One of the big puzzles in the last months, for those observing the politics in the US and elsewhere, is this: why is there apparently so little protest against the attacks on democracy and the rule of law, and why does it happen in some but not other cases?
I want to share a hypothesis, which has to do with perceptions of temporality and the ensuing emotional states. I started thinking about this a while ago, during the wave of climate protests in Europe. At the time, many comparisons were drawn with earlier forms of protest, e.g. in the civil rights movement, and the discussion quickly turned to what forms of disobedience (e.g. blocking roads, damaging works of art, etc.) are justified in what kinds of cases. But whereas many historical movements wanted to achieve something new, something for which there were no political majorities or that governments even refused to take seriously at the time, the climate protests concerned things that had already been agreed upon by politicians, and for which there is, according to surveys, a lot of public support. So what the protestors require is not so much a fundamental change in mentality or legislation – but rather that societies do what they had committed themselves to doing, e.g. in the Paris agreement.
My sense was that this gave a kind of desperate character to the climate movement: they were not demanding something new, innovative, exciting. They were demanding that we all get our sh*t together and do what we know needs to be done, in our own best interest: to cut down CO2 emissions, fast. The protests were against a kind of social and political akrasia (and of course, the vested interests that want to keep things the way they are): Dear society, you’re not doing what you already long said you’d do! Stand up against big oil and finally do it!
There seems to be a difference between such protests, and protests that have a positive vision of the future, moving forward to something new. But in the case of climate politics, and with more and more countries moving away from the Paris agreement, we need to go back towards something on which there had been a relatively broad consensus, but that does not get implemented.
And of course, with democratic backsliding in many countries, especially the US, this pattern applies to all kinds of things: one would want to get back to full access to abortions, to the rule of law for immigrants, to academic freedom, etc. (where are true “conservatives”, as those who want to preserve something valuable from the past, when one needs them??). My hunch is that this makes such topics rather difficult, on an emotional front, to mobilize around. It’s not the energetic “Onwards, upwards, forward, comrades!!!” It sems more a kind of exasperated “Sigh, I can’t believe we need to discuss this again!”
So this, in a nutshell, is my hypothesis: mobilizing to preserve something of value is more difficult than mobilizing toward new values. And that makes it harder to resist democratic backsliding.
What complicates things even more is that right-wing populism also has its own kind of nostalgia – back to a different era, with different values. But maybe because it’s a nostalgia that goes hand in hand with black-and-white thinking and the scapegoating of outsiders, it seems to be more emotionally appealing. Or maybe it is because it taps into resentments and anxieties (some of which justified, others not) that have been simmering for such a long time? In any case, it brings more people to the streets than progressive causes do these days.
When discussing these things, at some point someone will inevitably say: “left-wing populism.” Those on the left (or indeed anyone who wants to preserve democracy) need to present their arguments in ways that are less schoolmasterly, and more emotionally gripping, using social media, attacking opponents, etc. – or so the argument goes. But I wonder whether changing tone is enough, or whether there also needs for a better sense of a “forward” – something to move towards, not just old stuff to cling to (I cringe as I write this, because the old stuff is so important, too…). Maybe some new economic agenda can do the trick, or maybe new narratives about forms of community that are not premised on racist or nationalist lines of exclusion. I’m almost tempted to say “whatever, as long as it opens up a new horizon”, but of course that’s too simple as well.
Does this all just show that I’m hopelessly caught in what is ultimately, after the dozens of qualifications any reasonable person would want to add, a belief in the possibility of progress? I guess deep down, at some level, yes – I want to remain hopeful. But I am fully aware that history consists of ups and downs, moves forwards and moves backwards, knows breakdowns and reconstruction. But then, the question that is implied my hypothesis is: how can mobilization happen in the downswings?
But first of all, dear readers – do you think that the hypothesis is true at all? Or is it even true that there is so little protest? I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong!
{ 63 comments }
Phil 10.16.25 at 11:47 am
I don’t agree at all, I’m afraid (NB my frame of reference is British and European, which may partly account for this). The ideal-type of protest event, for me, is spurred into being precisely by the authorities failing to live up to their own standards – police brutality, cuts to services, complicity with genocide, they’re all things that people protest against. Indeed, t’s a classic problem with left-wing organising that people will turn out en masse to object to A, B and C, but far fewer will join any kind of group looking forward to a world without A, B and C.
The problem with Trump’s America is of another order, I think. Protest isn’t really relevant – the Administration doesn’t inhabit the same moral universe as protesters (what would you do, demand that they really do make A. G. A.?) Increasingly, what’s needed is resistance, which is a lot more costly and risky – and unsurprisingly there’s not that much of it.
