I don’t want to overstate the importance of protest demonstrations. Their immediate impact on the problems of the day is never likely to be more than negligible, while their long-term impact is unknowable.
But I don’t want to understate their importance, either.
I’ve now been to five protests — two aimed at a Tesla dealership, three aimed at the junta more generally — and I was ambivalent about all of them. Were it not for my wife’s strong feelings on the subject, I probably wouldn’t have gone.
I realize I was being selfish. Surely I wasn’t the only one thinking there are better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. But the ones who showed up pushed past that, so who was I to excuse myself from a civic responsibility?
As it turned out, the simple act of showing up came with unexpected benefits. What the protests may have lacked in political effectiveness, they made up for in psychic income. Our collective mental health has taken a beating of late, and there’s comfort in sheer numbers, in embracing causes even if they seem futile.
And so, last Saturday, we drove fifteen minutes to Troy, Michigan, for what was billed as “May Day,” a “National Day of Action.” Spoiler alert: There wasn’t much action.
It was purportedly a protest against attacks on working people, which are indeed substantial and ongoing. But I think the real driver lies on the other side of the double-entendre — “Mayday,” as in “M’aidez,” as in “Help me,” as in “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” — which is how most of the protesters felt.
