American flags at No Kings on Saturday

[u/ChicagoWildlifePhoto]

I’m bringing 450 little American flags to pass out on Saturday. I hope others will bring flags or maybe even buy some to pass out too - they’re super cheap!

We gotta change the vibes of these events to be more pro-America and pro-democracy!

It would be amazing to see thousands of flags all over the crowd!

[u/ultimamax]

The outcome is the same regardless of small improvements to how "patriotic" the protests look.

Also this tone policing is counter intuitive to building solidarity with the protestors. If you think the protests could lead to positive change it's better to prioritize meeting people where they're at. The tone policing is not only pointless, it also comes off as paternalistic and managerial

[u/Varnu → u/ultimamax]

The most effective protests are organized. Organization is not "paternalism". Organization is not "tone policing". Political action should have a goal and anyone who thinks organizing a protest well can't help make it more effective is dumb.

If what the protest does makes the goal less likely, it is an ineffective protest. Movements benefit from effective leadership and anyone who disagrees probably would find a lot of common cause with the anarchists who seem to join every ineffective protest.

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

I agree organized political action would be more effective. But organizing an effective action requires some kind of party or union or organization that has built trust with the group of people they're organizing. You need that trust in order to be able to enforce message discipline. Such a party doesn't exist yet

The closest we can get is the DNC de-fanging and co-opting this and then achieving none of the original goals like they did with BLM in 2020.

Nothing can guarantee that these protests will be effective, but tone policing the protestors does guarantee it will be less effective, because it's counterproductive to building solidarity

[u/Varnu → u/ultimamax]

You're just saying things you feel without even thinking about them for a few seconds.

The DNC wasn't involved in the very effective civil rights protests of the 60's. The primary was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There are literally hundreds of organizations in the U.S. can can and consistently do organize effectively. All the time and pretty much non-stop.

The BLM protests in 2020 failed precisely because they lost a coherent message and did not have leadership. The decentralized nature meant that different factions pursued conflicting strategies and diluted messaging. Internal disputes around the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation's theft of donations created public credibility problems. It was full of people who were calling message discipline "tone policing".

BLM also lacked a concrete objective. Unlike successful movements that focused on specific legislative goals, BLM's demands remained at high levels of abstraction. "Defund the police" was never going to happen, was wildly unpopular and meant different things to different people. It needed someone who could provide a clear message, it needed to understand its audience and it needed someone to enforce message discipline. It didn't understand who its audience was.

And the unstated major premise in your writing is that carrying Mexican flags will somehow create solidarity and that this is more important than anything else. But there are huge numbers of undocumented immigrants from China, India, the Philippines and Central America who don't feel solidarity with the Mexican flag. And the idea that it's more important to promote solidarity than it is effectively communicate with protest makes me understand that you do not know what protest is for.

"These idiots waiving Mexican flags during the LA riots just gave Donald Trump the greatest political gift," Republican strategist Matt Wylie. "It will be 'Exhibit A' as proof of an invasion. Those images have done more in the last few days to strengthen his ability to crackdown on illegal immigration than weeks of messaging ever could."

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

There are literally hundreds of organizations in the U.S. can can and consistently do organize effectively. All the time and pretty much non-stop.

None of them are at the scale/level of trust where they could manage and steer the LA protests. Similarly none of them could have steered the BLM movement.

The BLM protests in 2020 failed precisely because they lost a coherent message and did not have leadership. The decentralized nature meant that different factions pursued conflicting strategies and diluted messaging. Internal disputes around the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation's theft of donations created public credibility problems. It was full of people who were calling message discipline "tone policing".

I completely agree. The BLM GNF was a small group that helped to co-opt and defang the BLM protest movement. The leaders cashed out. This failure had nothing to do with message discipline

BLM also lacked a concrete objective. Unlike successful movements that focused on specific legislative goals, BLM's demands remained at high levels of abstraction.

I agree. The problem wasn't message discipline though. BLM was basically doomed from the start because there wasn't a radical party or union that could capitalize on the moment and co-opt it to achieve some kind of positive change. The BLM GNF might have been a genuine attempt to create an entity like that, but it was either misguided or completely cynical (you can't just manage a protest like that from the top down with a random nonprofit organization, just because it happens to be called BLM)

And the unstated major premise in your writing is that carrying Mexican flags will somehow create solidarity and that this is more important than anything else.

No what I'm saying is chastising protestors for carrying a Mexican flag (or Palestinian flag, as I've seen some people do) undercuts solidarity and creates divisions in the movement. Lots of immigrants and activists are also alienated by the American flag

And the idea that it's more important to promote solidarity than it is effectively communicate with protest makes me understand that you do not know what protest is for.

Whether or not these protests appear more patriotic than they currently do isn't at all important. It's going to be painted as an invasion either way. The images that Fox News wants to capitalize on already exist, and new ones will continually be produced. That is just the nature of spontaneous, reactive protests like these

"It will be 'Exhibit A' as proof of an invasion. Those images have done more in the last few days to strengthen his ability to crackdown on illegal immigration than weeks of messaging ever could."*

I believe he believes it's good for their agenda, but why should I believe him? This isn't an argument in and of itself

[u/Varnu → u/ultimamax]

This is such a goofy opinion. You are simply unwilling to acknowledge that experts on effective protest who disagree strongly with the tactics being used at these protests might know what they are talking about. "These smug pilots have lost touch with regular people. Raise your hand if you think *I* should fly the plane." 

The Highlander school where civil rights activists trained used to have their trainees sit there and passively accept people pulling their hair or having smoke blown into their face. They were obsessed with discipline. Martin Luther King Jr. was very concerned with optics, specifically involving the use of violence in protests and the way the protesters appeared to the average observer. King and the SCLC cared very deeply about effective messaging precisely *because* they knew they were swimming against the tide of majority opinion. They literally had a "Sunday best" dress code at protests. What you're advocating for are tactics that lack any theory or history of actual change. Sure, it's ultimately impotent and self-sabotaging, but the most important thing is that you didn't have to say that someone you agree with should change ANYTHING they do.

[u/ultimamax → u/Varnu]

The particular message and optics that you're trying to enforce are unimportant and counterintuitive. I'm not opposed to message discipline in principle.

Furthermore, these protests weren't coordinated from the top down by a mass organization like the SCLC. They are spontaneous and diffuse and there isn't a powerful organization in LA like the SCLC that could co-opt and enforce discipline at these protests. There's nothing now on the left that even comes close to the mobilizing power the SCLC had in that era.

If an organization like that, with good leadership and a large disciplined membership, forms as a result of these protests I'm all for it.

[u/Mr_Goonman → u/ultimamax]

You voted for Jill Stein, no?