Yup. People show up and hold a sign and chant and go home feeling like they did something while the bad actors laugh at them and continue their destruction.

We have somehow convinced ourselves we can throw off a tyrannical yoke without using the only tools that have ever proved effective in doing so. I’m so tired of this protest rhetoric. It won’t do shit if there’s no threat behind it. There’s a reason that when right-wing gatherings take place and everybody has their AR and plate carriers that the cops give them protection and perimeter - firstly, those that work forces yada yada and that’s big, but also because without fail, the majority of protests are composed of soft targets who are cosplaying resistance and think that their water bottles and goggles are going to make them look tough. When an entire crowd can circle cops, and the cops don’t feel any more endangered than they did before, the power dynamics are set. Intervene, also tackled, cuffed, grounded. Speak up? Record? Fuck it, you ain’t beating the ride.

When that same crowd makes it clear that a lack of peaceful acquiescence can lead to other more forceful types…it’s almost like that’s how we got here as a nation.

The campaign against the tools of liberty, by those who claim to love democracy, is hastening the death of both.