Last Saturday saw the massive No Kings protest around the country (and even in other countries) that dwarfed Trump’s sad military parade in DC. While it was an impressive show of opposition to Trump and his policies, there is always the question of what such protests can achieve in terms of practical outcomes, because of the peculiar nature of the US government.
In almost any other country, massive and sustained protests can topple unpopular governments. But that is possible because elections in those countries are not rigidly fixed as they are in the US. In those countries, the leader must resign and dissolve the government if they no longer command majority support in parliament (because of breakdowns in coalitions or defections from the majority party) or they can do so if they feel that they need to seek a fresh mandate.
But in the US the government cannot ‘resign’ in that sense. The dates of elections are fixed. It is not clear what we even mean by the word ‘government’ here.
The president can be removed by impeachment of course, but that has never happened. The president can resign but that too is very rare. Richard Nixon resigned but only after senior people in his own party told him that the impeachment effort against him would succeed. And even then, he was able to have his own pick to succeed him and pardon him so that there was no real change.
In these days of Trump, with the Republican party part of his cult following, there is absolutely nothing that can force him to resign and even if he does so, nothing will change since JD Vance will simply step in.
So can mass protests achieve anything in the US? It can change policy to some extent. During the Vietnam war, popular opposition to the war forced Lyndon Johnson to decide not to run again. But his own vice-president replaced him on the Democratic ticket and he lost to Nixon, so that did not change things as far as the war was concerned. The US withdrew from Vietnam because it was defeated by the Vietnamese.
So what can protests in the US achieve? It can build up opposition against the the ‘government’ (in this case Trump and the Republicans) so that they can see a tidal wave hitting them in the mid-term elections in 2026, in theory forcing them make changes in what they do. But I cannot see them doing that. Trump cares only about himself and he will stay in power as long as he can even if that destroys the Republican party. In Sri Lanka, massive popular protests did result in the corrupt, nepotistic leaders of the government being forced to leave but even there, they still managed to put lackeys in their place for another two years before the next elections resulted in a massive change in parliament.
Structurally the best we can hope for in the US is that Republicans experience massive losses in the 2026 mid-term congressional elections. Before that, this November there will be governor’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia that could be indicators of what is to come. New Jersey currently has a Democratic governor while Virginia has a Republican one. Both of them are term-limited and cannot run again so there will be new people seeking the office, which will provide a better indicator of voter sentiment.
tldr; “Nothing, really”.
The only thing that is going to have any effect is the establishment of a whole new constitution and a whole new society. One that establishes human happiness as the most desirable goal — and to this end limits the power of corporations and entertainment franchises, as well as recognising that a rich person’s happiness is no more desirable than a poor person’s happiness, a straight person’s happiness is no more desirable than a gay person’s happiness, and so forth.
Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.
It can remind people that they’re not alone. It can build morale and a movement to do the long-term, hard, boring work of political organisation. Politics isn’t just about the electoral cycle and the big offices of state…
The right has spent decades building a movement from the ground up, working up from seemingly inconsequential local elections that were barely even contested, in order to get where they are today. Keeping that sort of thing up for the time it takes to achieve anything substantial is hard work, so people need things to keep them going, to keep them motivated. Mass protests can help with that.
I think the structure of the US government and when elections occur doesn’t entirely remove the effect of mass protests. It just shifts their effects depending on how closely they occur in relation to the next election. And who’s getting elected then.
Sure, a senator who’s less than half a year into a 6 year term might not be too concerned about protests against them or what their voters think. You could see this from Kyrsten Sinema if you want to look at an example not tangled with the current political issues, although she’s a bad example for my next point. Which is that those same senators are much more concerned with public opinion if mass protests occur a month or two before their next election. I don’t have a specific example for this one but they’re kind of all over.
When everything is taken into consideration, ultimately I think we need to push the message that whatever people may think of voting republican or however long they’ve done it, perhaps it seems nice to be loyal to your team. Maybe they even have slogans you like. But when you get down to it, voting for republicans is a luxury. And when you look at what they’re doing to the US, who can really afford that these days?
It’d be nice if people voted not to scapegoat other people. If that sort of destructive behavior were an automatic disqualifier for the majority of Americans. But frankly it’s not. So our best bet with what remains is to appeal to motivated self-interest. Because acting like a good person still has better end results than being an ass, especially on a large scale. At least in part because there’s always a bigger asshole ready to scoop up all the advantages that come from that behavior and deny them to everyone else. That’s what’s been happening with the GOP and the rich for decades.
“So can mass protests achieve anything in the US? ”
Not in this situation, no. This is not a normal government of which Trump is the president, it is, to speak with Sarah Kendzior, a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government, of which Trump is the figurehead. You can’t just protest against the Mafia and they’ll pack up and go away.
This could have been saved by the military or police not complying, but that, as far as we can see now, isn’t happening. The most encouraging thing I have seen so far is one criminal gang, the LAPD, chasing another criminal gang, ICE, from their turf at Dodger Stadium the other day.
I agree with Dunc @3
I participate in the protests to make it clear to those who might not
agree with the Trump cult that they are not alone.
One of the ways tyrants maintain power is by making people think
that this is the new normal, that everyone else is fine with what
the tyrant is doing, and that they’re the lone weirdos if they
disagree.
I got together with 50,000 of my neighbors, the biggest march ever in my home town. Like a wolf pack working up to a hunt, we needed to greet and mingle with each other, verify our force and our dedication. There is a challenging time ahead, and we did well in this stage of getting ready for it. We are not a parliamentary system, so it plays out differently.
@3 Dunc, and @7 Allison
if you want people to be/feel like they aren’t alone, i highly recommend (if you aren’t already) creating social gatherings (maybe with lots of sitting and talking, perhaps some games. food is a good idea too)
Armed insurrection and civil war.
As others have been pointing out, part of the problem with ‘focus on the 2026 midterms’ is that Trump and his cronies have already been spending time doing things like appointing partisan hacks to election boards and making election workers afraid for their lives. Does anybody really think that they wouldn’t be willing to use the military presence in California to add barriers to voting in the big cities (to ‘ensure illegal immigrants aren’t voting’, of course) thus tilting things more towards the Republican-leaning but less-populous eastern California?
I have been thinking about this question for a while, as I participate in many protests, big and small. I picket Tesla on Tuesdays, I participate in a sign-waving in my city on Sundays, and I have participated many large events, including 3 marches since the beginning of the year. What do I hope to achieve?
Well, in the previous Trump administration, protests and related activities likely had something to do with saving the ACA (at least for a while), and ending the family-separation at the border policy. In addition, they served as starting points for other forms of organizing. I was back then part of a small group of people from my local area who had participated in the Women’s March. Together we wrote postcards to members of congress, phonebanked for Manka Dhingra for State Senate during the 2017 special election -- this election flipped the Washington State Senate and granted Democrats a trifecta, and a year later we knocked on doors for Kim Schrier, in an election that flipped that congressional district.
This time around the threat is worse so I joined a larger group with more experienced leadership. What the protests can achieve is things like messaging to the public. Reinforcing that certain companies need to be boycotted. Reminding people that things aren’t normal, that yes, if something looks off, they are not alone in noticing that -- and maybe they want to join us in our other activities that aren’t protests (such as advocating for bills in the legislature or advocacy with local government). IOW we are preaching to the choir, in order to remind people that the choir exists and they may be in it. They are also messaging to Democratic leadership that the public wants to see them do things. And to Republicans, that maybe their positions aren’t that popular, and maybe they need to proceed with some care, and moderate a bit.