Why the power of protests is declining

The right to protest is vital for democracies to survive. Our society has a proud history of successful protests. The crown jewel of American protests are anti-segregation efforts of the 1950s and 1960s, which, through countless freedom rides and sit-ins, diminished what seemed to be an immutable system of segregation.

It seems that, since then, the power protests have declined. Why? We will discover if we start to read what Martin Luther King Jr., the most famous protest leader in American history, actually wrote.

When addressing the purpose of what he called direct action, the final step of nonviolent campaigns, King wrote that the purpose of direct action is to “create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”

OK, nonviolent protests should be unignorable and blindside ignorance. Let’s see how this plays in contemporary protests.

Recently, thousands gathered to tell the current presidential administration to keep their “hands off”, as the name entails. Immediately, I noticed conflicts with King’s advice. While the high turnout seems impressive, these marches, some thousands of miles away from the White House, hardly create tension with how the administration operates. A presidential administration is involved in innumerable decisions, so putting on a big-tent protest lacks focused goals.

Most critically, I was left with the question of the intended audience. The failure to create an audience causes most protests to fail. Your opposition doesn’t want to listen, so forcing them to is arduous. Today’s protests don’t create audiences because, as King puts it, creative tension is absent. People know protests come and go, so they stop caring. No audience, no creative tension, no change.

James Glaskin-Clay

Mundelein