On Protests and Political Outsiders

I write a newsletter because I wish people would ask me my thoughts on everything, and in this format, I can pretend they did and say whatever I want. There are a lot of questions about politics and protests swirling around. I want to share my thoughts.

Do I Have to Go to a Protest? Do they work?

Protests can have a lot of purposes. One is to show that there is mass support for or opposition to a certain issue. Another reason for a protest is to disrupt the status quo, even to the point of causing discomfort to people who aren’t protesting. Some protests are intended to deter certain behaviors, like buying a Tesla. Another reason to protest is to build solidarity and community among people.

It's true that not all protests "work" to change the underlying issue, but often they achieve the goal that its organizers intended, which might not be apparent to the unenlightened viewer. The Women's March in 2017 "worked" to show millions of people that they were not alone in opposing a leader who fundamentally hates women, for example, even if it didn't "work" to oust Trump. Having a Women's March in 2025 would have been unnecessary; it's better that we waited until there were actionable issues to oppose.

Protests are supposed to be disruptive. They are supposed to make your drive home difficult. They are supposed to make you angry. They are supposed to raise your awareness and cause you to complain to the authorities to do something to stop the protests. Whining about them doesn't stop protests, telling people in authority to take action might. Just honk in solidarity and go complain to people who matter.

Some people claim that protests are unfair to people who work during the hours they are held: I hear this a lot from supposed allies online. It's true; protests are often held during work hours Monday through Friday. More than 80% of American workers are working then. But guess what? We only need a small share of Americans to protest by marching around outside. If 4% of the population (10 million) were to protest, it would be insane. There are 3 million federal workers. We can see that their protests are starting to raise awareness among people aren’t usually politically activated.

Non-violence protests do work, but you shouldn’t participate if they aren’t your cup of tea, because they don’t result in instance gratification of your political desires. If walking protests aren't your thing, remember there are 198 other nonviolent actions you can organize.

Should We Donate to Long-Shot Political Candidates in Open House Seats?

You can donate to Josh Weil and Gay Valimont, two Democrats running in reliably red Congressional districts because the representative has resigned to pursue Trumpier endeavors. Both candidates absolutely flood my IG timeline, and they’ve raised crazy amounts of money. But the reality is that there probably aren’t enough Dems and swing voters in their districts to elect Weil in FL-6, even if he could get unusually high turnout in a special election. In the recent primary, ~15,000 people voted in the Democratic party primary, while more than 40,000 people voted in the GOP primary. In FL-1, Gay Valimont ran unopposed in the Dem primary, but in the November race against Matt Gaetz, she only got 140,000 votes to his 274,000. A quarter million people were willing to vote for a pedophile over a Democrat.

It’s true that Democratic Party is hidebound and picky about their special election support. We should be challenging every single open seat in the country every time! But unless there is local grassroots organizing for the party in those states, it’s simply good money after bad in feel-good elections. Amy McGrath raised $94,000,000 to Mitch McConnell’s $74,000,000, and he got 57.8% of the vote. It wasn’t even close. That 94mil was feel-good money; the Kentucky state party could have invested that in building a really deep bench if that weren’t concentrated in the McGrath campaign. But the Kentucky Democratic Party doesn’t feel good.

How Will We Get the Trump Voters Back?

For nearly ten years, we’ve been waiting for the MAGA brain fever to break, certain that any minute now, Trump’s supporters will realize that he’s a liar and con man. For some of his supporters, we will be waiting for hell to freeze over before they’ll admit he doesn’t have their best interests at heart. A lot of people, however, are going to start developing pangs of regret, and our job is to nurture that regret non-judgmentally.

I saw a really funny video today of a Trump voter complaining about what DOGE is doing to farmers that soon transitioned into a choir singing, “I didn’t think the leopard would eat my face!” It’s going to be very hard to not say, “I told you so,” but we cannot. We need to acknowledge their realization, agree, and move on. We can’t start pointing out all the other ways Trump is bad. Once they notice one problem, they’ll start noticing other problems, but if we go HAH! We’ll scare those little Punxatawny Trumpers back into their holes for another election cycle. Play it cool, folks. Just smile, nod, and say, “yup, it doesn’t make a ton of sense.” Then talk about your dog.

Should I Join An Existing Organization or Start My Own?

Many times when people have a political awakening, they reach out to existing groups, like the Democratic Party or MoveOn or Indivisible or Stand Up for Racial Justice, and find that their experience of the group doesn’t match their hopes for change. Maybe the culture of the group is cringey or exclusionary or slow-moving, or all three. You hate meetings, they hold a lot of them. You hate affirmations, they spend half of every meeting affirming each other.

The thing to remember is that those organizations are communities for the people who joined before you, and they like their cultural norms. Just as you wouldn’t like someone coming into your meetings and changing the agenda, you probably aren’t going to change their habits unless you (cringe) join them.

The feeling of being an outsider in a group that you want to be more effective is a feeling I’ve had before. One instinct in this situation is to go start something new. That can be a great idea when you have an idea for something that simply isn’t being done. Think of the Guerilla Girls. They were/are feminist artists who did not see anti-patriarchal/anti-racist activism being done on behalf of female artists so started their own group that employed guerilla art tactics to raise awareness.

But most of us aren’t the Gorilla Girls (although you can be). The ideal situation is to ‘get in where you fit in,’ by working with groups that are already a part of your community. Groups exist for nearly everything. You can also work with your existing community to support other organizations. For example, if you have design skills, you could make and print posters to hand out at protests. That doesn’t require an exhausting meeting. Or maybe you hate meetings but are actually a bookkeeper. Lots of organizations are desperate for those skills.

What Can Our Elected (Democrat) Officials Do?

I’m not fully versed in how to exercise all the procedural hurdles in Congress, and I’m not sure why the people who do know aren’t using them. Or maybe they are and we can’t tell. Whatever they are doing, it isn’t working. They need to escalate. By that I mean, they can’t just go stand impotently in front of another federal building with a podium and decry their lack of power. They need to enter buildings and occupy them. Get arrested. They need to learning stories about impacted constituents and repeating those stories to any journalist within 200 feet.

There’s a lot of handwringing about how the media landscape is too fractured and the Right has captured the news watchers, and Joe Rogan and Theo Von have all the young men and so on. The Democrats need to face this problem. They need to engage in media training for their most charismatic members and deploy them to Fox and OAN and Rogan and the rest. They need to go where the viewers are and tell those stories. Pete Buttigieg and AOC should be in charge of this. Train up and start talking.

Meanwhile, voters continue to lead, showing up at town halls for every representative, blue, red, or purple. People are getting arrested for protesting (thanks Chris Kluwe), taking their message to the billionaire’s pocket book, and calling out stupid shit every chance they get.

Okay, the voices in my head have had their chance to answer my questions. Let me know if you have any others!