a few thousand at most. That is not large in this context.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  we do show our outrage on social media… americans have long been tamed and are no longer activists and small fraction that are have been reduced to ridicule “wokeness” sad state of affairs for sure…
  - lysace 2y ago
    BLM turned into a massive IRL thing though?
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      no doubt... woman's marches were decent too back in '17... I think BLM-style protest can still prop up to protest things like police brutality etc but generally I think US public has been tamed, especially over the past decade. even our veterans, who fought for the freedoms and constitution and whatnot are sitting quietly while VA is being gutted and while they are losing jobs by the thousands (many vets went into public sector and became govies after their service)... and veterans are sitting put and letting all this shit happen you know where we are as a country...
bigyabai 2y ago
Fear
- lysace 2y ago
  Protest comes with a risk, that is a given. It's also a responsibility, in some situations.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- bdangubic 2y ago
  fear of what exactly?
  - AlecSchueler 2y ago
    Militant police and other State forces I would imagine. Death. Something like Kent State.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      damn - kent state ... not sure how many people on HN were born before kent state... doubt there is a living soul in the USA that has a fear of militant police and state forces and think kent state massacre is just around the corner
      - AlecSchueler 2y ago
        If they're afraid of militant state forces but not "something like" Kent state then what are they afraid of exactly?
        bdangubic 2y ago
        I have no idea what they are afraid of - that is why I asked "afraid of what?" I don't think anyone is afraid of "militant state forces"
glass_door 2y ago
[flagged]
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  > The majority voted for it, and are happy with it. Plurality.
  - edwardsdl 2y ago
    True, but I think it’s a distinction without a difference. If 30% of folks voted for it and 40% didn’t care enough to show up, it’s still a damning indictment of the American people. Note: I can’t see the original comment, so hopefully I’m not defending some heinous remark…
    - alabastervlog 2y ago
      The claim was that a majority voted for him. That's not even true among people who did vote.
shams93 2y ago
Actually they are, we had massive protests in Los Angeles over the ice raids.
- lysace 2y ago
  You may have missed a slightly larger story: There has been a seismic shift in the world order. Pax Americana (1945-2025) is over. Nuclear proliferation is going to go apeshit. Undoing that is very, very hard.
legitster 2y ago
Americans as a rule tend to look down on protesting. America is very geographically dispersed. Any commerce that gets impacted generally only draws attention locally. And because of the strong urban/rural political divide in the US, you are mostly only going to attack your own interests. That is not to say there is not a lot of active mobilization. Mostly through our legal system as well as PR. Some other things to note: - While the extent of the damage to the federal government is massive, the domestic impacts are not really felt yet. Most of the stuff that comes from "government" is paid for and administered at the state level. - The current party won the popular vote and controls both houses of Congress. So most of the frustration is happening between the American people for letting this happen.
- lysace 2y ago
  I've "protested" exactly once, way back in 2003, ahead of the US invasion of Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot... In retrospect it was obviously a worthy protest, although it it didn't accomplish anything. NYC had 300-400k protesters that day, according to the article.
dekhn 2y ago
It will take some time for people to organize, and it's still quite cold out. Also, Trump has indicated his desire to use the US military against protests that get violent, and nearly every peaceful protest still has some folks going around being violence and destructive.
userlander 2y ago
There are protests, but the media isn't covering them like they did with BLM. However, we need more protests. We need larger protests. We need to do more.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jmye 2y ago
What, specifically, would protests accomplish? The people in power, in every level of our government, do not care. No one else has any power to do anything. The media provably doesn’t tell the truth about protests, and just looks for the clicks. This isn’t a civilized European country. Protesting only works when the people who can affect change are listening to the people.
- AlecSchueler 2y ago
  Aren't there people just below the people in power propping them up that could be given a reason to worry?
  - jmye 2y ago
    Not really. A single group of people controls every level of the federal government, tacitly supported by every major social media and major media group in the country. There’s no reason they would fear a protest, especially knowing how easy it is, over the next 18 months, to propagandize people into staying home. Who do you think the people “below the people in power” are, and why would they have any reason to fear anything but a purity test from someone even further to the right?
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
needcontainers 2y ago
They did... by voting... and are mostly happy with the new trajectory. Perhaps your perception is being manipulated into thinking there's something wrong with this new direction.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Is there polling where Trump is particularly higher than 50% approval? I haven't seen any. How do you get to "mostly" from there?
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  just about 1/3 of eligible voters chose trump. about another 1/3 didn't vote at all. that's probably the most damning figure.
axiologist 2y ago
The much feared American Tianmen Moment has not yet occurred. Maybe this is needed to wake up for the larger public.
beveldropshadow 2y ago
Weather makes a big difference.
sn9 2y ago
Because they're busy trying to survive. Most can't afford to take time off to protest regularly.
tim333 2y ago
Some are going to townhalls apparently: https://youtu.be/1kKBUyJnpcI?t=543 https://youtu.be/1kKBUyJnpcI?t=543

