Protesters walk by Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s house today. pic.twitter.com/FH7uEIyFJc
— Ron Filipkowski ???? (@RonFilipkowski) May 12, 2022
Of course, Judge Comey Barrett — assuming someone told her about this protest — is probably loving it, because she’s always dreamed of being Aunt Lydia. But this mini-march isn’t aimed at her, it’s meant for all the I-don’t-pay-much-attention-to-politics voters who need to be persuaded to turn out in November.
of all the sanctimonious howls about what kinds of protest are "allowed", i've got to say, the one about seven women in comfortable shoes being scary by… walking by someone's house on the sidewalk has to be one of the most pathetic
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 13, 2022
i'm sorry but your neighbor's ultra mega SUV barreling down your suburban street is going to be *significantly* more dangerous to your precious children than a handful of women who maybe watch a little too much television but whose hearts are in the right place
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 13, 2022
and, like, notably, their preference is that they *never* be confronted. the supreme court is *already* incredibly walled off (almost literally right now) from the public.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 13, 2022
i, personally, thought this stuff was cringe. but i also realized maybe i should shut the fuck up about it and that people needed to express themselves in ways i didn’t really connect to. but i wasn’t a virgin about it. and you were, and that’s cool. https://t.co/GlKxboUqs9
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) May 13, 2022
It is wild to see reporters get taken for a ride time and time again by anti-abortion folks who are demonstrably lying — in this case, about not supporting abortion criminalization or wanting to outlaw birth controlhttps://t.co/Gwfo2WB2cr
— andrea grimes (@andreagrimes) May 12, 2022
If you want abortion to be legal in your state you have to elect democrats in your state. You know this, you write about abortion. You know what has happened. Tweeting stuff like this is cynical and manipulative. https://t.co/Bl3xjMqPDV
— Centrist ??Madness (@CentristMadness) May 12, 2022
Omnes Omnibus
Noah Smith was bothered because there were too many girls at the women’s march.
Baud
The plan
At the state level, you don’t even have to worry about #2.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: What was the middle part again?
Baud
The GOP does cringe stuff all the time. Their voters don’t care.
Maybe that’s why they win elections — they keep their eyes on the prize.
debbie
They’re scarier than sidewalk chalk??? ?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
End filibuster?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: There was one?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m confused.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: So am I. I thought that was obvious.
UncleEbeneezer
I’m so done with “but we already vote” responses. If you already vote, they AREN’T TALKING TO YOU!!! There’s no path forward that doesn’t require electing more Dems. Period.
debbie
I can’t help but think back to 2020 when a bunch of RWNJs tromped across lawns waving their AR-15s to protest the state health director’s COVID restrictions. No problem with that, I guess. //
Splitting Image
I think women should castrate every man who votes for this shit.
But I understand I’m not a median voter on issues like this.
Jerzy Russian
Pussy hats are alienating? Perhaps a pecker hat of some kind will make him feel more welcome?
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Tell people not to protest because they already protested and they will call you a traitor.
But they will complain to the heavens about having to vote consistently to achieve results.
Starfish
@Omnes Omnibus: I loved how he got so thoroughly roasted for that.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
why??????
too many girls was an opportunity I would have killed for when I was single,…..//
Ken
What a coincidence. I, too, would like to see her stripped of all political power and forced to remain within her home, obeying her husband or whatever male relative is designated as her guardian.
Kristine
The folks who complain about having to vote again and again make me so mad. We’re fighting people who plan moves that will take years if not decades to unfold and they bitch that all the problems weren’t addressed within a couple of election cycles. GMAFB
Kay
If you read women online leading up to the march the hats were a sign of solidarity and also a real life collective action. They wrote patterns, knitted them, gave them away in batches, etc. I did not do this nor did I attend the march but I knew it was happening because I read women on social media. It was all over Instagram and Facebook- ordinary women planning this thing which, incidentally, was wildly successful. The march was huge. But I guess if you didn’t know any of that you might view them differently.
Sometimes when I don’t like the hats people wear I just keep that to myself. Impossible to imagine, I know.
Starfish
@Baud: I think the concern with these protests is the ineffective and insular nature of them. White women followed Mike Pence around with their Handmaid’s robes. What meaningful thing did that do? Now they are doing the same at Amy Coney Barrett’s house.
