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.
Longtime political analyst Larry Sabato preaches that the winning candidate is almost always the one whom voters would prefer to share a beer with — or invite over for a barbecue cookout. But after the shrill absolutism of the woke movement, with biological men sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with women and teenage girls, moderates/undecideds were weirded out.
These voters might not have a partisan frame of reference for tariffs or corporate tax rates, but they’ve certainly been in a public bathroom before! That’s one of the reasons why this issue continues to resonate so strongly across the country: It’s straightforward and instantly understandable.
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.
It harkened those dark, depressing days immediately after 9/11, when we still weren’t sure if the al-Qaeda attacks were a horrifying one-off — or if we were about to enter a deadly new age of global terrorism, bloodshed, and Islamic-inspired attacks on American cities: Was 9/11 a tragic anomaly, or the first wave of a “new normal?”
Same goes for Charlie Kirk: Nobody knows if his assassination signified the end of one era — or the beginning of another.
That chapter has yet to be written.
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 yesterday:
The same party that lied about Joe Biden’s senility is now a fierce advocate of truth-telling and honesty. The same party that coronated Kamala Harris without ANY primary votes is now our nation’s uncompromising defenders of democracy. The same party that launched an unprecedented campaign of lawfare against their political enemies is flabbergasted when lawfare is used against it.
The same party that (still) relies on Blue State gerrymandering is now claiming that Red State gerrymandering is an “undemocratic” attempt to “steal” elections. The same party that coerced the tech giants into deplatforming conservatives is now defending free speech. The same minority party that shuttered the federal government is now accusing the majority party of acting like kings because those dastardly Republicans want ‘em to get back to work and do their freaking jobs.
And so, they’ll save us from the scourge of higher healthcare premiums… by taking away our paychecks!
But as a PR event, it was highly successful.
Was it performative? You betcha! The leftwing rag Mother Jones offered an amusing anecdote about protesters waving an American flag for the very first time:
I talked to a trio of older protesters sitting on a wall, together holding an American flag as marchers streamed endlessly past. They didn’t want to give their names or have their photo taken; they said they were afraid of being doxxed. “I support democracy and our country,” one of them told me. “It’s not about ideology.” He said that growing up, he’d never imagined that all three branches of government would be “supporting autocracy.”
A woman chimed in; she wanted to share what another member of the group had said to her earlier: “I’ve never bought an American flag before, and this is what it’s come to.” We all laughed, and one of them added that “it was important to show that we love America, too.” [emphasis added]
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.
Related: The ‘No Kings’ Lie and the Great Liberal Retcon
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.
One Last Thing: The Schumer Shutdown is upon us. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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