Yes! This is exactly as I've described in the essay above:
Permanent Protest as Identity
Protest is not a tactic for them; it’s an organizing principle. The act of opposing, marching, and “showing up” creates belonging and purpose. Once protest becomes identity, compromise looks like betrayal. So instead of campaigning to persuade swing voters, they campaign to maintain moral clarity and emotional unity among their supporters.
I'm shocked how much and how hard people are working to justify protest for protest's sake. It reveals that they know all the problems and that it doesn't lead to the actual democratic goal of winning elections and, you know, actually changing things, but its now so much part of their culture and identity, and such and expression of moral worth that it must be done anyway, and somehow they can only hope that in a sort of mousetrap game it leads to the things they could have approached directly.
The one thing you don't mention is that it eliminates the need for compromise with anyone who differs, or taking responsibility for or to those with different points of view or visions of the future.
With all hope lost for the democratic system of compromise and long term strategy, the new protest party depends entirely on encouraging new converts to join in the cause rather than the more difficult work of finding middle ground with those who differ from us in mind and manner.
Sigh. Just like there's no perfect victim, apparently there's no perfect protester either. Each and every failing you've attributed to movements on the left have been used with great success by movements on the right. Black and white? Check. Good vs evil? Got it. No room for differing views? With us or against us? Defining a clear villian? Same same. But by all means- lay the blame for political division at the feet of people motivated to speak out. I would suggest that the left punches up (Trump, white supremicists, billionaires) while the right punches down (immigrants, trans people, women). I can't speak to Indivisible- as you say this is a movement of the Democratic Party- a protest with zero demands. But Black Lives Matter or Extinction Rebellion? These are morally just movements that have arisen because "persuasion and incremental reform" have failed. Political jockeying for positions around the centre have led us to this point, where there has been achingly slow progress, and we have run out of time. But instead the writers and thinkers of the day (yes, I mean you) who we look to for inspiration fail to offer alternatives or suggestions. Instead it's just more critiquing on how to protest politely. How to ask nicely. How to be sure not to alienate anyone or inconvenience anyone. Be outraged but not too outraged, take a moral position but don't get on your high horse, stand for everything while standing for nothing.
Forgive me for being fed up. Stop the genocide in Gaza. Stop selling privately protected lands in NS to private interests. Stop bailing out big banks and big oil. Stop criminalizing poverty. And since the powers that be ignore those of us who followed the steps and jumped through the hoops and wrote the emails and yes- joined the committees and presented at councils- you can find me in the streets or in the forests at the protests that matter.
I appreciate how strongly you feel about these issues. I don’t disagree that protest has a moral place. But my point isn’t that protest is wrong; it’s that protest alone isn’t enough.
Will the circle be unbroken? How?
Movements succeed when they convert outrage into organization, when moral passion becomes political muscle. When that doesn’t happen, the energy leaks out into spectacle and leaves the hard work to others.
I'm working very hard to offer a formula to tip the scales back to a classical liberal path.
It starts with admitting there's a problem. Then believing change is possible. I'm proposing that the protest culture of the last 50 years is at least partly to blame for what amounts to a small decline and balkanization of the left that is holding us back from the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
You’re right that both left and right use the same emotional mechanics — good vs. evil, moral clarity, shared outrage. The danger isn’t which side uses them; it’s when either side starts believing that emotion itself is democracy.
Indivisible, BLM, Extinction Rebellion — all these movements began with just cause. The question is what comes next. Do they widen the circle or harden it? Do they make converts or keep score?
I have to press the point that Indivisible is not a movement "of" the Democratic Party. It is its own ecosystem with its own ends. It will never get its people to the promised land. And it will always take from not give to an election winning strategy.
Can raising the awareness of a radical base continue to replace all the people lost in the middle and all hope of ever finding common ground with people on the right?
My argument is that real change requires owning the machinery we already have — the dull, difficult, democratic machinery. It’s slow, yes. It’s about compromise, yes. But it’s the only path that endures once the cameras and chants fade.
I’m not asking anyone to ‘protest politely.’ I’m asking us to protest purposefully. The street matters most when it leads back to the ballot box and the policy table.
John this subject came up today in a gathering of elders and a very good point was made that may be more important than whether protest leads directly to change. Protests are where people find support for their own deep feelings about an issue of substance.. It validates convictions and educates those in attendance and makes them feel less alone and impotent. This can give folks the boost they need to help field a candidate, join a party, show up to vote nd encourage others in participating.
