According to the often-cited 3.5% rule, if 3.5% of a population protests against a regime, the regime will fail. Developed by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, who researched civil resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, the rule has seen renewed interest in leftist circles recently, especially with No Kings protests attracting historic numbers.
…
This shows the outsize impact a single protester can have, the study’s authors say. That’s because having one more attender at a demonstration rallies more support for a political cause than acquiring one more vote during an election does.
…
In the context of civil rights, the movement’s ability to elicit violence from its opponents – such as in 1965, when armed police violently attacked peaceful protesters crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama – only strengthened public support for the cause. “When the state is perceived as engaging in excess use of force, that tends to generate very sympathetic coverage, and that drives concern,” explained Wasow.
The idea that the Civil Rights Movement was primarily a protest movement is absolutely inane (this is a non-exhaustive list of inane claims made in this article).
I feel the effectiveness of the protest is proportionate to how afraid they are of the protesters. And, today, they are not at all afraid—and therefore the effectiveness is nil
There’s a reason why the person remembered most for Stonewall is the one who threw the brick. There’s a reason why you were never taught about the Railway strikes, or the Battle of Blair Mountain, or Haymarket Square.
The wealthy love peaceful protests. So much easier to just ignore.
If they weren’t afraid of them they would just let them protest.
They seem terrified to me.
As this article is related to the US, I don’t see much fear from them at all. No King? Nothing happened. ICE protests? Meh, normal reactions outside of Los Angeles, and even that has cooled off entirely.
They saw nothing came of a year of protesting. They have no fear.
Bu-but some meanie heads are gonna quit their jobs and be replaced with other meanie heads!!! That means we win right???
One could argue that the excesses of ICE against peaceful protests have helped somewhat in that they’ve created a legal basis for the judiciary to limit their power.
But, that only matters if there is a material change, and there certainly hasn’t been enough of that. Innocent people are still being rounded up and the concentration camps are still running.
I think they become a lot less afraid of us when they know they can easily justify violent responses because of violent acts by protestors.
It is way scarier to them when any violent act they take to force protestors to shut up delegitimizes them in the eyes of any observer.
The amount of people on fedi who rage against protests for being useless displays will never cease to confuse me.
Especially when protests are how affinity groups are made.
People usually don’t just go from the couch to getting an AK and marching on the capital unless something drastic happens. The goal of all tyrants is to minimize the odds of that happening. Protests are a form of escalation. It increases buy in and majesty the protestors feel they have increased odds of actual support should things escalate. It’s the staging ground from which escalation occurs.
The blm protests each began peacefully and most remained so. They didn’t get everything they wanted but they did demonstrate a capacity to change narratives and to force opposition to expend resources to counter those narratives. The biggest failure there is that there wasn’t significant pushback to the pushback.
That’s a completely reasonable take, but the article (and most of the comments here) aren’t arguing that; they’re arguing that protests on their own are are likely to lead to political or social change and therefore further escalation is not necessary, which is of course complete baloney. Now back to reality, what does your argument say about protests in America right now, where no significant escalation has occurred since April (save for that week or so period in Los Angeles back in June)?
A record number of officials are not seeking reelection, Democrats are winning or nearly losing in Trump-winning districts, and Republicans are starting to join with Democrats on Epstein and anti-tariff legislation. If you think protests in no way contributed to these things you’re as delusional as MAGA.
Why would I think protests contributed to these things? The simplest explanation would be that Trump just pissed a lot of people off, but more importantly these are surface level gains that don’t matter in the long run. Trump is building up a fascist dictatorship and you’re here bragging about tariff laws. Hell, 50% of project 2025 has already been implemented and there’s still more than a year before Congressmen elected in the midterms take their seats.
If it wasn’t effective why would so many governments suppress protesting so much and so harshly?
Because it can lead to more militant (and more effective) action? Especially under dictatorships maintaining tight control over public discourse is an issue of life and death. However, as a completely separate issue, if the protests don’t lead to more effective action they’re just hot air.
Well that is certainly part of it. But I think that’s just a piece of the whole. Protest, and more importantly long-term consistent protest, is the most effective means of change. Not for the protest in and of themselves but for the effect they have on society around them. They can as you mentioned Inspire more militant action, which sometimes is helpful in spreading the goals of the protest, but not always. More than that they can change National consciousness. Which is something we forget. Something in our current instant gratification age we don’t seem to remember.
Most change is done at extremely slow pace. Years and even decades. I’m reminded of English abolition, the destruction of the English slave trade which destroyed chattel slavery in most of the western world. That took decades. Decades of consistent action. Of small victories. Of constant pressure. Slowly changing the awareness and minds of the entire Empire.
I’m reminded of civil rights in America, which most of us don’t seem to remember very well. Cuz they think it started with Martin Luther King, as if he was source of it. When in reality he was chosen to be the face of civil rights movement by people who had been working for years and years. And without those people we don’t have Martin Luther King and we don’t have Malcolm X either. We don’t get to that point until National Consciousness begins to change. Until awareness, yes awareness, changes.
Which is the real reason why governments want to choke them out. One protest doesn’t upset a government. Continued protest upsets the government. Entrenched power would love it if you have one protest and then lose heart immediately. The second protest seems likely to continue is when they start cracking down heavily.
Sure, but what if awareness already exists? Basically any progressive platform is supported by the vast majority of Americans and has been for years if not decades, yet invariably nothing happens, or minor victories are made which are almost immediately overturned when conservatives take power. About Trump specifically, there’s no shortage of opposition to Trump and GOP fascism, and frankly anybody who is going to oppose him already is unless things get much, much worse economically. If protests are meant to raise awareness, then they’ve already fulfilled their purpose a long time ago.
I love this fallacy, because then it means governments support enriching civilians, and are actually servants of the public will. How else would they know their demands haven’t been already met?
Next you’re going to explain why hate crimes, libel, and slander aren’t suppressed equally.
That was just completely incoherent. I have no earthly idea what you were trying to convey here.
Neither do you it seems.
Why would a government made of representatives you elect suppress something you elected?
Neither do I what? You see what I mean, that doesn’t make any sense?
A government made of Representatives you elect oppress something you elected? What? That doesn’t make any sense. Not the concept, whatever that may be, the sentence doesn’t make sense.
