[MCN] TIME : Protests in the Trump Era Have Been Mostly Peaceful. Here's How the 2020 Election Could Change That

[Lance Olsen]

TIME December 12, 2019

Protests in the Trump Era Have Been Mostly Peaceful. Here's How the 2020 Election Could Change That

BY DANA R. FISHER  <https://time.com/author/dana-r-fisher/>
Dana R. Fisher is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231187645/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0231187645&linkId=b67863ff37cc2bc17182f55982c3bdd0>.

https://time.com/5748971/trump-resistance-protests/ <https://time.com/5748971/trump-resistance-protests/>

1st 2 paragraphs

Since Donald Trump took office, there has been sustained protest against his Administration and its policies <https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaaw5461>. An estimated 4 million people <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/07/this-is-what-we-learned-by-counting-the-womens-marches/> turned out for the 2017 Women’s March (which was the largest protest in U.S. history), as many as 2 million people <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/13/did-you-attend-the-march-for-our-lives-heres-what-it-looked-like-nationwide/> participated in the 2018 March for Our Lives against gun violence, and there have been countless other protests at airports <https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/29/512250469/photos-thousands-protest-at-airports-nationwide-against-trumps-immigration-order>, outside elected officials’ offices <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/12/republican-congress-members-face-tide-of-protest-in-home-districts> and even inside Congressional office buildings <https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/28/brett-kavanaugh-hearing-protesters-christine-blasey-ford/1453524002/>. With battle lines being drawn over impeachment, some journalists have wondered <https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/18/20905686/resistance-protest-impeachment-rallies-trump> why there aren’t more people protesting <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/opinion/trump-protests.html>. However, the more important question is: why have protests during this period been so peaceful?

The progression of protest has two primary paths: it can work to access positions of institutional power—such as electing like-minded candidates to office—or it can use more confrontational tactics to pressure those in power to respond to the demands of the protesters (like the civil unrest that has escalated in Hong Kong <https://time.com/5741995/hong-kong-pro-democracy-protests-continue/>). The two are not mutually exclusive, but often groups lean more in one direction than the other, changing course if their goals are not accomplished. During the 1960s, for instance, we saw Civil Rights activists shift their strategy after realizing that they did not have the necessary access to power to make change through the legal and political systems. Instead, the activists employed more disruptive tactics, including staged sit-ins and non-permitted marches. Protesters in the anti-war movement <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/opinion/vietnam-antiwar-movement.html> began by focusing mostly on peaceful protests and teach-ins, but as the conflict in Vietnam dragged on, they too turned to civil disobedience and confrontation. Although most of the protesting we have seen since Trump’s inauguration has been clearly aimed toward mobilizing support for institutional political goals, the tide is starting to turn. And if the Republicans maintain political control in 2020, protest in the U.S. is likely to become a lot more disruptive.

Excerpt 

A closer look at the youth climate movement shows us where we may be heading. The youth climate movement in the U.S. first attracted attention a few days after the 2018 midterm elections when, despite the electoral victories, a small group of activists occupied Nancy Pelosi’s office <https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/13/ocasio-cortez-climate-protestors-push-pelosi-962915> with newly elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <https://time.com/longform/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-profile/> (who was elected as part of the Resistance’s efforts to access power in Washington). The activists were calling for more progressive climate policies and the implementation of a Green New Deal, but their confrontational approach was hardly the norm. Since then, with the introduction of only a resolution <https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text> and no actual bill, the young people who participated in this action have joined forces with those who were motivated by Greta Thunberg <https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/> and her tactic of skipping school and striking for climate. Consequently, the movement has grown substantially, organizing increasingly larger strikes and marches, and based on my research, these protesters are growing more willing to be disruptive. Sixty-one percent of the organizers of the September climate strikes told me they had experience with direct action (which includes civil disobedience of all sorts) in the past year; that number jumped to 76% when I surveyed organizers of the climate strikes in December. Not only are these young people are getting more confrontational, they’re joining forces with adults who have also called for activism <https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/climate-change-protests-will-surround-the-world-bank-and-block-traffic-friday-morning/2019/12/05/513ae27a-16d8-11ea-8406-df3c54b3253e_story.html> that breaks the law.

https://time.com/5748971/trump-resistance-protests/ <https://time.com/5748971/trump-resistance-protests/>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"For decades, we called it ‘global warming,’ an innocuous-sounding phrase invoking a gentle increase in worldwide temperatures, like turning up the thermostat in a house.”

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/content/from-sea-to-rising-sea-climate-change-in-america

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bigskynet.org/pipermail/missoula-community-news_bigskynet.org/attachments/20200102/40b7d975/attachment.html>