For The Cynics Who Say Mass Protests “Don’t Work”

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For all the smug cynicism out there post the “No Kings 2.0” nationwide mass protests against the fascist Trump admin which just happened Saturday, October 18th 2025, saying that these mass protests “don’t do anything, won’t do anything,” that it’s all just a “fun parade that makes people feel better,” and “just a bunch of tribal virtue signaling, blah blah…”

No one is saying that mass protests alone create all the changes needed, but they are a (historically proven) PART of the cocktail for change and resistance needless to say, and without which the higher strategic steps of targeted boycotts, strikes, direct action, systemically disruptive non-violent civil disobedience, legislative components, etc., aren’t possible—unless we have a mass movement, which starts by galvanizing and unifying the people in the streets viscerally together. Its where it starts, especially when things have become so dire—when all three branches of government are controlled and being flagrantly abused, when elections are being rigged, when media, the legal system, education are being threatened and captured, when fascist ICE agents roam streets snatching people putting them into cruel and inhumane detention centers—all we can do as an initial response is to hit the streets peacefully to build our social and organizing power.

And even IF the mass protests never become strategic at ALL—they STILL on their own merit, in a basic fundamentally effective way create public pressure on political power to side with the people and fight for the people, which has worked and is working… It brings the cause to the very forefront of society where it cannot be ignored… it builds awareness reach for those still trying to shut their ears and eyes about everything happening. It shakes the complacency…. it emboldens more to join the cause who otherwise have been silent, afraid, or on the fence… and it demonstrates very clearly where the majority stands and that it is NOT with the traitorous, fascist tramplings of the administration.

But this protest movement DOES have and has had many thoughts, ideas, and intent to evolve the movement beyond just the mass marches to be strategic with our numbers in the ways mentioned here… these ideas are actively being pursued I can attest. Understand it’s very difficult to organize millions and millions of people and all of their ideas in a grass roots non-hierarchical way into focused strategic directions. For now the movement has defaulted to what works which is unifying people into the streets to build momentum on our side.

So instead of smugly complaining from the sidelines that the Movement isn’t this and isn’t that, and not really doing anything, not gonna work… why not be involved to HELP it work, crazy idea I know. Because a mass unified movement like this just doesn’t come around any ol’ time, so get involved and help direct it, do not just take it for granted and complain about what its not, make it what it could and should be.

The Movement, any Movement, is all our responsibility to make it what we think it should be. There’s no leaders. No one’s going to do the work for us. There’s no magic perfect movement without some bureaucracy and ego inherent to navigate. We have to engage, present our ideas, argue them, build the consensus, build the collaboration, build the relationships, and put the genuine lasting work in to see our ideas move forward.

If the Movement “has no direction, no real demands, no concrete action, no strategic tactics”, then engage and put your ideas on the table to make it so. This is the mass movement we have that’s materialized. Help shape it! Don’t just sit on the sidelines and complain about what it’s not, and watch it potentially fail.

Again, no one is celebrating that everything’s going to change now after one day of mass marching. It’s simply another step in the process, which was the single largest day of mass mobilization in U.S. history, 2,700 protest locations, in all 50 states, thousands attending each event, with over 7 million people showing out in total to protest—no small thing. The mass marches are simply the floor of what needs to happen right now, to rally us and bring us together, from which we can evolve to next steps…. but those next strategic steps aren’t possible WITHOUT the mass awakening of people galvanizing and staying galvanized around a single issue, that being the malcontent against the malicious, fascist Trump admin.

The hard part of any organizing is the organizing, no one has any illusions about that. We are all participants and architects in this collectiveResistance one way or another, constructively or not. Don’t be a cynic, let the people march and rally, and “feel good” and feel energized and feel connected. Allow the Movement to build. Show how it can lead to larger targeted tactics which can pull on the levers of power to stop the machine of fascism, genocide, and Capitalist oppression.

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