In four years, Western democracies will still exist and function, but they will be more polarized, less trusted, and more dependent on technology to administer elections, regulate information, and maintain order. The notion that government can only exist with the general agreement of the governed will become a central issue as the classical liberals lose the ability to manage the demcratic ideals they once founded.
The United States will remain the political and economic anchor, though weaker and more fragmented in public life. The Trump era will be over and politics will be both more boring and more bureaucratic.
Europe will continue to struggle with demographic decline, slow growth, and security dependence on NATO. There will be a huge struggle to understand and share the meaning of a nation and how any nation is defined in a world of consultation culture, radical self interest and hyper-individualism.
None of this will end democracy, but it will strain it to the point of dysfunction.
In forty years, the structure of democracy will still exist, but it will operate differently. National governments will have ceded more authority to regions, cities, and digital networks. Voters will participate more directly through secure digital systems that provide consultation of every possible issue of interest to the radical fingers all around the political spectrum. Prosperity, progress, and purpose will be almost totally lost in the process. PEople will be in a war with bureaucracy — the only institution powerful and equipment enough to withstand the force of various marol movements. Political parties as we know them will be largely gone as they will be perceived, though just a relic of history, as the great evil force of democracy that somehow nafariously intermediate for bad purpose the relationship between citizens and a kind of direct democracy that people believe technology could now deliver.
The basic principle of democratic legitimacy—consent of the governed—will survive, but the institutions, elected representatives and elites that manage it today will not.
read Murray Bookchin, tend and steward your municipality, & hope for the best. as conventional dysfunctional food growing and distribution systems fall apart urban areas will realize their dependence on relatively local farmers and the iceberg will roll. many like you think progress and prosperity depend on a corporate-educated virtual-based elite doing almost nothing of substance. real progress and prosperity will once again come from the land, sun and water, helped along with an ethics borne of suffering.
Good lord, Mr. Chisholm, do you actually think there will be anything left of normal functioning democracy in 4 years' time? Do you know what's already happening? What would you have done in Germany 1934? Where (and how) do you think this is going to end?
Yes! This is exactly as I've described in the essay above:
Permanent Protest as Identity
Protest is not a tactic for them; it’s an organizing principle. The act of opposing, marching, and “showing up” creates belonging and purpose. Once protest becomes identity, compromise looks like betrayal. So instead of campaigning to persuade swing voters, they campaign to maintain moral clarity and emotional unity among their supporters.
I'm shocked how much and how hard people are working to justify protest for protest's sake. It reveals that they know all the problems and that it doesn't lead to the actual democratic goal of winning elections and, you know, actually changing things, but its now so much part of their culture and identity, and such and expression of moral worth that it must be done anyway, and somehow they can only hope that in a sort of mousetrap game it leads to the things they could have approached directly.
The one thing you don't mention is that it eliminates the need for compromise with anyone who differs, or taking responsibility for or to those with different points of view or visions of the future.
With all hope lost for the democratic system of compromise and long term strategy, the new protest party depends entirely on encouraging new converts to join in the cause rather than the more difficult work of finding middle ground with those who differ from us in mind and manner.
The Bee
Sigh. Just like there's no perfect victim, apparently there's no perfect protester either. Each and every failing you've attributed to movements on the left have been used with great success by movements on the right. Black and white? Check. Good vs evil? Got it. No room for differing views? With us or against us? Defining a clear villian? Same same. But by all means- lay the blame for political division at the feet of people motivated to speak out. I would suggest that the left punches up (Trump, white supremicists, billionaires) while the right punches down (immigrants, trans people, women). I can't speak to Indivisible- as you say this is a movement of the Democratic Party- a protest with zero demands. But Black Lives Matter or Extinction Rebellion? These are morally just movements that have arisen because "persuasion and incremental reform" have failed. Political jockeying for positions around the centre have led us to this point, where there has been achingly slow progress, and we have run out of time. But instead the writers and thinkers of the day (yes, I mean you) who we look to for inspiration fail to offer alternatives or suggestions. Instead it's just more critiquing on how to protest politely. How to ask nicely. How to be sure not to alienate anyone or inconvenience anyone. Be outraged but not too outraged, take a moral position but don't get on your high horse, stand for everything while standing for nothing.
