Here Is A Form Of Protest That Trump Can't Stop

The Hands Off protest movement was not only one of the largest demonstrations in history, but the decentralization makes it very difficult to stop.

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“A massive decentralized movement like this -- everywhere all at once, with everybody pitching in -- is extremely difficult for any regime, even the most autocratic, to derail.”

The Hands Off mobilization might be the fight we needed to stop encroaching autocracy.

We heard from people who were at protests that they were huge. We noted that our Detroit reader said they had never seen anything like it in their lifetime. Now we have expert analyst weighing in: Yes, it was huge. And it will be very hard to stop.

Video from Detroit Voter of April 5th Hands Off demonstration:

Organizer and author of “How to Read a Protest” as well as “Direct Action: L.A. Kaufmann posted on BlueSky (edited for brevity) that the Hands Off demonstrations were one of the very largest mobilizations in our history by turnout and by number of protests, as well as being very hard to stop because of their decentralized nature.

1) The April 5 Hands Off day of action clearly ranks as one of the very largest mobilizations in U.S. history, by two different measures:

-- total national turnout (~ 3 million)

-- number of local protests (~ 1400)

2) …Today's day of action stands out not only for its size but its decentralized, networked character

3) A massive decentralized movement like this -- everywhere all at once, with everybody pitching in -- is extremely difficult for any regime, even the most autocratic, to derail. There are too many leaders, coordinating in too many different ways, for a movement like this to be easily neutralized.

4) And while you usually can't tell the true effect of a protest until long after it's over, today's actions have already made a major impact where we most needed it right now: on people's morale. That in itself is a win.

Adding a link to the data I shared earlier, for historical context. The Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020 (which postdates the chart below) remains the largest protest mobilization in U.S. history by every measure.

This is exactly what we were referring to in Monday’s morning The Daily, in which we called the disaster of the Trump Tariffs an opportunity for The People.