When you are building the big tent, it is not you and five of your friend’s hanging out on the sidewalk in front of your house.
Staying home and giving money to your local abortion fund is more effective than this.
Most “ethical spectacle” type protests exist to attract young folks to a movement. It’s stuff like die in’s for various causes or camping in front of city hall to bring attention to homelessness or whatever stupid crap it is that PETA is doing. This isn’t doing that.
Starfish
@debbie: They are not only doing that. They have gun day at the various state capitols where they can go in and intimidate state lawmakers too.
Baud
@Starfish:
Oh, I hate most protests. Very few are successfully done. But I just move on instead of feeling “alienated.” What exactly does that mean anyway?
Starfish
@Kay: I did. I attended several years of the marches.
However, the local march splintered off from the main one.
The movement was nebulous and with no real message for a long time; but once it had a real message, was the message local and relevant? It was not.
The movement did get some people more visible in politics, and the splinter group has a board. They sent out a message to join the various abortion rights marches happening tomorrow. I think there are ones in numerous state capitols, sponsored by the local Planned Parenthood and other entities like that.
Starfish
@Baud: A number of people have said this lately.
They feel like protests do not make real change. I think organizing a protest builds a community that can and will work together on other projects.
Baud
@Starfish:
Protests can work. I just think they have a high failure rate. And too many people think of them as the only way to effectuate change, which is harmful.
Ken
@Starfish: Look how successful the trucker convoys were at, um, whatever they were protesting against. Or for.
Another Scott
@UncleEbeneezer: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
Splitting Image
@Baud:
It means that the protesters selfishly made the protest about themselves instead of the guy complaining.
Kay
@Starfish:
Yeah, I really disagree about the “uselessness” of people meeting in small groups. Every movement of any kind started and was sustained by like minded people meeting in small groups.
Telling people their only role is to vote and send money is not the way to build anything that lasts. The connection is not just with the issue. It’s with the like minded people. That’s what holds it together when the bill fails or the politician disappoints – you’ve stood with these people met them, talked with them, and you don’t want to let them down by bailing.
MagdaInBlack
@Ken: Ya, I see her as more Serena Joy..wasn’t she the WIFE who got her finger cut off for reading the bible ?
She had been an important leader in the movement and then *poof* she lost all her rights too.
Omnes Omnibus
I have to say that I don’t feel bad if Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett, and Collins feel a bit uncomfortable.
Kay
@Baud:
Please. What is it protestors aren’t doing that the hard headed realists are doing? I bet the turnout rate among womens march attendees was better than 90%.
He doesn’t like the hats because he’s a cool guy and it’s “cringe” and he doesn’t want to be associated with “cringe”.
debbie
@Kay:
Or the word “pussy” makes him blush.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: Thought of you when I read Margaret Atwoods article in The Atlantic today. I recommend you google it.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile, Texas Supreme Court ruled that the state can restart investigations to charge the parents of trans kids with felonies for giving their children the care they need.
Before a prior court injunction temporarily blocking this, so many child welfare investigators had been assigned to terrorize parents of trans kids, that there wasn’t enough staff to investigate actual cases of alleged child abuse and neglect. Significantly, investigators were told not to keep written notes about these investigations, presumably to prevent a paper trail. Because the
Great State of Texas Republic of Gilead has priorities doncha know.Suzanne
The pink pussy hats were intentionally about women’s crafts, about taking this activity which is mostly taught to women by other women, and using it as a protest method. He might have found it “cringe”, but he also wasn’t the audience. Shocking, I know.
So this afternoon, the house two down from mine had a bad electrical fire. All humans and pets accounted for. House appears to be done. Everything still smells like smoke.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I find the word cringe used in this way really cringe.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Your neighborhood is too damn exciting.
Kay
@debbie:
Oh, you can’t win with these people. If the march had been a flop he’d be writing some essay about how no one does anything in real life anymore. Some stupid “bowling alone” thesis.
They do it because some people like to go places and talk to other people. They have this thing in common- the issue. That’s what draws them together. Obviously if that’s too embarrassing for him he can just stay home and pen some more criticism.
