On Political Rallies
I originally wrote this in 6/2025 in response to the first “No Kings” protest. This is a very short post where I make a few obvious observations on why protests in the US are largely ineffectual. There is a lot more to say about this topic and I could have developed these ideas better but I was lazy and did not. I also fully acknowledge that it's easy to criticize those attempting to take action for being ineffectual, but if you don't present a viable alternative you're just being a bit of a jackass. Nevertheless, perhaps you as a reader will find value in making the obvious explicit.
The majority of political demonstrations in the US seem to take this form: they occur on a weekend when more people are not working (and as a result, government offices where pressure can be applied are usually empty and the disruption to traffic from other people working is minimal), the areas where people are allowed to demonstrate are demarcated by law enforcement ahead of time, those areas are chosen to minimize the disruption to others, the protests themselves are short lived, lasting only a few hours before the majority of people disperse and go about their day.
When demonstrations are carried out in this manner, they act as a sort of public echo chamber, where you have people who already agree with each other politically meeting for a brief period of time, and then dispersing. The remainder of the community, authority figures and other members of the general public alike, can safely disregard these demonstrations as they will not have their routine/activities impacted.
When demonstrations are carried out in this manner, they can assist with fringe political organization, as individuals who come to demonstrate can learn more and get involved with fringe political parties/organizations with whom they agree; if they are sufficiently large they can also give an idea to local elected representatives about the preferences of their constituents. However, this is essentially the only benefit that can come about when protests are organized in the aforementioned manner.
Historically, political demonstrations that elicit change in a rapid manner are virtually the opposite. They are large, intractable, and lead to significant disruption in the lives of the general public as well as disrupt the ability of the government to carry on with the activities being protested. For a protest to have an effect and not be ignored, it needs to be large, occur in a location where it impairs governmental and societal functioning, and last until demands are met.
As an example, consider a labor strike, where a company or industry grinds to a halt due to action by the workers until demands are met, or “leverage” is otherwise applied to the strikers to end the strike. More recently, consider the protests in Los Angeles against ICE activity, where demonstrators gathered around ICE detention centers to specifically block the movement of the ICE agents to impair their ability to carry out their arrests. This was sufficiently disruptive to result in heavy-handed action by the authorities, who forcibly dispersed the demonstrators.
It must be kept in mind that when a political demonstration is disruptive, it is much more likely to result in political change, but is also much more likely to be met with significant force by the authorities, and many of these demonstrations end in a failure to lead to political change. This failure is not necessarily a reason to avoid disruptive political demonstrations, rather it is the natural consequence of applying pressure to entrenched levers of power: political opposition is a dangerous role to play.
If one were to make the argument that it is sufficient to have a non-disruptive protest because it is a way to communicate to their local elected representative that their constituents are not happy. I would argue that this misses the purpose of political demonstrations, which are an ancient mode of expressing discontent that predate widespread adoption of democracy. They are a way to pressure those in power outside of democratic channels. The point is not only to threaten those in power with support for an electoral alternative, the purpose is to force change by demonstrating mass discontent to those in power. This is achieved through popular mobilization, societal disruption, and emphasizing consequences to those in power for ignoring the people. The primary purpose is to communicate to those in power: address the grievances of the people now by changing your behavior, or suffer the consequences of societal disruption. Electoral consequences to those in power are a secondary purpose, as often there is no viable electoral alternative.
If disruptive protests are more effective in achieving political ends, why are they not more common? There are a few possible explanations. They require a greater time commitment from those involved. In today's day and age, there are many commitments that compete for people's attention: important commitments like filial obligations or employment obligations, but also many distractions in the form of easily consumed entertainment (TV, movies, videogames, the internet). All of these compete for an individual's time, such that devoting a significant amount of time to political demonstration and activism becomes either untenable or undesirable. The living conditions of the masses today are a far cry from those of many historical examples where mass political organization toppled regimes (eg. the demonstrations resulting in the French Revolution or Russian Revolution). In these examples, a large percentage of the population was often starving and/or unemployed, and as a result had much less competition for its attention, and less to lose should the demonstrations be met with a heavy hand. They are more likely to be met with government-sanctioned violence. The protestors are at risk of suffering bodily injury and at times, death. They may suffer mass arrests, and the legal consequences of their actions may derail careers and subsequently leave them either destitute or imprisoned.
By the nature of going against entrenched centers of power, those centers of power have every incentive to disperse and delegitimize the demonstrators. Those in power will often utilize mass media to portray the protesters as radical, violent, disruptive, and unpatriotic. This serves 2 purposes: it disincentivizes the masses from joining demonstrations they politically agree with, and it justifies the violence the authorities inflict upon the demonstrators.
While it may be safer to protest in a non-disruptive manner, ultimately it is unlikely to lead to meaningful change.