After Big October Protests, What Next?
The nationwide Oct. 18 demonstrations against the Trump regime racked up a huge mass of protesters. Or was it not massive enough? Democratic Party operatives and liberal commentators are chewing it over.
Indivisible – a progressive organization whose executive, Ezra Levin, was a staffer for a democratic congressperson – led the call for the protests. The organization claims that seven million protesters came out to 2,700 locations. There is no doubt that the demonstrations drew a large number of people, more than Indivisible’s similar event four months earlier on June 14. However, the most comprehensive tally shows fewer participants. G. Elliott Morris and Xylom News tabulated a median estimate of 4.9 million.
Seven million or 4.9 million – does it matter? It does to the Indivisible leaders and assorted liberal commentators. They have seized upon research by Erica Chenoweth claiming, “The ‘3.5% rule’ is the idea that no revolutions have failed once 3.5% of the population has actively participated in an observable peak event like a battle, a mass demonstration, or some other form of mass noncooperation.” Chenoweth is strictly committed to nonviolence. When she says “revolution,” she only means that an authoritarian government, such as Ferdinand Marcos’ 1971-1996 regime in the Philippines, fell to “people power” or just reverted to (capitalist) democracy.
For the U.S., 3.5% would be twelve million people. The operatives running the No Kings rallies have set that number as the goal for their next protest. That is why every million protesters matters to them. But Chenoweth’s research did not find an explanation for the statistic. And she has admitted that the “effectiveness of civil resistance movements around the world seems to be declining.”
Indivisible’s embrace of the 3.5% correlation gives a false sheen of science to its strict pacifism. As the organization lays down for its Safety Teams, “A core principle behind all Indivisible events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.”
No Return to the Old Capitalist Republic
The liberals want to get back to “democracy,” which in the U.S. means the capitalist republic. That is the overwhelming official message from Indivisible’s No Kings events. The fantasy of embarrassing Trump into leaving the scene because eight, or ten, or twelve million people attended a protest is a diversion. The liberals’ real aim is to elect a Democratic majority in the 2026 congressional elections. But what if the Trump regime rigs or cancels elections? The Democrats and liberal groups will go to court, and perhaps stage yet another No Kings day of protests. How pathetic can you get?
We cannot forget that, for workers, real wages, as well as the quality of healthcare, education, and retirement security, have all gotten worse since 1973. Our political and trade union action within the capitalist republic is often militant. Almost always, though, it is a fight to stop one takeback after another. The only realistic course of action is a combination of immediate and fundamental struggle against capitalism.
The immediate fights are underway:
Keep up the magnificent confrontations with ICE.
Unite against the Zionist repression of teachers, media staff, and anyone else who calls out the genocide in Gaza.
Fight the Trump regime when it fires workers and takes away their union rights.
But getting down to fundamentals, either we help liberals, progressives, and democratic socialists demand a more “civilized” capitalist rule, or we agitate, educate, and organize to overthrow capitalism and take the socialist-communist path. The choice is clear.
Charles Andrews is the author of The Hollow Colossus and other books.
A list of his occasional essays is at http://www.hollowcolossus.com/moreCA.htm