Another Scott
@Starfish: I don’t think protests, in general, are intended to somehow directly cause policy changes. But they’re part of the process that does create change over time.
I think their main function is to show attendees that they’re not alone, that there are like-minded people out there. And people who are interested in getting more involved going forward find people to connect with, and those motivated people are what helps drive change.
MLK’s August 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” absolutely helped lead to the 1964-1965 Civil Rights laws. But did it fail because it didn’t obviously achieve all its stated goals?
I have no doubt that the Women’s March in 2017 had a lot to do with Democrats picking up 40-ish seats in the House in the 2018 elections, myself.
On the other hand, we know that millions marching against Bush’s war with Iraq didn’t deter him, and it’s not clear what legacy, if any, those marches had.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I wish I could heckle my nut job Supreme Court neighbor every day instead of saying hello to my current neighbor.
Feathers
@Kay: The other thing that happened was that immediately after the march (and hats) were such a success, there was a complete hate on over them. They were racist because not everyone’s pussy is pink, they were transphobic because not all women have pussies. Sigh. I had one friend go to a follow up organizing meeting that turned out to be nothing but an education session on those two topics. Needless to say, the activism that could have come out of the march was in many ways actively discouraged.
There was a huge amount of solidarity in the making of the hats. I made several for neighbors, I ended up giving away the one I wore to a young girl who danced and jumped in glee when she put it on. Her mother told me she felt so bad that her daughter didn’t have one, she didn’t know that people would be wearing them. Within a week, you were getting dirty looks on the T for wearing one.
RaflW
I’m increasingly of the opinion that Ginni Thomas was one of the early leakers to get the topic changed to abortion, and off spousal conflicts of interest / sedition.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay:
Plus, ya know, women are pretty good at multi-tasking. We can protest and vote, donate, organize phone banking, engage in lobbying campaigns, etc
@Another Scott:
cain
@Sister Golden Bear: These folks are fighting on several fronts.
I’m feel so sorry for these trans kids and their loving parents.
These people…
I suppose they’ll make gender switching a crime too at some point.
Sister Golden Bear
@cain: They have literal plans to do so. They’ve already had a successful campaigns in far too many state to prevent trans people from changing their legal ID. Which has mostly been overturn, but I know people who still can’t change their birth certificate because it’s prohibited.
Aside from reminding trans people that they’re fourth-class citizens, this also is intended to out trans people. There have been a number of trans people outed when Social Security contacted their employer about a mismatch in their legal IDs — in fairness to SSA, they were trying to ensure it wasn’t SS fraud, but still…) Not being able change your birth certificate also can prevent you from changing a myriad of other legal ID documents.
Kay
@Feathers:
I had a mother and daughter (about nine years old) show me theirs – someone sent them- and it was nice. Rural Ohio. This isn’t complicated – it makes you feel you’re not alone.
I sometimes think 9 year olds are the only people I like. It all goes downhill from there. That’s the peak of human development.
Omnes Omnibus
This is a good take on the hat tweet.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: I feel the same way. Yesterday marked two years to the day since we left Arizona. It has been an action-packed two years!
I feel terribly for the family, having to just sit out there and watch. They’re still out there. And a crew of people boarding up the house.
Feathers
@Another Scott: One thing that I’ve realized is that to break through, protests need to have an element of surprise. They need to be bigger, be all over, or have a different set of people involved. Social media has helped with this. Huge numbers of people out in the streets, for causes that you wouldn’t have expected them to be there. My father went to the big anti-gun protest after the Parkland school shooting. The last protest he had previously attended was — the 1963 March on Washington. He was a federal worker and walked over on his lunch hour. Apparently he was interviewed by a Black radio station from Georgia about why a white man came to the March. Realizing I should try to track that down.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
It is good :)
RaflW
@Starfish: I just looked, and sadly the Women’s March Wisconsin twitter acct hasn’t tweeted since May of 2020.
There’s a protest in Madison at the WI Capitol tomorrow at 4pm. Maybe the WI group was able to hand off some list-building or something before folding, but it bums me out to see organizing potential seem to fad out like that.
westyny
@Baud:
4. Profit!!
Citizen Alan
@debbie: The events of the last 6 years have completely ended my personal support for the gun control movement. I don’t think anything is going to get any better until there is a significant number of heavily armed liberals who are willing to show up to these things and intimidate conservatives the way they want to intimidate us: Just by being there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan:
Have you bought a gun and learned how to use it?
