Pop-Up Protests

Mike Allen at Axios:

Peter Dreier — who teaches politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy department at Occidental College in Los Angeles — said the current movements unite the left's strands in a way we haven't seen in nearly a century:

• During the Great Depression of the 1930s, people could see the system wasn't working, and so you saw similar protests by farmers, workers, consumers and college students.
• But during the late 1960s, protests were very factionalized: Unions, women, environmentalists and civil rights advocates often worked in their own lanes.
• Ever since, there's been a big inside-outside split on the left between electoral politics and protest politics.
• Now, Dreier says: "The best thing Donald Trump has done has been to revive massive protest in America."

Elaine Weiss, author of "The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote," told me that what's "different about the waves of demonstrations of the past 18 months is their spontaneity — made possible by new technology and mastery of social media."

• "Suffrage marches took months to plan and organize in the early 20th century — by mail and phone; participation depended upon personal contact and connection, with printed announcements laboriously tacked to walls. They usually occurred in one city at a time."
• "The Woman's March of January 2017 was organized within a matter of weeks — thanks to social media — with demonstrations taking place around the country and across the globe."
• "The Never Again [gun control] rallies were arranged in an even shorter time — the younger the constituency, the more adept the social media organizing."
• "And this weekend's immigration policy protests came together within a matter of days, and took place in almost every community in America. Power to the hashtag!"