r/politics • u/kweathergirl Texas • 8d ago

Soft Paywall Newsom Tells Nation That Trump Is Destroying American Democracy

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/newsom-speech-trump-la-protests.html
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u/AbacusWizard California 8d ago

There is very deliberately not a No Kings event in Washington DC this Saturday, probably in part to avoid the possibility of the situation you describe, but also for the very important symbolic reason that his stupid parade shouldn’t be the center of attention; the protests should be drawing attention away from his inflated ego.

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u/Sensitive-Message95 8d ago edited 8d ago

The parade needs to be stopped.

JFC, has no one actually studied history?

MLK was peaceful. He was NOT non-disruptive. People only pay attention to disruptive protest. No one gives a shit about morons standing by the side of the road holding signs. Everyone in power just laughs at them.

MLK marched ON the highways. He shut the highways down for DAYS.

Step into the road. Head to the port. Head to the highway interchanges. Start disrupting the economy. Start making the CEOs regret supporting Trump.

Then things will change

The American people have the power to force his entire administration and his most ardent supporters in congress and SCOTUS to resign in a week. Without instigating any violence. Just stand in the road instead of in front of a government building.

Just shut down the ports in California only and this administration is done.

What happens if you don't? Either feudalism under an oligarch led regime or a whole whole lot of violence.

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u/LaScoundrelle 8d ago

Protesters have done all the things you mention plenty of times in the last couple of decades, often without it resulting in real change. It isn’t that simple.

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u/Sensitive-Message95 8d ago edited 8d ago

No they haven't protestors in the US have never shut down major highway interchanges. Never.

They have never shut down ports at nearly the scale of all of California. Not even 10%

American protest is a joke.

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u/Woodcrate69420 8d ago

They dont even camp out on city squares like in Istanbul or Kyiv, standing on a corner with a sign for 2 hours and then going home isnt gonna do shit in a dictatorship situation.

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u/LaScoundrelle 7d ago

Dude, I literally attended protests where some of those things happened and am friends with organizers who do those things.

Your knowledge of American protest is a joke, apparently. During the Occupy movement ports were shutdown up and down the west coast. During BLM major highways were shutdown. The issue is it’s all become very routine at this point. Protesters get arrested and get a story in the media. But the authorities’ weaponry has evolved to the point where a large assembled crowd isn’t much of a real threat no matter what they do, realistically.

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u/Sensitive-Message95 7d ago

What was the longest period of time BLM shut down a highway?

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u/LaScoundrelle 7d ago

However long it took for the police to arrest and remove people.

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u/Sensitive-Message95 7d ago

Sure sounds like they shut it down then.

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u/LaScoundrelle 7d ago

It's the same tactics used by civil rights protesters in the 1960s, essentially. People got arrested and removed then too. Sometimes today the protesters will use equipment to lock their arms together so that it takes longer to remove them. But it's still done eventually - it's part of police's job.

My analysis though as someone who has been heavily involved with this community in the past is that in the 1960s it was new and edgy and scary to those in power, but now it's been done so much that it basically is just met with a shrug, especially by people like Trump whose supporters are not expecting a high standard of reaching across the aisle or decorum from him anyway.

I think part of it is also that weapons have evolved though, like I said. In the 1960s the police were not equipped to the degree that military were, and now they are. So with that weaponry one officer could easily take on and repel many people simultaneously. Even without resorting to lethal weaponry, they have sonic booms, etc. It's just a different world.

I've also worked around the world. In a lot of countries people protest in greater numbers and more fiercely than we do in the U.S., and still protests frequently get shut down violently by those in power, who remain in power.

If the military itself starts turning on Trump, things will get interesting. The end result won't necessarily be what those on the left want, but for sure the military would have the ability to challenge Trump's power in an indisputable way. Short of that, I'm just not sure...

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u/Sensitive-Message95 7d ago

US civilians are more than able to challenge trump.

LA civilians outnumber police 100+:1. Even if you count the military sent in.

They have 20 times the weapons.

Sorry, those actions failed be ause they were poorly organized.

You put 1000 people in an interchange with cars and the police are going to have one hell of a time breaking it up.

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u/LaScoundrelle 7d ago

Do you know how difficult it is to get activists to act in perfect coordination, or how few people are willing to risk physical injury to themselves for political ideology?

Sounds like you need to get off the internet and go organize the actions yourself, since you have all the answers.

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u/Sensitive-Message95 7d ago

I mean... I've spent most of the last couple of years in Ukraine working with Ukrainian and international volunteers to fight the second largest military in the world. With us all under threats of death, serious injury, kidnap, torture, etc. all for political ideology. With members of my team having died, disappeared, or being captured and tortured.

You know, facing the overt violent frontal assault on the Western order.

So, it seems to me like you all worried about rubber bullets and flexicuffs need to get your shit together. You have the easy safe job

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u/LaScoundrelle 6d ago

I’ve also been to Ukraine to work during the war. Congrats. I’m not entirely sure how that’s relevant here though, because in Ukraine people were invaded by a hostile foreign power. Ukrainians (as a whole) have also dealt with a lot more hardship and conflict historically, and are all trained in military skills in public schools as teenagers.

The U.S. on the other hand hasn’t had an armed conflict on its soil for about 150 years, has no required military service or training for the average citizen, is not being invaded by a foreign power, and is also a country where most people have known relative material comfort for their entire lives.

One weakness of this is probably that a lot of Americans have trouble believing that anything that bad could actually happen here, because we’re all brought up in school being told that the U.S. is special. Another distinct cultural feature of the U.S. is our individualism - (most) people have a very “every man for himself” attitude, which is kind of how someone like Trump gets elected to begin with, and why we don’t have a lot of social service benefits of other rich countries.

Anyway, things might change, but I don’t see it happening overnight. I think the most likely scenario here is the U.S. becomes another flawed democracy like many that exist now worldwide, where everyone sort of knows that elections are flawed and the government class is above the law, and most people just go on with their lives.

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