29 points by lysace 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lysace 2y ago

I think e.g. Europeans and Canadians are quite surprised. You don't seem to care.

alabastervlog 2y ago
- There have been protests, including some largish ones. As with things like labor action, they happen in the US but 99% of it doesn't get covered, you could think they don't happen at all unless you pay attention to fairly obscure media sources or happen to live near where they're going on, where local news might briefly mention it (after the fact). - Protesting hasn't accomplished anything in the US in 80 years (EDIT: Almost 60, LOL, usually I math wrong the other direction when calculating how long ago things were). As with letting our politicians tell obvious lies to interviewers with minimal push-back, not having effective protests is just... American, or at least has been for much of living memory. - Like 80% of the country's not paying any attention, they have zero idea how bad this already is and what's already teed up for the next month or two. Shit the people following this would never believe a person could have missed, they don't know about. - Civic knowledge is abysmal so a huge proportion of the population doesn't understand why stuff like normalizing open corruption (that one, we let slide in Trump's first term and the Democrats did nothing to draft laws to codify prior norms, when they had the chance, so that's... great) is extremely dangerous. Or that the President in fact does not legally have the power to do a bunch of the things he's doing, and that letting him get away with it anyway means the end of the rule of law and the beginning of authoritarianism. Like half of folks don't understand marginal tax rates and even more think foreign aid is some insane amount of our budget, like 20%. When it comes to our political system, I dunno about other countries, but Americans are, to be blunt, shockingly dumb. They don't know how things are supposed to be or where the guardrails are, so don't recognize how very far off-course we are.
- lysace 2y ago
  > including some largish ones The ones I heard of were around a few thousand at most. That is not large in this context.
bdangubic 2y ago
we do show our outrage on social media… americans have long been tamed and are no longer activists and small fraction that are have been reduced to ridicule “wokeness” sad state of affairs for sure…
- lysace 2y ago
  BLM turned into a massive IRL thing though?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    no doubt... woman's marches were decent too back in '17... I think BLM-style protest can still prop up to protest things like police brutality etc but generally I think US public has been tamed, especially over the past decade. even our veterans, who fought for the freedoms and constitution and whatnot are sitting quietly while VA is being gutted and while they are losing jobs by the thousands (many vets went into public sector and became govies after their service)... and veterans are sitting put and letting all this shit happen you know where we are as a country...

