THEY WON'T THINK WE'RE SERIOUS UNTIL WE'RE MASSING ON THE MALL

This was Axios on November 24:

While President-elect Trump's 2016 win sparked shock, outrage and massive protests, the response to his 2024 victory has been more muted.

The big picture: 2016 birthed The Resistance, a political movement to protest Trumpism online and in the streets. There's still plenty of resistance to Trump across the country, but little mass mobilization.

Here was The New York Times four days ago:

Unlike the opening of Mr. Trump’s first term in 2017, little significant resistance to his second term has arisen in the streets....

And here's Semafor today, in a story about the courtroom war against Trump:

“We’ve had a great deal of success with preliminary injunctions, temporary restraining orders in the courts,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told Semafor on Wednesday....

“Democratic attorneys general are currently batting a thousand at getting injunctions, which is great,” said Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, who cautioned that the final outcome “remains to be seen.”

On the other hand: There are no mass protests on the Mall, few stirring speeches, and many, many angry social media posts. Around the country and on Capitol Hill, Democrats sure don’t feel like they’re winning.

I know that big demonstrations are frustrating -- hundreds of thousands of people turn out to protest, then the coverage is muted and little or nothing changes.

But clearly the media considers this an important metric for whether the opposition to Trump is serious. If the press demands big crowds in the streets, then we should try delivering big crowds in the streets.

I was surprised at the response to the Women's March on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump's first inaugural. I thought it would be seen as having too narrow an agenda because it was called the Women's March. I thought the pink pussy hats would be dismissed as cringe and vulgar. But even though it didn't upend the Trump presidency all by itself, it was portrayed as evidence that Trump hadn't won over large portions of the country. It inspired many people to join groups such as Indivisible. It began a process that led to Democratic gains in the 2018 midterms and, ultimately, led to Trump's defeat in 2020.

It also told a lot of people in America that they weren't alone, that millions of other Americans were unhappy with Trump. That's important, too.

I've been in touch with various activist groups in recent weeks, and they seem to be focused on phone calls to legislators and postcard-writing campaigns for upcoming elections. I attended one demonstration last week with members of the local Indivisible group, but it was at an office for our two Democratic senators, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. That was a good thing to do -- they both need to have their feet held to the fire. But these groups seem focused on "electeds" to the exclusion of any focus on the enemy. For instance, I can't seem to interest them in this:

protests at Tesla dealerships have been popping up all over the country and a decentralized call for them to happen en masse on Saturday.

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— Clara Jeffery (@clarajeffery.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 10:18 AM

The author of a 2019 book on Musk says he's heard from people who want to cover demonstrations at Tesla dealerships:

Please post the locations you are targeting for #TeslaTakedown protests this Saturday! I'm getting outreach from major media interested in covering these demonstrations, so let's let them know where they can go to hear your voice. If you are in NYC, LA, Chicago, or DC, please sound off below 👇

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— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) February 12, 2025 at 11:51 AM

This wouldn't be The Big Demonstration -- but there could be many smaller demonstrations that add up to something fairly big.

I plan to be at the Tesla showroom in Manhattan's trendy Meatpacking District on Saturday morning. The address is 860 Washington Street. It's near the High Line, the Whitney Museum, Chelsea Market, and Google. But I don't know whether anyone else will show up.

A group called Rise and Resist demonstrated there on Sunday and got some local press.

But the same group doesn't seem to be planning a follow-up on Saturday, apparently because the group is focused on joining in a series of local demonstrations on Monday, which is President's Day. Which is good! I want to go to that one, too.

One benefit of protest is that it creates the perception that Trump = unrest. If there's unrest, America won't seem great to low-information voters. The MAGA faithful will hate us, but they always do. The folks in the middle might recognize that a central component of Trumpism is creating chaos and division in America.

Lawyers can't do everything. We need to make noise.