Kay
So I don’t know if this is true other places but Ohio has lots parades. Lots. Every town has parade in the summer. My part of Ohio is very conservative so there be lots and lots of Republican floats at these parades but there is only one Dem one. The Democrats go fucking crazy when we pass them. They clap and hoot an holler. Now I can’t measure that precinct by precinct but I suspect it helps, and if it doesn’t, well 31 people enjoyed it and felt slightly less like a political minority. Now multiply that by all the like minded people who see NO protests and know very few liberals where they live but saw this one on tv or in newspapers.
Citizen Alan
@debbie: The events of the last 6 years have completely ended my personal support for the gun control movement. I don’t think anything is going to get any better until there is a significant number of heavily armed liberals who are willing to show up to these things and intimidate conservatives the way they want to intimidate us: Just by being there.
@MagdaInBlack:
Yeah, I’ve been calling her Serena Joy since the day she was nominated.
RaflW
@Another Scott: Every now and then, a protest does make a difference.
In 2006 I was one of the core organizers of a MN capitol rotunda protest of faith leaders who all wanted to block an anti-same sex marriage amendment.
There had been a very strident pro-amendment rally on the lawn a few days earlier, and a number of rightwing Christian protesters entered the building and pounded on hearing room doors in frustration that they were being ‘ignored’ (they weren’t! Michelle Bachmann was building her entire political career on these people!).
Anyway, our rally turned out close to 2000 people, which utterly blew our minds – nothing like it in terns of pro-gay faith people had ever happened there.
We sang songs, cheered happily, listened to speeches, and then went home (some of us stayed to do some small group, well behaved office visits – y’know, the way normal citizens lobby. Not a door was pounded!).
My then-neighbor and straight ally state House member said later that the contrast between the nutbag angry Christians, and the kindly people who were asking that MN just not legislate us out of existence was incredibly helpful. It was going to be a close call, probably a bad one, if the amendment had gone to the floor.
Our protest was essential to getting Dem leadership to hold the bill off the floor. That delay, by a couple of years, then set the stage for MN being the first state in the US (with a TON of organizing by, well, you can guess – people including me) to have the state’s voters reject a constitutional anti-marriage amendment!
There really are some protests that matter.
Jay
@Sister Golden Bear:
yurp.
Another Scott
@RaflW: Thanks for that. And congratulations, and thanks for all you’re doing.
Forward!! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus:
If, God forbid, circumstances compel me to move back to any Southern state, I will get a handgun, I will get gun training, I will get certified to carry it everywhere. Because we are now at the point in this nation where something as innocuous as wearing a covid mask in Walmart might get me physically assaulted by one of these nazi fuckers.
Anyway
Going to the women’s march in DC was the first moment of hope I felt after the deep sadness, dejection, pain following TFG’s election. Being with all those like-minded people felt so motivating and powerful. There was nothing cringe about that day,
delk
Thanks to Betty I only know her as Bony Carrot.
Mike in NC
In November people will need to remember that Moscow Mitch promised a federal ban on all abortions. That’s Fascism 101.
Poe Larity
@Omnes Omnibus: I just look dreadful in pink.
Can’t protests be more fashionable, I mean Republicans have Hugo Boss and Brooks Brothers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sure they are not enough, but the Pussy Hats and the women dressed in Red really are good political theater about making a point. It’s obvious by the screams of “were is civility” that the message is getting across too.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Protests aren’t just about political results. They are also just good ways to keep our spirits up, network, connect, organize and keep us civically engaged. The vast majority of protests are more about movement building than any tangible political wins.
JWR
I really love Seth Meyers’ A Closer Look, but lately, I don’t know whether I’m gonna laugh or wince whenever he or his writers go off the deep end complaining about how they’re so tired of, well, voting. Last week, two of his writers, Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel, who I usually love to death, did a sort of dance number all about this very issue. I think it works to drive down voting among the yoots.
