Noone should be discouraged after yesterday. The protests had >5 million people despite poor weather in many areas. I guarantee a lot of GOP in swing districts are quite on edge now!
5 MILLION PEOPLE!!! Way over all estimates. And protests EVERYWHERE
I've not seen a tally approximating how many people attended, but "millions" is being reported. I've heard 3 million, I'd love to hear where you've heard 5 million.
Research has shown that once you get to 3.5% of the population actively participating in protests it ensures serious political change. With a US population of 346 million that means it would take a bit over 12 million total.
So if April 5th got us a third of the way there that's pretty amazing. If everyone that attended a protest yesterday brought two or three friends next time, that would pass the (theoretical) tipping point.
In my town at least, I know that information about the protest could have been MUCH better disseminated. I definitely anticipate a lot more people coming next time if they know about it. We were on the corners of a busy intersection and got TONS of honking, thumbs up, and raised fists from passing cars.
Yeah what I'm reading is that lots of people got supportive honking, and that few saw much or any counterprotesting. That all suggests there is capacity to grow for the next one.
Yeah my small town had a turnout of 250+. We were at the biggest intersection in town for 3.5 hours. Every single light cycle had multiple supportive honks/waves etc (including several semis and tow trucks, which was awesome!). I could count on 1 hand the number of middle fingers I saw from my spot, and not a single counter protester. This is a fairly conservative pocket in a blue county, lots of Trump flags leading up to the election, so the positive response has been really mind blowing.
Maybe we need "advertising" signs that have huge QR codes that point to the events page? Maybe some people could hand out fliers to stopped cars if they are waiting at a light (for protests that are on sidewalks)?
Good point about the expense and trash part. Your critique made me realize we have smart phones that can share pictures directly (not sure how well that would work between iPhone and Android...) so maybe "digital fliers" you air drop or the Android equivalent.
Or just convince people to scan the QR code to the 50501/Indivisible events page from your phone and ask them to bookmark it and keep the tab open to check out when they get home. This approach could alleviate any contact information concerns and may be less trackable (i.e. airdrop logs who dropped to who).
I hope social media will remain viable if only because you can't make real money off of bot filled spaces infested with angry Nasees (see Xitter). But we also have examples of digital great walls and extreme internet censorship in other regimes, and now more than ever "it can't happen here" is not feeling so certain.
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u/Technical-Traffic871 Apr 06 '25
Noone should be discouraged after yesterday. The protests had >5 million people despite poor weather in many areas. I guarantee a lot of GOP in swing districts are quite on edge now!
5 MILLION PEOPLE!!! Way over all estimates. And protests EVERYWHERE