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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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Well, yeah. Be general. If I want to sell candy I don't market it to 11-year-old claustrophobic basketball players, I market it to kids.
Every specificity that is added to the movement's message scares away potential supporters that can no longer identify. This is global though. Every fringe group wants to add their message to the masthead of every protest. The left has had this problem forever.
You might be interested in !aspen_anti_billionaire_society@midwest.social
I'm not super familiar with it, but the sole mod has been quite outspoken about trying to make it a "big tent" and not allow it to be pulled by every extreme away from the singular goal of taxing the 0.01%, not even going after the 1%.
Thanks! I read a few of their comments, I agree in principle, but saying Occupy Wallstreet failed because antagonizing the 1% isn't broad enough is a wild take :D
In one breath you're saying protests have to be wide and in the next you're complaining about groups with a specific interest joining.
No I'm complaining about groups with specific interests framing the entire campaign
So something that doesn't actually happen in the real world. No one gets to decide the one singular issue that defines a protest. There isn't one.
Sure, protests have organizers that do marketing/pr, logistics and the official registrations for the events. Therefore most large and significant protest movements in history are marketed with a sole purpose and can be boiled down to one topic:
Women's March= women's rights 1970 Earth Day= environment George Floyd/BLM= police brutality Globally it's the same, think of Fridays for Future for example.
Sure people went to Earth Day with peace flags or believing whatever but the framing of the event was clear.
Name a single protest taken over by an outside group. It's not something that happens. Maybe some of the white supremacy groups whose presence alone requires people to reject them or be tainted by association, but nothing on the left. That's not an actual problem on the left, much less one "on the left forever".
My first protest was organized against the Iraq War, but in practice also contained more broadly anti-Bush protesters as well as groups promoting third parties, communism, and veganism. None of those were a problem or threatened to take over the protest in any way.