From emancipation to women’s suffrage, civil rights and BLM, mass movement has shaped the arc of US history

From emancipation to women’s suffrage, civil rights and BLM, mass movement has shaped the arc of US history

Trump’s first and second terms have been marked by huge protests, from the 2017 Women’s March to the protests for racial justice after George Floyd’s murder, to this year’s No Kings demonstrations. But how effective is this type of collective action?

According to historians and political scientists who study protest: very.

From emancipation to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to Black Lives Matter, mass movement has shaped the arc of American history. Protest has led to the passage of legislation that gave women the right to vote, banned segregation and legalized same-sex marriage. It has also sparked cultural shifts in how Americans perceive things like bodily autonomy, economic inequality and racial bias.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    18·
    8 hours ago

    Boycotting and protesting with your money also works

    If everyone just organized together and said … ‘hey, let’s boycott this one company and just this one company’ … and everyone did it, it would drive that one company to its knees and bankrupt it and even drive it out of business.

    It wouldn’t affect most people terribly … we’d still be able to shop, go around do things and go about our lives without much disruption … but at the same time, it would scare the shit out of that one company.

    Once one company gets destroyed, then everyone organize again and target another company and boycott them … then just keep the ball rolling and keep boycotting and driving out companies one at a time. After a month of doing this, every major company would be shitting their pants knowing that they would be next on the list.

    These assholes don’t understand if you hold a sign up that says you dislike them … they never listen to that … but if a large enough group of us just stood back and withheld our money from them and told them to go fuck themselves, then they’d listen.

    • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works
      41·
      6 hours ago

      Boycotting and protesting with your money also works

      I’d say it’s the only thing that works right now.

      They don’t expect to be voted out (hell, I’m not sure anymore they expect people to vote at all next time); but they can’t control what you do with your money, they can’t force you to buy X or Y, so if you want to fuck them badly, take the money from them.

      Stop buying/using something and you’ll see how short it takes for them to correct course. There’s one thing these bastards love: money. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it flowing.