Hacker News Reader

Comment by nfw2 | Hacker News Reader

you are exactly proving the point, the protests seem engineered to make people think they are doing something tantamount to ousting communist dictators when they really don't seem to be doing much at all except maybe annoying the moderates already on their side

View on HN

I don't know if that's true. Protests - or in fact, any large scale ability to organize people - have the potential for action baked in. Remember that the fall of the USSR started with some relatively mild protests.

It wasn't long before there were Zomo's in the streets of Gdansk, Poznan, Warsaw and many other places to try to curb those protests and that in turn is what led to the fall of the Polish regime.

what actions specifically are baked in in this case. you think these protestors are on their way to toppling the federal government?

They could for instance call a nationwide strike if there are tricks around election day.

That only works if you have a highly organized movement whose members are accustomed to the idea that they might have to sacrifice something. Unfortunately I don't see the potential for that in the No Kings style of biannual Facebook mobilizing with zero real movement building. Instead No Kings is conditioning their followers that a symbolic self-limiting action that leads to no change should be followed by...occasionally more of the exact same. No Kings attendees aren't even an organized economic boycott force.

any resistance movement that includes my suburban 60-year-old soccer mom who doesn't like bad words or the subway probably isn't storming any bastilles any time soon

Reply on news.ycombinator.com