[m4rtink]

Yeah, that is something I don't get. You can hear all around the Internet "we did not vote of this!" yet you don see any visible reaction to all these bad decisions lately - no protests in the streets, no real attempts to block these things, people resigning rather then implementing bad decisions.

I just don't get it - unless all those ideals were just a show from the start.

[bryanlarsen]

> no protests in the streets

The No Kings protest was estimated at 7 million people.

[embedding-shape]

I'm not sure what the purpose is to go out on the streets for half a day, then everyone goes back inside and continue like nothing ever happen?

Go out, stay out until change is enacted. It's called striking, and if you had any sort of good unions, they'd be planning a general strike for a long time, and it should go on until you get change.

You know, like how other "modern" countries do it when the politicians forget who they actually work for.

[bryanlarsen]

General strikes weren't particularly common in the 60's in the US and those protests were considered widespread and effective.

[kelipso]

The No Kings “general strikes” consist almost entirely of retired people. I’m sure I saw anyone under 60 in those protests.

[embedding-shape]

I'm not sure if you're mixing things, or if I missed anything, but the "No Kings" things were protests, not a "strike" and very far from being a "general strike". Those practices are very different from just "protesting".

[cptroot]

This is strictly false. Plenty of working age people went, and many brought their children.

[Aloisius]

Employers can fire you in the US for general strikes. You're only protected if you're striking for grievances against the company, not for solidarity actions. Indeed, unions can be dissolved for it.

Add in how large the US is, it's population size, distribution, how far most people live from Washington D.C. and a cultural knee-jerk response to anything remotely seen as bullying of digging their heels in or fight back means they're far, far more difficult to do effectively here than in "modern" countries.

[embedding-shape]

> Employers can fire you in the US for general strikes. You're only protected if you're striking for grievances against the company, not for solidarity actions. Indeed, unions can be dissolved for it.

Yeah, but thankfully, solidarity kind of solves that, as people fired from their jobs because they're striking would be supported by the community. But, if the country doesn't have a history of having built such a community, often with big help from socialist and left-leaning groups, the options you have available today are kind of few.

But best day for it is today, even if yesterday wasn't very good.

[pessimizer]

The "No Kings" protest had absolutely no subject or issue other than repeating Trump's name. What would it have meant for it to have been successful? What I mean by that is what could "X" be in the sentence: "If X policy had changed, the No Kings rallies would have accomplished one of their goals"?

It was just an astroturfed Democratic party rally that drummed up participation by mass text spam from Indian call centers. The turnout was positively geriatric.

Incidentally, the Democratic Party has started running into a severe issue with text spammers and fake orgs asking for donations and raking in millions, and the people doing it are people who are actually involved with the party.

Those Constant Texts Asking You to Donate to Democrats Are Scams

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mothership-strate...

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine

https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-mothership-vortex-...

[embedding-shape]

People in the US seems allergic to unions and any sort of solidarity movements, so now you have all these individuals believing them to be the strongest individual, not realizing you need friends and grass-root movements to actually have any sort of civil opposition.

There does seem to be some slight improvements of this situation as of late, video game companies and other obvious sectors getting more unions. But still, even on HN you see lots of FUD about unions, I'm guessing because of the shitty state of police unions and generally the history of unions in the US, but there really isn't any way out of the current situation without solidarity across the entire working class and middle class in the US, even if they're right, left, center or purple.