Posting on social media sites may make you feel better. These are dark times for American democracy so it is best not internalize all of the rage, anger, hurt, embarrassment and shame. Trump’s virulent attacks on the venerable U.S. Constitution and the rule of law gravely weakens our Republic. It is cathartic to mock and ridicule Trump and his minions. However, it does very little to the urgent task of getting our country back. It is at best a primal scream, an expression of angst. The Internet is a distant, silent medium that can challenge authority rhetorically and symbolically but in none of the ways that really count. Yeah, sorry, the revolution will be neither televised nor streamed.
There are examples of Internet-enabled organizing doing great and surprising things. MoveOn is a great example, urging Congress to censure President Bill Clinton for sexual misconduct and then move on. However, most of the time what you find online is a cacophony of individual voices, chaotic and disorganized. The opposition, such as it is, is an amalgam of individuals, each with their own idea how to dislodge Trump. A sizable portion of these demand impeachment or Constitutional amendments — strategies that cannot possibly succeed — rather than protest that genuinely stands up to Trump’s abuse of power.
No matter how loud you scream online almost no one hears you and nothing happens. Given that there are 280M Americans over age 14 surely a lot more than 500,000 who are opposed to Trump are online today. If that 500,000 were ever to arrive in Washington on the same day the impact would be transformative. It would be seen and heard by everyone, not just everyone in Sacramento, Albany and other state capitals. If you can mobilize 5M people in more than 2,000 locations nationwide on a single day you can get a 10th of that number to DC where the nation’s political press works.
What are we waiting for? We need to be well-organized enough to produce a massive turnout. The organizers at Women’s March can do this. In 2017 they got about half a million to Washington and ten times that number worldwide. Marches in 2018 (gun violence), 2004 (women), 1993 (LGBTQ) each got more than a million people to Washington, not quite shutting it down but having a huge impact.
More evidence that large scale protest can bring about change is the Civil Rights movement. Anti-discrimination boycotts of 1955 and 1956 led to the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. The March on Washington in 1963 for jobs and freedom motivated about 250,000 people to come to DC. That and actions in Birmingham, AL in 1963 directly resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Marches in Selma, AL that started in March 1965 produced the historic Voting Rights legislation in August of the same year. The Poor People’s March in 1968 did not directly produce anti-poverty legislation but, in a twist, came after rather than before President Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty,” to which it was a response.
Put down the keyboard and your phone and bring your body and your voice to the neighborhood where the president lives. Show him know what you think. The worst that can happen is police violence and overt repression of Americans expressing their Constitutionally-protected right to petition their government for grievances. It will galvanize and empower the opposition and strengthen politicians who are on our side.
Yes, I know how difficult, time-consuming and expensive it is to organize such an event, but can there be any doubt that this is what we need in this historical moment?
