Ask HN: Why aren’t Americans protesting on a large scale?

  • Americans as a rule tend to look down on protesting.

    America is very geographically dispersed. Any commerce that gets impacted generally only draws attention locally. And because of the strong urban/rural political divide in the US, you are mostly only going to attack your own interests.

    That is not to say there is not a lot of active mobilization. Mostly through our legal system as well as PR.

    Some other things to note:

    - While the extent of the damage to the federal government is massive, the domestic impacts are not really felt yet. Most of the stuff that comes from "government" is paid for and administered at the state level.

    - The current party won the popular vote and controls both houses of Congress. So most of the frustration is happening between the American people for letting this happen.

  • There are protests, but the media isn't covering them like they did with BLM. However, we need more protests. We need larger protests. We need to do more.

  • I think e.g. Europeans and Canadians are quite surprised.

    You don't seem to care.

  • What, specifically, would protests accomplish? The people in power, in every level of our government, do not care. No one else has any power to do anything. The media provably doesn’t tell the truth about protests, and just looks for the clicks.

    This isn’t a civilized European country. Protesting only works when the people who can affect change are listening to the people.

  • The much feared American Tianmen Moment has not yet occurred. Maybe this is needed to wake up for the larger public.

  • Some are going to townhalls apparently: https://youtu.be/1kKBUyJnpcI?t=543

  • Because they're busy trying to survive. Most can't afford to take time off to protest regularly.

  • Actually they are, we had massive protests in Los Angeles over the ice raids.

  • It will take some time for people to organize, and it's still quite cold out. Also, Trump has indicated his desire to use the US military against protests that get violent, and nearly every peaceful protest still has some folks going around being violence and destructive.

  • Fear

  • Weather makes a big difference.

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  • They did... by voting... and are mostly happy with the new trajectory. Perhaps your perception is being manipulated into thinking there's something wrong with this new direction.

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