Dispatches Mailbag: Protests, Neo-Nazis, the Long Republican Con, and More
Throughout the weeks I get questions and when I amass enough of them, I like to throw them together in one of these Q&A’s where I can get some thoughts out into the world on topics I might otherwise not cover. It’s an incredibly useful exercise and I can’t thank you enough for reaching out and for reading.
Dispatches Mailbag is a subscriber-exclusive feature. I keep the vast majority of my articles free of charge because I want people to use them for educational and organizing purposes. Dispatches From A Collapsing State is, however, a reader-supported platform because, well, corporate media does not support actual critiques of capitalism or power. To read this Q&A, please become a paid subscriber.
Today, we’ll be talking about a host of things, including my thoughts on the No Kings protests and the state of resistance, the “revelations” that several young Republicans are…gasp!…Neo-Nazis, the long and tireless effort to turn the Democrats into the Republican Lite Party, and a couple of updates on what I’m focusing on right now and how far down the rabbit hole I think we’ve gone.
Anonymous: I’m going to the No Kings protest on Saturday. I went last time. I thought it felt good at the time to be around a lot of people who feel like things aren’t great and even met some protesters who seem to be serious about changing things. I feel odd about it, though. You’ve spoken about “resistance” spectacle in the past and I wondered if you thought that might explain what I’m feeling.
Yeah, that will do it.
I want to be very clear about this. I think protests are important and I cannot discount the power of seeing millions of people show up in the largest one day protest in the history of the United States of America. That communicates that something is very, very wrong. It interrupts the regular coverage, which is exceedingly controlled by the wealth class that enjoys a monopolization over media. This large of a protest has to be covered and has to be painted by the administration and the GOP as radical, dangerous, and un-American.
The No Kings protests have the size and scope to accomplish these things and they are also opportunities to embolden people to resist, replenish their energy, and, theoretically, begin forming new coalitions and alliances for further action. The problem is that they are also opportunities for cathartic release. This is where the problem lies. The June 14th protests drew in an estimated 5 million people across thousands of cities. This is a massive thing. And, so, as an organizer and someone who desperately wants to neutralize the threat of fascism in America, I can look at that, see the positives and potential, and also ask why in the past four months there has not been more momentum in that direction?