The Protests Are Just Starting

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For months, as Donald Trump has hollowed out the executive branch, defied courts, and worked to suppress dissent, his critics have rightly worried about the lack of visible public opposition. Democratic Party leaders are still obsessing over the 2024 election; outside organizations are fatigued; and mass protests such as those seen in the early months of Trump's first term have been missing.
That began to change over the past few days, as demonstrations arose in Los Angeles over immigration-enforcement operations by federal agents. As they begin to spread to other cities, these protests look like the first mass movement against the second Trump administration. And with events scheduled this weekend to serve as counterprogramming to Trump's birthday military parade, they have the potential to grow.
Yet as this moment begins, some members of the anti-Trump coalition worry that these demonstrations will bring about disaster. Protests are messy; even when the majority of participants are peaceful, just a few bad actors can produce instances of violence, and big protests always draw a few bad actors. Observers have also worried about the optics of protesters carrying Mexican flags, lest the protests be seen as unpatriotic or anti-American. One overriding concern is that even minor missteps by Trump's critics will give him an excuse to overreach further. 'Trump is expecting resistance,' my colleague Tom Nichols wrote over the weekend. 'You will not be heroes. You will be the pretext.'
These concerns are understandable, and they are offered in good faith by dyed-in-the-wool Trump critics, who don't hesitate to call him a budding authoritarian. They're correct that Trump is welcoming confrontation. Trying to convince anti-Trump allies about the most effective tactics can feel much more productive than appealing to Trump to respect protests or the rule of law, especially because his actions are frequently erratic and irrational. But the focus on specific tactics, or on trying to predict how the president will respond, overlooks how effective large protests have been—not just historically, but also during Trump's first term. The same could be true now.
None of this is to excuse violent protests, which are dangerous and destructive, and also usually politically counterproductive in America. Actual violence in Los Angeles appears to be limited and small in scale, and Trump's decision to federalize thousands of National Guard members and deploy hundreds of U.S. Marines is, as I wrote yesterday, both legally dubious and wildly disproportionate. The most heralded victims so far have been some Waymo driverless taxis, and local authorities blamed scattered violence on provocateurs who are tangential to the protests. Most protesters appear to be on the streets simply to witness and to speak out against the administration's immigration raids. Take the president's word for it: Even Trump says the situation is 'very well under control.'
The existence of large demonstrations, which are spreading into other cities, is itself a sign of Trump's vulnerability. His turn to the military to try to enforce his will, less than six months into his term, is a gesture of authoritarianism, but it's also an indication of his weak sway over the public. Plenty of experience shows that Trump almost always folds. Besides, Trump definitely wins if people disperse because they don't want to provoke him. Peaceful protests can be very effective at changing policy and public opinion, and the biggest win for Trump might be for people to be so scared of what he'll do next that they do nothing at all. As the journalist Asawin Suebsaeng noted on Sunday, you would be hard-pressed to find Americans counseling protesters in repressive nations—such as Iran or Burma or Hungary—to stop protesting just because their leaders might be spoiling for a fight.
Furthermore, gaming out strategy and predicting how things might end here (or anywhere) is very difficult. This applies to everyone involved. Some advising caution are worried that protests will give Trump cover to intensify a crackdown, but he hardly needs an excuse, and his reactions are unpredictable. Meanwhile, people around Trump are very confident that they're in a winning position on immigration. 'We couldn't script this any better,' someone 'close to the White House' told Politico. 'Democrats are again on the '20' side of an 80–20 issue.' But why should anyone believe them?
The story of Trump's career is overreach followed by public opposition—including on immigration—and sometimes that opposition sways him. During his first term, Trump reversed his family-separation policy in summer 2018 because of widespread horror. Trump and his advisers were also convinced that protests against police brutality, which turned violent in cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, were going to win them the 2020 election, and they were proved wrong about that.
The backlash has come even faster this term. Although Trump won the election with a campaign that focused intensely on immigration enforcement, Americans have been less enthusiastic about the results now that they're experiencing their effects. Lots of people support deporting criminals, but they don't like it when beloved community members such as Carol Hui, the woman whose story became a rallying point for a conservative Missouri town, are removed. (She has since been released. TACO.)
In April, a Washington Post / ABC News / Ipsos poll found that a majority of people disapproved of Trump's immigration policies. A CBS News / YouGov poll taken before the L.A. protests found him slightly higher—but at just 50 percent approval. The data journalist G. Elliott Morris finds that coverage of the improper deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador hurt Trump's approval ratings. YouGov polls conducted since the protests began have found that pluralities of Americans disapprove of Trump deploying both the National Guard and the Marines.
None of these polls should be taken as gospel, but they should give pause about drawing conclusions as to how the public at large will view what's happening in Los Angeles. They are also a reminder that public opinion is not immutable—it's dynamic and can be shaped. The anti-Trump movement can much more easily figure out what it stands for than it can predict what Trump might do next, or how other people will react.
Related:
Trump's gross misuse of the National Guard
Tom Nichols: Trump is using the National Guard as bait.
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The Pentagon doubled the number of California National Guard members in Los Angeles and deployed about 700 Marines to the city's protests yesterday.
A shooter killed at least 10 people at a high school in Graz, Austria, according to police.
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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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Article originally published at The Atlantic