No. of Recommendations: 7
By the time we get to the March on Washington, after years of those very issue-specific protests,
Yes - it took years to get to some more concrete action items. I'd suggest that the protests against Trump are still in that early stage. The Civil Rights Act didn't spring fully formed from MLK's head after the march on Washington. It took years of work to get to that point. Were all of the previous protests therefore useless? I don't think so.
These protests against Trump are still in the formative stage. While they are not as single issue focused as some of the earliest civil rights protests, they are a bit more focused than you are giving them credit for.
There are protests from time to time against the current practices of ICE and CBP. The current ones in Portland are perhaps one of the better examples. They're pretty much a one issue thing. No Kings is somewhat focused on Presidential overreach. And it has some larger organizational activity behind it. You can point to a couple of key leaders of that movement. Sure, there are a bunch of individual things hiding in that "overreach" umbrella, but it is a group in its early stages. Will it become what Civil Rights did? I don't know. They probably need a more charismatic leader to make that happen. But it's certainly possible.
At a minimum, I think these protests could be the beginnings of a more cohesive, more erudite, more actionable future. Just because they aren't there now doesn't mean they can't get there at all.
It's much like a previous thread on the comparisons of Trump to Hitler. Trump isn't the late 30s to 40's Hitler. He's closer to the 20's Hitler. Will he become the full blown fascist we fear? Don't know. Will the No Kings protest become the Civil Rights movement of the 60's and 70's? Don't know yet. But there are similarities to the earlier Civil Rights movement of the 40s and 50s. Still in the general unrest stage with an uncertain future.
--Peter
