What Peaceful Protests Do

Yesterday, April 5, was a great day, with hundreds of thousands, possible millions of people out in the streets everywhere in the U.S.A, from Washington D.C. to tiny towns in red states, and solidarity rallies around the world! Today, In our Community Conversation for my paid subscribers, someone wanted to know what I would say to a young person who asked “What do demonstrations like yesterday's actually do? They're not going to stop Trump, so what’s the point?”

In my fifty years or more as an activist, I’ve been in many different kinds of actions, ranging from peaceful marches like yesterday's to risky interventions between the military and their potential targets. Each of them do different things. We often hold an unspoken assumption that the most risky actions are the most effective. But that's not necessarily true—any more than it’s true that surgery is always the best way to treat any illness.

Actions are effective when they address the needs of the moment. Think of a movement as an ecosystem—it needs a wide variety of activities to fill different niches. Large-scale, peaceful demonstrations fill a vital role. Here's several things that the April 5 protests and others like them can do:

· They make clear that Trump and Musk do not have support for dismantling the government, ignoring the law or crashing the global economy. Trump puts forth the fiction that he was elected with an enormous mandate and that he is immensely popular. Massive protests show clearly that this is not true.

· They create a sense of connection and belonging for everyone involved. Autocracy works by making people feel isolated and powerless. A day like April 5^th, with millions of people in the streets, shows that we do have power and that we are not alone. There are many, many others that feel the same way we do.

· They put heart into everyone who stands up against Trump, from the politicians like Cory Booker who forcefully oppose him, to the students challenging their universities to take a stand for freedom of speech, to the lawyers and judges who are attempting to stop his illegal deportations, to everyone who wants to speak out and might be afraid to do so. They open political space for more opposition.

· They serve notice to Trump’s enablers that they too will face tremendous opposition. The easiest way to stop Trump would be for even a fraction of the Republicans to join with the Democrats and oppose his policies. That seems improbable, but they're more likely to do so once they realize that Trump has become so unpopular that all those who support him are at risk of losing their power.

· They raise the political costs for Trump and his allies for all the illegal, unconstitutional, repressive acts they are doing.

· They put heart into our allies in other countries and show clearly that there are many, many Americans who do not agree with Trump’s tariffs, threats to Canada and Greenland, abandonment of Ukraine, carte blanche to Netanyahu and lapdog groveling to Putin.

· The decentralized nature of the protests make them easy to join and show that there is massive opposition everywhere to Trump, Musk and their policies. On April 5, there was even a virtual rally for those who could not attend physically!

· Peaceful protests keep the barriers to entry low, so that the broadest possible coalition of people cand take part. This is vitally important at this stage of the movement, where we need to build as big and broad a base as possible. Peaceful protests, without vandalism or property damage, keep the focus on Trump, Musk and their policies, and do not provide an excuse for authorities to crack down on demonstrators.

· A large, peaceful protest tells a clear story: masses of ordinary people oppose Trump and stand up for justice. They provide plenty of visuals, opportunities for interviews, for people to tell their stories to the media and in social media, to share their messages and put the focus on the American people. They shift the narrative away from Trump and his decisions to the actions we all can take.

These are just a few of the roles that mass, peaceful protests can play. In opposing fascism, they are one of our most important tools and we should continue to do more and more of them!

Toward the end of the day, in San Francisco, I ran into my dear friend Suzanne Sterling, and some of our Witchy folks, and we had a little drumming and chanting circle, singing:

“We can rise with the fire of freedom,

Truth is the fire that burns our chains,

And we can stop the fires of destruction,

Healing is of fire running through our veins.”

We rise!

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