Millions of people took part in “No Kings” demonstrations across the United States, with organizers estimating at least 8 million attendees.
  • starik@lemmy.zipEnglish
    33·
    13 days ago

    The first one had 5 million, and the second one had 7 million. Yesterday’s was the third one.

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        36·
        12 days ago

        No need to be fatalistic.

        • the previous protests were huge. Keeping up steam is more important than growing.
        • 13% increase is still significant growth.
        • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
          16·
          12 days ago

          somewhere between 1 and 2 million new voices added to the bunch. it’s also not really plateauing, at least not in any way significant enough to make us believe whe can’t still place our hope and faith in the possibility of linear growth for the next round. and when we do plateau we’ll know what we’ve got.

          this is the strongest mass support movement i’ve seen in politics in the south since Occupy Wall Street. something is alive amongst The People, who refuse to be broken, refuse to have less in this world than everything their dignity demands. people are engagede with community support in ways i have never seen in my entire life.

          i have hope and faith that we can end this selfish autocracy and win our freedom from these greedy parascites.

      • starik@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        12 days ago

        8 million is about 3% of the eligible voter population. That’s pretty crazy

    • Sargon of ACAB@slrpnk.netEnglish
      23·
      12 days ago

      I don’t live in the US so my assessment might be completely off here, but with protests like this you shouldn’t hope for the more radical positions. If you’re more radical yourself this can be annoying or feel like it serves no purpose and I get that. It still provides opportunities for us.

      There’s two main reasons I advocate for showing up at things like this:

      1. Treat it like a networking event. Go talk to people, hand out flyers, wave your flags, bring funny signs, hand out vegan cookies… As an anarchist I’m very much aware that most people never think about anarchists, and when they it’s rarely in a positive way. Protests like are an opportunity to get people to see, however briefly, that anarchists can be nice people with free cookies.

      2. If or when things go poorly, like if the police or the far-right decides to escalate, I’d want people with experience there to provide assistance. Whether that’s taking up the front to defend others, yelling: “Walk! Don’t run!” while people are trying to get out of tear gas, handing out water so people can rinse out pepper spray (and telling people not to use milk), explaining how to handle a kettle, etc.

      • LurkingLuddite@piefed.socialEnglish
        16·
        12 days ago

        Who said I’d take credit? Furthermore, if you think these rallies are going to stop the police state from cracking down, you are beyond delusional.

        All it does is give them a head start on identifying whos rights to violate first when the gulags open for all citizens.

        • Tiresia@slrpnk.netEnglish
          121·
          11 days ago

          If you think 8 million people hanging out noticing that nonviolence isn’t enough and sharing that dissatisfaction with each other doesn’t help progress things towards more effective means of resistance, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s like complaining that grade school doesn’t teach children algebra.