6/10/25

 
PROTESTS
NEVER PERFECT; NEVER OPTIONAL

THIS MUCH I KNOW ABOUT GROUPS: I don’t want to belong to one. And I assume that the feeling is mutual, at least on the part of some members of any group I might try to sign onto.
     But I also know that in the fight to defend democracy, joining together with other people is not optional. Lone wolves, hermits and soloists simply cannot get the job done.
     Here’s the problem: no matter what the group, or how noble its purpose or how vital its mission, there will always be people sure to spoil some of the experience.
     In any group, there will be jerks, know-it-alls, weirdos, loud-mouths, hot-heads, odd-balls, people who are too old, too annoying, too loud, too young, too hairy, too short, too meek and, sometimes, too violent.
     And it’s possible there will provocateurs: people determined to make trouble, whose presence is meant to undermine the purposes of the group, to give it a bad name. Maybe they’ll have been embedded by the group’s opponents; sometimes they’ll show up as freelance spoilers.

THIS BECOMES IMPORTANT in the still-unfolding demonstrations in Los Angeles, protesting protest detentions of undocumented people or anyone whom the “authorities” decide are not the “right” people.
     And nationally, it will be an issue on June 14 for what hopefully will be the thousands of “No Kings” rallies throughout the country, as a counterpoint to Trump’s military parade/birthday celebration in Washington, D.C.
     It’s obvious that Trump wants trouble both in L.A., at similar protests, because it gives him the pretext to federalize state National Guards and to call in federal troops.
     The obvious counter strategy is for the perfect protest – an absolutely peaceful demonstration in which there is no excuse for police or the military to “restore” order.
     The columnist Tom Nichols, who writes for The Atlantic magazine and a former professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. envisioned such a tactic in a June  8 piece. 
     “… the most dramatic public action the residents of Southern California could take right now would be to ensure that Trump’s forces arrive on calm streets,” Nichols wrote.     
     “Imagine the reactions of the Guard members as they look around and wonder what, exactly, the commander in chief was thinking. Why are they carrying their rifles in the streets of downtown America? What does anyone expect them to do? Put another way: What if the president throws a crackdown and nobody comes?”

WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
     I wish it were otherwise.
     But Nichols’ fantasy is simply asking too much 
     Indeed, as I write this, there’s been enough “trouble” – cars set afire, highways blocked, things thrown at police – to give the thuggish administration an excuse to militarize  policing of dissent.
     The news reports I’ve seen so far as that the “disorderly” aspects of the LA demonstration have been the work of a minority of protesters – most have been peaceful.
     But powerful emotions are at work. The federal roundup of undocumented persons have been brutal, frightening, infuriating and unfair. How can large-scale protests be as carefully executed as envisioned by Nichols and others for whom Trump’s opportunistic motives are so clear?
     It just seems to me impossible. There are simply too many people, coming from too many perspectives, to assure the rest of us that the protests will be calm, orderly and precisely executed.
     But the alternative is likewise unacceptable – to have no protests, to call off demonstrations, to cancel the only way millions of people have to voice their concerns for fear they will be misconstrued and abused.

IT’S THE NATURE OF DEMOCRACY that none of us can find a group of people with whom we are completely compatible. Democracy demands that we learn to get along with all sorts of people and not be overly choosy; we cannot demand everyone  agree with us on every point; it’s hard to find common ground as to our personal beliefs and our guess about which tactics are effective.
     Sometimes, the group simply blunders. I’m thinking back to the Black Lives Matter protests in which a devastatingly wrong-headed slogan took hold – “Defund the Police.”
     You could understand the reasoning – police power was abusive, so starve its budget and redirect some of the money into non-lethal responses to mental health and other crises that didn’t need a police response.
     But it seems to me that you rarely reform a government agency by reducing its income. Usually in effective reform, you have spend more money for more resources, new approaches, higher caliber people, etc.
     And that’s my problem with “belonging” to a group – that I fear being associated with particular approaches, platforms and slogans with which I disagree, even though I support the group’s overall goals.
     When it comes to genuinely bad actors, the people who elect violence and other counterproductive approaches, I do think the majority of us we have an obligation to call them out and somehow stop their destructive actions.
     We also don’t have to join or remain in groups that turn out to be inherently violent and lawless or which violate our key moral and ethical standards.

LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, there’s no simple solution to the dilemma of blending our individual standards with those of a group or a movement.
     We have to accept that no group is made up of people just like us, people with whom we agree with on every point and with whom we would be pals if we didn’t have to.
     Having said that, I’ve found most of the folks I’ve come across in the effort to preserve democracy since Trump declared war on American traditions are inspiring, both as individuals and as members of communities devoted to a cause that’s both noble and essential.
     The worst thing that could happen at this time of great peril in America, is that we fail to come together, fail to stick together and fail to fight together to rescue our country.
     We can try hard to do things right – in my case, I believe that nonviolence is both a strategic as well as a moral superpower.
     But I have to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a perfect protest, and that the greater danger is that – seeking perfection – we decide to do nothing at all.