Most political protests are absolutely, 100% meaningless. They might make the protesters feel a little bit better, but nothing significant ever changes. At best, it’s a one-day blip in the news; at worst, it’s a colossal waste of time for all involved.
But there are exceptions.
The power of protests is that they galvanize public opinion, pressure politicians, promote activism, and hijack the news narrative (at least for a little while). Which means, we shouldn’t judge a protest via the legislative action it produces, because that wasn’t its fundamental purpose.
Protests are theater, not sausage-making: They’re PR plays.
It’s just showbiz, babe.
And the purpose of PR isn’t to pass legislation, but to sway public sentiment.
In the lead-up to the “No Kings” protests on Oct. 18, the Democrats faced fierce perceptual headwinds — and from multiple directions, too. First, their own base despised ‘em for committing the one unforgivable sin: They lost the popular vote to “literally Hitler.”
That’s problematic, because modern elections are increasingly won or lost on turnout. It’s less about wooing the undecideds and more about ginning up the diehards.
But in the DNC’s eyes, there was no need to panic because American elections are binary decisions: It doesn’t matter how much you hate your own party — as long as you hate the other party more! And although President Trump has done a great deal to demotivate the left, he hasn’t converted them to his side. (Trump’s approval rating amongst liberals still hovers in the single digits.)
The Democrats are betting the farm that — when push comes to shove — all the good little leftists will still line up and vote Donkey. I mean, where else are they gonna go?! Since Trump is “literally Hitler” and must be stopped at all costs, they’re gambling all their chips on the “common enemy” not only being enough to keep their coalition together, but also motivated to vote.
And for this group, the PR message they most wanted to hear was that the DNC would fight back more effectively.Remember: They didn’t sour on the Democratic Party because they were angry about being lied to about Biden’s senility or disagreed with his policies.
They were mad because their “team” sucked, Trump won, and the 2024 election results made ‘em look stupid.
But even though moderates/undecided voters are less influential than ever before, they’re still a meaningful demographic. You need a combination of strong turnout from your base plus a sizable portion of moderates/undecideds in order to win.
Each year, millions of older voters die off, and millions of first-time voters are added to the electoral register. Political parties need an onboarding process for first-time voters, or they could lose these people for the next 70 years.
This was the strategy that worked so well for Trump in 2024: He rallied his base, won enough moderates/undecideds, and onboarded millions of first-time voters.
For moderates, their dislike for the Democratic Party had nothing to do with ‘em not fighting hard enough. Instead, it was policy-based and attitudinal: Between the Biden [feces] show, ineffective governance, COVID overreach, and trans/woke idiocy, they decided that the Dems were a bunch of out-of-touch weirdos.
…. But as bad as their image already was amongst moderates/undecideds, the Dems were on the verge of destroying it completely — by aligning themselves with political violence.
The Charlie Kirk assassination changed everything. No longer was political violence a theoretical possibility; it was now a clear and present danger to our democracy. Whereas a disappointingly large number of leftists celebrated Kirk’s murder, the rest of the country was shocked and appalled.
…. The Trump administration aggressively connected the fears, outrages, and public backlash of Kirk’s death to the virulent rhetoric of radical left voices, which was entirely fair to do: Actions have consequences, and after ten long years of calling one side “literally Hitler” and a “fascist” a million-zillion times, eventually, someone was gonna take ‘em at their word.
Which is exactly what happened when Tyler Robinson wrote “Hey fascist! Catch!” on a bullet casing.
The Democrats’ public image was in the toilet. One more act of political violence would’ve permanently branded ‘em as the party of unstable, unlikeable, anti-American sociopaths (which isn’t a great way to win moderates/undecideds).
Enter the “No Kings” rallies. Sure, we can joke about the absurdity of the event. As we discussed yesterda …. But as a PR event, it was highly successful
Although the turnout wasn’t anywhere close to the 7 million attendees that organizers claimed, it was still a lot of people. Probably there were about 5 million participants.
And for the most part, they were peaceful.
The “No Kings” protests accomplished two key things for the left: First, it signaled to their base that the Democratic Party is (finally!) ready to stand up and fight. It certainly wasn’t coincidental that the protests took place during the “Schumer Shutdown.” The messaging — and the timing — was intentional.
It gave their downtrodden base a sorely-needed shot in the arm.
Second, it signaled to moderates/undecideds that not all anti-Trump voices are violent, sociopathic, Antifa-inspired wackaloons. For the most part, everyone there behaved. For the most part, the American flags outnumbered the Palestinian, Mexican, and LGBTQ flags. For the most part, the participants understood how “political theater” works, followed their assigned script, and kept their noses clean.
And because they did, the label of “political violence” will be harder to pin on ‘em.
In the process, they did open themselves up to further lampooning: Instead of being led by young, energetic 20-somethings, the “No Kings” rallies were full of Boomers and 70-something ex-hippies. Their outfits were ridiculous and unserious. (With all due respect to The Washington Post, an inflatable frog suit is NOT the “fashion statement of the year.” It’s goofy and weird.)
But they successfully energized their base, and they put reputational distance between themselves and political violence. Not completely, of course, but progress was made. We’re fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
And that alone made it a big PR victory.