Feathers
@Baud: I think social media has really changed the nature of protests. It’s not just the people who always show up for protests, each one is tied to some unique event with an ad hoc group of people inspired by someone’s call to show up at this place and time. You can also meet up with people that you only “know” online and put a shared human feeling on what you’ve been going through by yourself.
RaflW
@Citizen Alan: I sometimes have these thoughts in ‘red’ exurban Wisconsin.
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: I understand your anger and frustration, but I would point to the following HSPH publications:
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@JWR: I took the tremendously popular Positive Psychology class when I worked at Harvard. One of the things the professor told us that stuck with me is that the things that help you on an even keel mentally are kind of corny (cringe in today’s lingo): exercise, enough sleep, getting enough nutrition, making sure you connect with friends, gratitude… Everything in the media world we live in is about being cool. Being cringe feels dangerous, but in so many ways it’s the only way to safety.
Voting is like brushing your teeth, feels like you shouldn’t have to do it, but you do.
Reverse tool order
Voting is kind of like doing dishes. However well you did them yesterday, you have to again, and again.
rikyrah
Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) tweeted at 5:41 PM on Fri, May 13, 2022:
First, @elonmusk put Twitter on layaway but he couldn’t get it out
Then he offered them a postdated check
He tried to use that old crackhead trick, talmbout: “you give me Twitter, I’mma run to the sto & be RIGHT BACK with yo money!”
Now they gotta wait til his tax refund hit
(https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1525244872357289984?s=02)
Ken
@rikyrah: I thought he was paying for it the old-fashioned way:
I believe the technical term is “leveraged buyout”.
Danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fuck that guy. I mean, seriously…
Danielx
@Ken:
Or in nontechnical words: I Got Mine, Fuck You.
”Leveraged buyout” always sounds so clinical.
JWR
@Omnes Omnibus:
Upvoted.
:)
gene108
@RaflW:
It’s very hard for an all volunteer grassroots movement to gain traction. At some point, people have other things that need attention.
Organizations that have worked to further civil rights, labor rights, or in conservative cases working against those things, have become professional organizations with paid staff. The NAACP pops to mind as an example, and labor unions too.
On the conservative side, so many rich fuckwads with money to burn support a bunch of hacks to throw shit against the wall to see what sticks. Occasionally they strike cold, like they did with Rufo’s CRT panic. But because they can field a countless number of paid hacks, they can keep pushing their unpopular ideas for decades until one day those ideas become laws.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’m not the hugest Chuck Schumer fan in the world but I thought his response when asked about the SCOTUS protests was pitch perfect – “well I have people protesting outside my house 3-4 days a week. So long as the protests are peaceful I don’t have a problem with them.”
If you’re on SCOTUS and you can’t handle protests well, just resign. This is what you signed up for – to protect free speech, including free speech directed at you that registers disapproval with your decisions. If you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen.
That said I don’t do much protesting. I can see how it might be cathartic but to affect change you have to turn out at the ballot box not to the streets. If protests boost voter turnout, great. If they don’t, I mean so you turned out in the streets and thought your job was done? That’s counterproductive. Or, you protest but you won’t vote for the candidate that would move the ball in your direction on your pet issue because they’re not pledging to move it as far as you want? Or they’re not pledging to move it in your direction at all but just saying they won’t let it move further in the wrong direction, which their opponent will almost certainly do? Well then, you’ve accomplished very little with your protest. In politics you have to vote for people that support your issue tepidly rather than rabidly sometimes.
Conservatives do this all the time. They often express extreme displeasure for people they’ve voted for because those people are nigh on RINOs but they turn out in every single election and hold their nose and vote for them anyway. And then they spend four years threatening to primary them and pushing them further right. But you got to get that imperfect candidate elected before you can start pushing them.
matt
People like Renee Bracey Sherman tried voting and it didn’t work, so now they just spend all Election Day masturbating, and every other day.
oldster
@Anyway:
Yes. I was there, and this is exactly what I thought, too.
UncleEbeneezer
@RaflW: And at the hyper-local level, City Councils, School Boards etc., protests can be very effective. Most low-or-unpaid City Council people really don’t want the drama of being on the wrong side of protests. Sadly, this is one of the things that Conservatives use to their advantage.