Is there a consensus about it’s utility? I’ve seen some people doom spiraling and thinking is going to blood in the streets from people getting mowed down by troops and feds. I’m not one to say nothing ever happens, but when it does it just seems to be a slow burn.
“No Kings” is such a perfect name for a liberal protest movement, They aren’t allowed to say “no billionaires/no plutocracy” because liberalism allows for that shit. So, they have to couch their anger in an illusion that this is some return to monarchy rather than just the logical conclusion of liberalism.
nothin changed since 1789. The bourgie want to be free to operate without a pesky king telling them what to do
You can put whatever you want on a billboard or a sign. No Kings! Billionaires suck! Down with plutocracy! One sign or Tshirt. Be the seed.
Here in Canada (and I’m assuming other commonwealth states) they don’t even say that. They call it “No Tyrants” so as to avoid offending Charles lmao
death to the king
Thats so embarassing lmao
I’ve seen some people doom spiraling and thinking is going to blood in the streets from people getting mowed down by troops and feds.
They have no reason to do that. The protest doesn’t have any specific demands and no explicit message. It is a symbol of civil discontent but nothing more. It’s not a real threat to any institution. Mowing down protesters in the streets would be an absurd escalation over nothing.
I still think a weak protest is better than no protest, but I’m really just lukewarm about it at best.
Right wingers will not be using this logic or these facts. They are being propagandized. Karoline Leavitt called Democrats; Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, violent criminals, and anti-semites. Right wingers are looking at at everyone on the leftish through that kind of lens.
The protest doesn’t have any specific demands and no explicit message.
And the people her very angry when that’s pointed out
Mask up, don’t self-identify, and pass out socialist material. Network and try to find the ones there that are receptive to leftist ideas.
Other than that, it’s just an excuse for the libs to do whatever is right after slacktavism.
Orgs like PSL get lots of recruits from there. Thats their main and arguably only value. Shows of solidarity are cool too but don’t advance anything on their own.
no demands
no organization
no kings
Last one I went to we had people cheering for Palestine and against bombing Iran, and a big banner for our explicitly socialist org, which was pretty cool to see. Things have escalated even more since then, so hoping we can get some recruits to our orgs.
There was one random girl in particular protesting so loud with us, even helped hold the banner, that I wish I got her contact information. I’m so mad at myself for that, but I’m shy, it was hot outside, and I am terrible at recruiting or talking to people about politics irl lol. But hopefully other leftists can do it.
And maybe if I find someone like that again this time my shame from last time will motivate me to get some contact information this time. We won’t win unless we grow, and these events are pointless unless they are used by leftist orgs to build up actual working-class movements, to divert people towards on the ground organizing and politics education.
It’s probably gonna be just like the last one
They show up and shout a couple of hours, chuds shout back, everyone goes home and pats themselves on the back for saving America
Do people going feel like they are being used by a billionaire since the organzing is being funded by Soros and his open society foundation?
Some billionaires are desperate to prop up the liberal capitalist order while other billionaires are trying to bring us back to the gilded age. I don’t feel allegiance to either side tbh.
More of a reason to bring a dissonant discourse.
I don’t think there’s a consensus but here are my feelings, which are not fully baked thoughts:
I’ve seen some people doom spiraling and thinking is going to blood in the streets from people getting mowed down by troops and feds
Idk, I can’t help but be suspicious that some of this is just comfortable liberal white Americans having Main Character Syndrome. The feds simply don’t need to mow a bunch of toothless protestors down to achieve Fascism, because America is already fascist. And the way to make America more fascist is to militarize against leftist protests because the liberals will side with the Trump administration against the Left. No Kings is not by any stretch of the imagine “leftist” or even “antifascist”.
As for utility, same as a lot of other protests: what utility, if any, that there is is in using it as an opportunity to try pulling liberals into more radical organizations where they can then be deradicalized out of the extremely violent extremist position that is status quo western chauvinism.
TBH I personally don’t fuck with these protests or the people who go to them in part because I worry that I won’t make them more radical, they’ll just co-opt what radical messaging I try to spread and still use it for their American-Supremacist neoliberal project. Just really disillusioned with all the people I saw spouting radical antifascist rhetoric from 2016-2020, some even 2022, and then being silent, or saying “it’s complicated”, or defending the Democrats because Trump would be “more fascist”, when it came to the most fascist thing we’ve seen in our lifetimes: the West’s live-streamed Holocaust in Palestine. I think it’s not a bad idea for actual orgs to hold a separate but related protest near it and run into the “No Kings” protest to attract attention and show that the left is willing to rise to the occasion and go out against Trump too, so that anti-Trump people don’t have to default to organizing with liberals. While still making it clear that this is SEPARATE, otherwise they’ll just lend the liberals street cred and help the libs co-opt radicalism. But that’s for orgs to do. My efforts in going to big lib protests to spread the gospel of leftism as an individual were that I achieved nothing.
My most bitter thought is this:
I hesitate to even say this outside of the empoc space but I kind of just don’t care about the No Kings shit general given that the vast majority of the violence that the American State does is still to people outside the country and to many of these people, that just doesn’t matter. 2 years of genocide and I didn’t see these “No Kings” people out on corners holding homemade signs calling for peace, but Trump saying inchoate gibberish is bad enough to get them to set the time aside? (but their protest is still very nonconfrontational). What the fuck. To hell with their fears. I just don’t care. What matters is keeping people alive.
A common criticism I heard from liberals and conservatives about Occupy was that it was too unfocused and vague so it wasn’t even able to send a very clear message. Well, how much more unfocused is “No Kings”? How much more vague? I view this as more Russiagate Liberals LARPing as brave members of the resistance.
There’s more to ramble, but fuck it, there’s books to read and Hades II to play. Did you know you can pet a cute
minor Hades II spoiler for the beginning of the game
frog
?
yea they had years to put the tyran in prison if they were genuine. I understand u but myself I would go, if only to spread a different message.
I think I support anyone going who wants to try to spread some actual leftism to anyone who will listen. I’m just too burnt out yo do that myself.
I get it. Take care of yourself comrad <3
A friend has a megaphone, gonna go meet up with some comrades and try and talk a little materialism into these people
As usual, it’s only useful if it breeds organizing. I’m sure there will be leftist orgs out there trying to get people signed up, but I also think there’s going to be a ton of resistance libs who think doing their once every four years political theater is enough and call it a day.
Girl, I don’t fucking know anymore
Wrecker shit is good but I don’t know how effective it’ll be considering the last time there was a protest they said hands off nato, fund Ukraine, fund usaid, and not a peep about Gaza.
Unless there is a dramatic act of right wing terrorism at one of the protests it probably won’t lead to anything or inspire any sort of change
the covert ops jackal lingering in the alleyway ready to turn these well-meaning but ill-prepared libs into casus belli:
