Millennials don’t believe protesting works.
I’ve seen a lot of discussion about why millennials aren’t coming out. Yes, they work and have young children. They are taking care of their elderly parents. All of these things are true and valid.
But also millennials have gone to the Occupy Wall Street protests, which accomplished nothing. The BLM protests, which accomplished nothing. The Women’s March, which lol. I protested during all of these things only for our country to slide even further into capitalistic greed and corruption. When Bernie was running, someone we could get excited about, he was undermined by his own party.
Many millennials don’t even believe their vote matters anymore in the face of gerrymandering and the electoral college.
I still want to believe protesting can effect change. Or frankly that American citizens have any power at all anymore. I’ll be protesting on the 5th, but man is it hard to keep hope alive when our generation has been crushed under the establishment for our entire lives. Combine that with how oppressive the 40+ hour work week is and can you blame people for not protesting? Millennials barely even have the energy to do their laundry.
I’m not sure how to energize people. I’m not even sure how to energize myself. The Democratic party offers no leadership or hope whatsoever.
Please offer your local millennial (and me!) some hope. Please tell me we aren’t just screaming into a void.
Originally Posted By u/duckhunt420 At 2025-03-31 11:47:11 AM | Source
Why do people keep saying the BLM protests didn’t do anything?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_reforms_related_to_the_George_Floyd_protests
Did they completely solve the problem? No. But they had an impact.
Protesting works. You just have to keep doing it.
it “doesn’t work” because we’re doing it wrong. we need to physically bar politicians from places they need to be with a 40 thousand strong human wall in their way, we need huge general strikes, we need to risk being shot by the national guard, we need to be massively disruptive and some of us have a really bad time of it - people had to die for the rights we have now, we didn’t get them playing it safe and being afraid of and disclaimer-ing our sentences that we are “not advocationg violence or anything!” we got them by overwhelming the opposition till they either broke or had to flip to save face.
we’re not going to make headway without some of us getting dissapeared or shot at.
So you want everything solved by holding a sign in a park for an afternoon? Please. I just heard last week from Doria Robinson the ED of Urban Tilth who is greening Richmond CA and holding Chevron responsible for their egregious behavior in the community.
She talked about getting up every second Saturday to tend land and attend meetings and change minds for TWENTY YEARS. Now that’s activism. And she’s not a millennial with issues around instant gratification. And she’s making g beautiful lasting change for the people, the land, and the city.
So sorry this revolution will not be televised nor will it be sandwiched in a sound bite between Netflix binge sessions. SMH.
Luigi has been the most successful person in making a difference as far as I can see in my 35 years on Earth. More people need to take a page out of his book instead of the one fascists are handing out to us saying “these are the rules, this is how you protest us”.
Rugged individualism killed the Millennial activist. While social and political issues were impressed upon this generation from childhood, when the cards are down it’s everyone for themselves. Individualism was the other value they we’re raised with.
It’s why in spite of holding enough electorate power they do not assert it. It’s why millennials don’t run for office or if they do they have zero solidarity among their own cohort.
I think a key difference lies in the way Baby Boomers were born in huge families with many siblings and first cousins. The parents cranked out half a dozen kids. They had to raise each other. They grew up in a period of collectivism.
Millennials were born to an age of the nuclear family in the era of mass production. It was a time of over abundance. It was Fukuyamas “end of history”. The parents had one or two kids. They were treated like little princes and princesses destined to inherit humanity’s final social and political form that is liberal democracy. That is faltering and Millennials have no idea what to do about it.
edit: I also want to add that a lot of millennials are comfortable enough to not have to care. This has been very unpopular to point out on reddit. While the middle class has been disappearing that doesn’t mean everyone got pushed to the lower class. A lot of millennials made it to the upper half. There’s no reason for them to be protesting.
To my fellow millennials…
The protests are working. Even the weekend protests at tesla showrooms. Elon is freaking the fuck out, claiming that even talking (or pointing fingers) at cybertrucks is a crime. Why? Because the stock is toppling, and that stock is the foundation of his wealth. A lot of his other schemes depend on that stock being strong.
The protests against Republicans in Congress are working. Trump is pulling nominees for his administration because they are getting absolutely wrecked and those seats are flipping. These spineless fucks won’t even show up to their own districts, let alone their own state because of the bad optics and disapproval from their constituents.
The rough part is, we have to keep this going for another few years. At least 2 IMHO. We need to flip Congress, impeach Trump and hold him and his lackeys accountable for their crimes. It’s the only way we can move forward as a country. The alternative is literally violence in the streets as trump’s SS (aka, ICE) continues to crackdown on legal and protected dissent.
zooms out on Tesla stock
Sure, buddy. Sure. It’s “working”
Also, Tesla stock is not the foundation of his wealth. It could go to zero and he’d still be one of the richest men in the world thanks to SpaceX.
Looks at YTD view of TSLA
Yeah, I see where they went from over 400 per share to like 270 per share in less that a year. Imagine losing 35% of your house’s value in less than a year. Now imagine that you leveraged your house to buy a fancy car, invest in your business and to get a vacation property. Now your lenders are putting pressure on you to realize that asset before it falls any further.
I get what you are saying, that Elon could burn Tesla to the ground and still get a profit from it, but it would be damn nice to take one of his biggest toys away. Add to that the fact that Tesla’s valuation has been considered inflated based on Elon’s ability to control public perception. That tumbling is a direct commentary on him as much as it is on Tesla.
Its “valued” now because its the only auto stock not getting tarrifed
i would argue that the only thing that is really affecting tesla is boycotting, not the protesting.
the only thing these people understand is their cash flow. stop it there and the tick will die. elon is freaking the fuck out because his business might be failing. not because people are causing property damage. that only emboldens him to dig his feet in.
i still believe in the power of making your opinion known, but it’s not as useful as it once was. at least when done peacefully.
Guess what directly raises awareness about boycotting? The protests.
Yeah tesla protests deff soured Tesla tubby attitude seeing him cry on fake news is pricesless
Seeing that stock wiped even better
Fuck that parasite
The great resignation wasn’t about work at all.
We simply don’t believe in the future anymore, because it was taken from us by greedy assholes who were born 20 years before us. After your entire youth and early adulthood filled with struggle only to get your bosses boss a new ferrari you just don’t care anymore.
Now we’re all doomers hoping for this unjust bullshit to collapse and burn even if it takes us with it. After all how much can you loose if they already took it all?
I feel this whole thread in my 40yo bones. While we’re all pretty fucking miserable, it’s reassuring to know the way I’m feeling right now is not just my mental illness getting worse. It’s also that, but still reassuring that it might not only be because of that.
My wife and I welcomed our first born into the world in late December of 2019, right before COVID really started to ramp up worldwide and lock the whole world in fear. For years now I wondered if I was a bad father because, despite my son and wife being my world, I’ve been in the grip of passive suicidality for a while now. I don’t take care of myself and my health anymore, I don’t try to better myself or my immediate surroundings, I don’t fix broken things so much as just working around the problems, and where I used to be passionate about my work, now I basically do the bare minimum to keep my job. I’m just over this rat race.
Nothing we were told was true about the world, and our place in it.
Anymore, everything feels like an immense struggle. Life feels like a second or third job. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the next several years. Thanks to MAGA and apathetic voters, we now get to relive the world of our parents and grandparents, fearing world war at the hands of fascists, – and introducing nuclear annihilation this time around, – rather than some sort of utopia brought on by technological advancement that seemed so promising in our earlier years.
I want to be here for my son and wife, but like the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan in Green Mile said, “I’m tied, boss.”
I don’t take care of myself and my health anymore, I don’t try to better myself or my immediate surroundings, I don’t fix broken things so much as just working around the problems, and where I used to be passionate about my work, now I basically do the bare minimum to keep my job. I’m just over this rat race.
Fuck your job but not your life dude. One thing is worthless and the other is everything.
I do bare minimum at work to not get fired and get whatever scraps they are willing to feed me. Then I take those and try my hardest to turn those scraps into whatever happiness I can. There is no satisfaction in our jobs anymore but it doesn’t mean that doing something for yourself or someone you care about can’t be satisfying. Even if it’s all worthless in the end somebody’s „thank you”, or even your own pride for the smallest of things that you mend are more valuable then all the money they could ever print.
I try to think that we are still the lucky ones, it’s all going to turn to real shit in a while but right now nobody is shooting at us yet, so let’s make some memories for that evening in the trench, we sure as fuck aren’t going to talk about our jobs.
I know it can be hard to look past the fog of depression sometimes, especially if the society tells you your only purpose is your work. But that’s simply not true. Your only purpose is to be happy with yourself. Im rooting for you bro. See you in the trench!
Luigi got more done in a minute than all the thousands of protesters over the past 30 years.
This. And. I think protesting would be seriously more effective if it occurred in front of houses of the people who are actively the cause of the issue. Rather than going to the streets where these billionaires can just turn off the news. But if we can actively protest where these people are living. Then I think real change would occur.
Absolutely! Generic protesting does nothing. Abortion protesters didn’t march in random cities. They protested outside abortion clinics to prevent them from being accessible and directly harassed doctors.
That’s called “direct action”
…allegedly
Although that’s (possibly, partly) true, he (allegedly) was also very selective in his use of violence. If he had mixed up his target and shot some accountant who happened to look a lot like the CEO, he wpuld not have received mass support. If he had firebombed the hotel, he would not have received mass support.
Though I agree that he brought the issue of healthcare to the forefront, so far he has done exactly as much as the protests have done to improve healthcare (e.g., minor improvements - the anesthesia blue cross thing.)
It is not yet sufficient.
Yes, must be targeted.
Did protests get a single healthcare change?
And this is why.
I believe you’re right.
Millennials don’t believe protesting works.
For any given protest, what does the person attending believe it will do?
Astonishingly few protests in the modern world have led to immediate change regarding the issue they were held against, therefore anyone attending a protest with this in mind therefore will have violated expectations.
I have attended protests before and I see their goal as raising awareness of issues and giving a physical display of how many people are against a given subject. In this sense, as soon as a protest is seen it meets the goal.
So I ask again, if you say “protesting doesn’t work”, my question is, “How do you define work?”
Protesting is hard work that takes a long time. The young are passionate but can be impatient. Millennials in the US today have generally only lived to see an overall downward trajectory. I understand how it can be difficult for them to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
We are in America’s Dark Night of the Soul. The period of darkness before you get yourself back together and transform into something greater.
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Sounds like a priority problem to be fixed then.
perhaps 🤷🏽♀️
Yep, pretty much sums up how I feel as an older millenial. The fact that Donald Trump has now won twice…I am just waiting on Merica to learn the hard way. I will be protesting as well. Its still better than nothing.
Sales across various markets are down even more than corporate expectations. Consumers are either poor or scared. A recession is almost certainly coming, and coupled with the government fuckery, it’s going to hit rural America the hardest in the short and long term.
When things hit Americans in their wallets, maybe Trump voters’ two remaining braincells will finally grasp the barest hint that they’ve been conned by billionaires—again.
This consumer is not poor and only a little scared. I hope many are doing the same as me, and boycotting billion dollar companies.
I vote with my dollar every day, I will suffer on my own terms.
And let me be clear, there are plenty of people who are ready to take the coming challenges, but when I say “poor,” I mean “living paycheck to paycheck,” which includes some millionaires. “Cash poor” might have been a better way to say it.
The buying trends aren’t just down, they’re also down in bulk sales. When people buy, they’re buying in smaller quantities, which is a sign that people (in general) have less disposable income. Once the economy really tanks, we’ll see further sales decreases and more of those “nonstandard buying trends.”
And to further strengthen the idea that it’s not simply protest but a combination of factors, sales in my medium-sized town have shown the same trend locally.
Nevertheless, I’m right there with you and doing my best to avoid billion dollar companies whenever possible. Hopefully our actions compounded with the economy will be parts of the whole that brings about change.
Their propaganda machine will just say ‘How Could the Democrats Let This Happen?’ and their idiots will eat it up with a spoon.
I hope you’re wrong. Because frankly, I’m not sure we can truly right this ship without having at least some of the “independents” and libertarians joining with other working class people against the wealthy.
They never do seem to wise up to the con, though. That’s where some of the feelings of helplessness come from.
Hopefully, we can be ready to aim their frustrations from things being unaffordable, and point them towards the billionaires
Things should be kicking up in the summer. That’s when the recession is supposed to hit.
I think there is hope. The movements you mentioned are all recent or were very short lived. Fourteen years elapsed between brown vs. board of education and the civil rights act of 1968. women’s suffrage in the us was a battle that raged from the declaration of independence to 1920, nearly 150 years. i think that we are seeing the first reversal of BLM progress. the me too movement definitely caused some change, but the fuckers are naturally fighting back. there will be more protests and more reversals before real change sticks. the arc of history bends slowly, but it bends. every time you protest, you help keep hope alive.
Occupy Wall Street inspired the movement towards a $15/hr minimum wage and educated people about income inequality. So it didn’t do anything flashy, but it wasn’t useless.
Wait, remind me what the minimum wage is again?
Oh that’s right, still $7.25/hr.
Guess it didn’t accomplish anything then.
Oh wait! I completely forgot! It taught news networks to never ever bring up “class warfare” again. Great job everyone!
A lot of states changed to $15/hr. And a lot of jobs offer $15/hr to start even in states with a low minimum wage.
i also think the antiwork movement is a product of occupy wall street, and that is percolating through the public consciousness as well!
When Bernie was running,
This is the perfection
even believe their vote matters
…that stole joy from ‘better’.
Given a binary choice, one which didn’t include Bernie, I hope you still made a choice instead of abdicating it.
Peaceful protests stopped really accomplishing anything once the ones being protested learned that there’s no long term consequence to just ignoring peaceful protests. Not only that protests in the past were far more strategic. You’d use Rosa Parks because she’s got the marketable image when the cameras are out. You had sit-ins. You had well organized boycotts. You had people willing to sit in a county jail for being disruptive.
I went to a protest last month. What I heard reminded me of college. Spent like 40 minutes listening to the DJ talk about how music and activism have always gone hand in hand and how later in the day please stick around to listen to music of liberation. Art is commentary. It is rarely the driver of action. Listening to music isn’t going to plan out a boycott and organize weekly/monthly meetings to plan out and continue motivating boycotts.
College campus students like to do silent protests on campus to people that agree with them and/or do symbolic stuff like lay on the ground and draw chalk marks around them or place duct tape on their mouths. Zero stakes, zero risk on a college campus, zero weight to these attempted symbols and of course the lack of organizing regular meetings to further operate. Protests have to evolve into professional/pseudo-professional organizations
And all the peaceful marches from MLK Jr. Elsewhere there was still Malcolm X, Black Panthers, Communist Party, Fred Hampton and his collection of people putting aside their racism and sexismm for shared labor/economic interests, and of course then there was MLK Jr being assassinated and a week of countrywide riots that sped the Civil Rights Act of 1968 through congress and the white house
The Tesla protests are good though. It needs to keep being hammered for years to come that Tesla cars are garbage and support garbage and portray an image of garbage. Continued exodus from X to BlueSky or Mastadon is good. Reddit to Lemmy is good. All things that hit rich people if enough people do make the move. If only there were good movements to get off Facebook and Instagram. Stuff like not buying Kentucky whisky/bourbon is good. Buy Canadian or overseas whiskey. Until American brands take a stand, buy foreign and make it known why you buy foreign
We need people from Instagram to exodus to Pixelfed. I don’t know how polished or appealing Pixelfed is though.
I use Flashes. Its on ATProto.
Protests are effective at establishing support for progressive reforms and at restraining governments from taking unpopular actions, even if the protesters don’t achieve all their goals as quickly as they would like.
See: Why protest if it doesn’t make a difference?
Protests do work
This is surprising, given that we constantly see examples where protest has made a difference. We have, already in 2024, seen blockades and protests by French farmers prompt the government to offer concessions. Likewise, in India, the renewed farmers movement marching towards Delhi has already prompted an offer from the government of improved prices for crops.
Mass street protests over a child sex abuse scandal in Budapest recently led Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to introduce legislation to address the scandal. Late last year, mass protests and street blockades in Panama led to the government closing one of the world’s largest copper mines.
Academic research also shows that protest can be influential. Workers’ protest and strike action was crucial in prompting Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as part of the creation of the US welfare state. And disruptive protests have also slowed down the adoption of the austerity measures which have eroded welfare states across the high-income democracies for the past 40 years.
Colonialism was met with ongoing resistance and protest in almost every instance, including Gandhi’s campaign of non-violent civil disobedience, as well as more militant campaigns. This grew throughout the 20th century, until maintaining occupation ultimately proved unmanageable for the colonial powers.