bigyabai 2y ago

Fear

lysace 2y ago
Protest comes with a risk, that is a given. It's also a responsibility, in some situations.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bdangubic 2y ago
fear of what exactly?
- AlecSchueler 2y ago
  Militant police and other State forces I would imagine. Death. Something like Kent State.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    damn - kent state ... not sure how many people on HN were born before kent state... doubt there is a living soul in the USA that has a fear of militant police and state forces and think kent state massacre is just around the corner
    - AlecSchueler 2y ago
      If they're afraid of militant state forces but not "something like" Kent state then what are they afraid of exactly?
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        I have no idea what they are afraid of - that is why I asked "afraid of what?" I don't think anyone is afraid of "militant state forces"

glass_door 2y ago

[flagged]

alabastervlog 2y ago
> The majority voted for it, and are happy with it. Plurality.
- edwardsdl 2y ago
  True, but I think it’s a distinction without a difference. If 30% of folks voted for it and 40% didn’t care enough to show up, it’s still a damning indictment of the American people. Note: I can’t see the original comment, so hopefully I’m not defending some heinous remark…
  - alabastervlog 2y ago
    The claim was that a majority voted for him. That's not even true among people who did vote.

shams93 2y ago

Actually they are, we had massive protests in Los Angeles over the ice raids.

lysace 2y ago
You may have missed a slightly larger story: There has been a seismic shift in the world order. Pax Americana (1945-2025) is over. Nuclear proliferation is going to go apeshit. Undoing that is very, very hard.

legitster 2y ago

Americans as a rule tend to look down on protesting. America is very geographically dispersed. Any commerce that gets impacted generally only draws attention locally. And because of the strong urban/rural political divide in the US, you are mostly only going to attack your own interests. That is not to say there is not a lot of active mobilization. Mostly through our legal system as well as PR. Some other things to note: - While the extent of the damage to the federal government is massive, the domestic impacts are not really felt yet. Most of the stuff that comes from "government" is paid for and administered at the state level. - The current party won the popular vote and controls both houses of Congress. So most of the frustration is happening between the American people for letting this happen.

lysace 2y ago
I've "protested" exactly once, way back in 2003, ahead of the US invasion of Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot... In retrospect it was obviously a worthy protest, although it it didn't accomplish anything. NYC had 300-400k protesters that day, according to the article.

dekhn 2y ago

It will take some time for people to organize, and it's still quite cold out. Also, Trump has indicated his desire to use the US military against protests that get violent, and nearly every peaceful protest still has some folks going around being violence and destructive.

userlander 2y ago

There are protests, but the media isn't covering them like they did with BLM. However, we need more protests. We need larger protests. We need to do more.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jmye 2y ago

What, specifically, would protests accomplish? The people in power, in every level of our government, do not care. No one else has any power to do anything. The media provably doesn’t tell the truth about protests, and just looks for the clicks. This isn’t a civilized European country. Protesting only works when the people who can affect change are listening to the people.

AlecSchueler 2y ago
Aren't there people just below the people in power propping them up that could be given a reason to worry?
- jmye 2y ago
  Not really. A single group of people controls every level of the federal government, tacitly supported by every major social media and major media group in the country. There’s no reason they would fear a protest, especially knowing how easy it is, over the next 18 months, to propagandize people into staying home. Who do you think the people “below the people in power” are, and why would they have any reason to fear anything but a purity test from someone even further to the right?

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

needcontainers 2y ago

They did... by voting... and are mostly happy with the new trajectory. Perhaps your perception is being manipulated into thinking there's something wrong with this new direction.

maxerickson 2y ago
Is there polling where Trump is particularly higher than 50% approval? I haven't seen any. How do you get to "mostly" from there?
red-iron-pine 2y ago
just about 1/3 of eligible voters chose trump. about another 1/3 didn't vote at all. that's probably the most damning figure.

axiologist 2y ago

The much feared American Tianmen Moment has not yet occurred. Maybe this is needed to wake up for the larger public.

beveldropshadow 2y ago

Weather makes a big difference.

sn9 2y ago

Because they're busy trying to survive. Most can't afford to take time off to protest regularly.

tim333 2y ago

Some are going to townhalls apparently: https://youtu.be/1kKBUyJnpcI?t=543 https://youtu.be/1kKBUyJnpcI?t=543