I live in a small rural red area and the first NK protest had like...4? It was a joke.
The second had 11. Woo-ee. I actually considered that pretty good considering the area.
This last one probably had 100. I was genuinely in awe.
You can tell Lady Liberty was looking forward to this iconic picture to be taken
She’s probably be even more satisfied if the cops left the protesters the fuck alone.
Another picture for the history books: Lady liberty in handcuffs.
IDK about your local protest. I hope it went well, but mine felt like a joke. Watching the government be torn apart over the last few months and their message was 'vote in local elections.' it feels like we're fighting fire with paper.
The No Kings protests are... I have a lot of issues with how much they feel like controlled opposition and pageantry. Also, weirdly, an excuse for camera nerds to flex (good luck taking that giant DLSR to a "real" protest where you will get tear gassed and people will panic and shove while trying to get away). And I forget if we ever came down on whether the national organizers were shady as hell or not?
But understand that the main point of "protests" like this are to get that list of names and to get people used to actually getting outside (which is also a complaint where it is a twice a year parade on a Saturday morning...). Those names equate to funding and getting more bodies for other protests.
And... the official line is going to be what people can do. And that is very much getting involved in local politics. We can't fix this hellscape through voting but we CAN do harm minimization at home. And understand that voting in local elections is how the christofacists got so much power. When everyone else ignores the school board, they are stuffing it so they can kill LGBTQ+ folk. When everyone else was laughing at not knowing what a comptroller even is, they were getting their people into a position where they can actively kill budgets and social programs. And so forth.
But also understand that a huge part of these kinds of protests is networking. Get to know the community organizers and spend enough time talking with them that they don't think you are a cop. At which point they obviously tell you to vote locally and nothing else.
Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but I was hoping for some kind of reaction to the events since the last no kings protest. Instead I found dwindling attendance and the same very long winded low energy speakers. It's probably just the best deep red Mississippi can muster, but it's disheartening.
I would very much argue that the anti-ice protests were the reaction and escalation. And what "No Kings" should have been in the first place.
There was a problem. We had very specific demands. Folk got out. They stood in the face of violence. They showed they were willing to protect their fellow humans. Hell, they even showed they were willing to engage in a (limited) general strike.
And guess what happened? Ice bitched out and ran away from Minneapolis and Chicago and so forth. Yeah, they are still there to a lesser degree. But the occupation ended and we are back to just a moderate hellscape rather than constant terror of being outside while brown.
Contrast that with No Kings where... there is no actionable anything or even unified message. It is just people standing around dancing and putting on costumes.
Its a cliche but "What do we want? X. When do we want it? Now, but really within N days is fine" is such an effective chant. Because it provides a clear deescalation path that gives the protestors what they want.
It reminded me more of a Mardi gras parade than an actual protest. Meanwhile we're in active shooting warfare with Iran, we've invaded Venezuela while threatening Greenland and Cuba. All while we're trying to sell out Ukraine. It feels like we've gone beyond threatening to send a gold spray painted boot to our state senator, or calling Trump names.
Yea same. I still go but it’s disappointing. At least there’s a strike coming May 1st
Good to see such big demonstrations. Maybe there is hope yet for USA?
I wonder what the justification for arresting people who demonstrate peacefully is. AFAIK these demonstrations are legally planned events.
I'm not so sure. If you watch the news you might see a small blurb about it.
The news is undermining the shit outta the protests. BBC says thousands, when in reality it was 8 million protestors, 1 mil+ more than Oct. 2025's protest
Warning: BBC Link
Tap for spoiler
No Kings protests: Thousands across the US rally against Trump - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8wy7g1gd1o
Some of my pics from yesterday, on the last one (crowd picture), you can see a lady (on the right with pink shorts and black blouse) pointing at me with her lumix as i am taking a photo with my lumix, didn't notice until i arrived home
And nothing changed and this left the news the day after
Sigh
Hehe tits
Can’t take these seriously or respectfully when people are smiling and having fun as their government murdered hundreds of children and puts people into concentration camps.
It's called weaponized joy.
The fascists want your soul. Don't give it to them.
There's a time for laughter, and a time for tears.
If you want it to be all tears all the time, you won't get very far. And this is a marathon, not a sprint.
There’s also a time for anger and rage, It’s when people are being murdered. The time for tears is when the killing has been stopped.
These no kings protests are a pressure release valve for the regime.
Well if you blow a gasket then you can't hold any pressure, so it's good that it's being channeled somewhere.
A "time" doesn't have to refer to extensive periods of months or years at a time. You can rage monday morning, cry in the afternoon, laugh in the evening, then do it all over again on tuesday.
So stop trying to squeeze everything into absolutes.
You can go to a protest and network with like-minded people. But if you choose to do nothing but complain about it online, waiting for some magical revolution to materialize out of thin air and solve everyone's problems without any planning or coordination, then quite frankly I can't be bothered to try convincing you otherwise. But I'm personally not upset that millions of people are choosing to channel their anger more productively...
the media has already dismissed the protest it’s looking like
Good thing we don't have to let the media determine what we do or focus on. I mean yeah it's shitty that they gloss over it. Most of the big name media companies are owned by right-wingers by now. But that's no reason to stop demonstrating. If anything, it's more reason to demonstrate...
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