[Tritrin]

It was only 1 hour. Doesn't anyone ever protest in America? It feels like this concept is so new to you.

Yes - some people might be less sympathetic, those are not the people the protest set out to influence. It's the people who haven't made up their minds yet, the people who think that "This will all blow over soon" and want to get on with their lives in their bubble. They NEED to be inconvenienced to react, to make up their mind that this is something they can't ignore. Only then when you engage the apathetic can the protest grow, and protests must grow otherwise most of them fizzle.

[brbrodude]

It seems it's pure misdirection at this point. I also notice that people sort of become "trained"(unconsciously) to be incredibly sensible to anything that may deligitimize any sort of critical action or against the status-quo in general but then using a whole different weight for other stuff(maybe because they're "normal"). Results seems to be: demobilization, immobilization.

[bradjohnson]

It's not only to influence the people directly affected, it's also to generate news coverage which will get the greater population talking about the cause of the protest. Which is what is currently happening obviously.