Forgive me for being fed up. Stop the genocide in Gaza. Stop selling privately protected lands in NS to private interests. Stop bailing out big banks and big oil. Stop criminalizing poverty. And since the powers that be ignore those of us who followed the steps and jumped through the hoops and wrote the emails and yes- joined the committees and presented at councils- you can find me in the streets or in the forests at the protests that matter.
I appreciate how strongly you feel about these issues. I don’t disagree that protest has a moral place. But my point isn’t that protest is wrong; it’s that protest alone isn’t enough.
Will the circle be unbroken? How?
Movements succeed when they convert outrage into organization, when moral passion becomes political muscle. When that doesn’t happen, the energy leaks out into spectacle and leaves the hard work to others.
I'm working very hard to offer a formula to tip the scales back to a classical liberal path.
It starts with admitting there's a problem. Then believing change is possible. I'm proposing that the protest culture of the last 50 years is at least partly to blame for what amounts to a small decline and balkanization of the left that is holding us back from the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
You’re right that both left and right use the same emotional mechanics — good vs. evil, moral clarity, shared outrage. The danger isn’t which side uses them; it’s when either side starts believing that emotion itself is democracy.
Indivisible, BLM, Extinction Rebellion — all these movements began with just cause. The question is what comes next. Do they widen the circle or harden it? Do they make converts or keep score?
I have to press the point that Indivisible is not a movement "of" the Democratic Party. It is its own ecosystem with its own ends. It will never get its people to the promised land. And it will always take from not give to an election winning strategy.
Can raising the awareness of a radical base continue to replace all the people lost in the middle and all hope of ever finding common ground with people on the right?
My argument is that real change requires owning the machinery we already have — the dull, difficult, democratic machinery. It’s slow, yes. It’s about compromise, yes. But it’s the only path that endures once the cameras and chants fade.
I’m not asking anyone to ‘protest politely.’ I’m asking us to protest purposefully. The street matters most when it leads back to the ballot box and the policy table.
John this subject came up today in a gathering of elders and a very good point was made that may be more important than whether protest leads directly to change. Protests are where people find support for their own deep feelings about an issue of substance.. It validates convictions and educates those in attendance and makes them feel less alone and impotent. This can give folks the boost they need to help field a candidate, join a party, show up to vote nd encourage others in participating.
In four years, Western democracies will still exist and function, but they will be more polarized, less trusted, and more dependent on technology to administer elections, regulate information, and maintain order. The notion that government can only exist with the general agreement of the governed will become a central issue as the classical liberals lose the ability to manage the demcratic ideals they once founded.
The United States will remain the political and economic anchor, though weaker and more fragmented in public life. The Trump era will be over and politics will be both more boring and more bureaucratic.
Europe will continue to struggle with demographic decline, slow growth, and security dependence on NATO. There will be a huge struggle to understand and share the meaning of a nation and how any nation is defined in a world of consultation culture, radical self interest and hyper-individualism.
None of this will end democracy, but it will strain it to the point of dysfunction.
In forty years, the structure of democracy will still exist, but it will operate differently. National governments will have ceded more authority to regions, cities, and digital networks. Voters will participate more directly through secure digital systems that provide consultation of every possible issue of interest to the radical fingers all around the political spectrum. Prosperity, progress, and purpose will be almost totally lost in the process. PEople will be in a war with bureaucracy — the only institution powerful and equipment enough to withstand the force of various marol movements. Political parties as we know them will be largely gone as they will be perceived, though just a relic of history, as the great evil force of democracy that somehow nafariously intermediate for bad purpose the relationship between citizens and a kind of direct democracy that people believe technology could now deliver.
The basic principle of democratic legitimacy—consent of the governed—will survive, but the institutions, elected representatives and elites that manage it today will not.
read Murray Bookchin, tend and steward your municipality, & hope for the best. as conventional dysfunctional food growing and distribution systems fall apart urban areas will realize their dependence on relatively local farmers and the iceberg will roll. many like you think progress and prosperity depend on a corporate-educated virtual-based elite doing almost nothing of substance. real progress and prosperity will once again come from the land, sun and water, helped along with an ethics borne of suffering.
Good lord, Mr. Chisholm, do you actually think there will be anything left of normal functioning democracy in 4 years' time? Do you know what's already happening? What would you have done in Germany 1934? Where (and how) do you think this is going to end?