Tm 10.16.25 at 12:11 pm
“why is there apparently so little protest against the attacks on democracy and the rule of law, and why does it happen in some but not other cases?”
Maybe we should start with some empirical evidence? The No Kings protests in the US have brought millions to the streets and this week will see another big protest, which is likely to be the biggest (by number of participants) in US history by far.
In Germany, at the beginning of 2024, mass protests against the fascist AFD’s program of ethnic cleansing brought millions to the streets, very likely the biggest protest movement (by number of participants) in German history.
A different question is why these huge protests so far appear to have little political impact. The media are mostly downplaying them, this can be demonstrated both in US and Germany, and the politicians in power simply do not care. Peaceful Mass protests can be effective in several ways, by changing the information environment, changing the public discourse and narrative, influencing the political balance of power, and these different effects can reinforce each other. The media reaction is always a key variable, and they have been mostly positioned against the protesters, and the main political players also (so far) believe they can afford to ignore the protests. It doesn’t follow that the protests have no effect, but the question is raised what even big mass protests can achieve if those in power simply decide to ignore them.
Tm 10.16.25 at 1:03 pm
I’m puzzled by the break between the first and second paragraph, where you ask whether the climate protests did it wrong – after asking why there isn’t more protest in the first para.
“There seems to be a difference between such protests, and protests that have a positive vision of the future, moving forward to something new.”
Mybe it would help to substantiate this hypothesis with some empirical evidence – something more palpable than “There seems to be”? There are plenty of historical examples we could look at.
Enzo Rossi 10.16.25 at 1:11 pm
It’s not as if blaming migrants for everything is new. But you’re probably right that nostalgia wouldn’t work for the left, or not as much as it does for the right. But we do need to point to an enemy. At the cost of saying the obvious, the challenge is how to make capital than enemy when capital controls all the media.
Korx 10.16.25 at 4:16 pm
In my perception, there are massive protests everywhere, they’re just not reported on by a captured and cowered (coward?) media apparatus. The protests lack amplification, and many governments (over-)react to stifle even the smallest dissent, because they feel like they can get away with it. The media’s corrective and exposing role is gone, the judiciary is getting undermined, the legislative is gridlocked, and the executive is free to do what they want. Notably, this was mostly true for climate action before the current escalation, so it all hinged on executive action, anyway. The instability and dysfunction is all downstream from corruption, which is downstream from wealth concentration and the failure to enact or enforce anti-monopoly and anti-corruption (“lobbying”) legislation. The reason these earlier protests succeeded and the current ones failed is down to power imbalances in society; as a property of their failure, the specific nature of these protests is just a random artefact, and not the underlying reason.
In particular, I don’t think the problem is “backward, not forward”, because one could argue the same thing about Civil Rights legislation (going back and expanding upon the rights Black people already had during the Reconstruction era), and that was a massive success.
SusanC 10.16.25 at 5:10 pm
Arguably, the step after protest is vote for someone else if they’re not listening to you.
In the UK, at least, we are seeing a lot of support switch from Labour/Conservative to Reform/Greens/Lib Dem/Corbyn. So “vote for someone else” is very much in evidence.
The slight problem from the point of view of the original post is that the form the allegiance switch is taking is often to Reform (UK) or Trump (US),
Kindred Winecoff 10.16.25 at 5:10 pm
There are protests and resistance happening every day, sometimes involving direct confrontations with secret police who abduct people from their homes without warrants or any form of due process. Everything is being challenged in the courts, in the media, Democrats are winning special elections like never before, and people are protesting nearly every weekend in small towns and big cities all across the country.
The Mayor of Wall Street will soon be a socialist. It is incorrect to say that nothing is happening.
#NoKings protests are in two days (Oct 18). They are expected to be the largest protests in US history, breaking the record set at the first No Kings event in June, and have begun spreading transnationally. These upcoming protests are not called No Kings in all other countries (often No Tyrants instead), because many countries still have monarchs, and if I were feeling pugnacious I’d ask why I never see Europeans in the streets protesting that.
Well, October 18 is a good time to start. In June we had 5 million people protest. I hope this weekend we’ll have 10 million, because that gets us close to this number: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/publications/35-rule-how-small-minority-can-change-world
At No Kings many Americans will be protesting to protect something that many people have never had: substantially free speech, free inquiry, free assembly, and a free press. So there is both a conservative cause — the US is at risk of losing something precious — and a progressive cause — many around the world have never enjoyed the same privileges but should have the opportunity to do so.
No Kings implies (and often outright states) an anti-oligopolistic attitude that is applicable in any country: it connects to Pikettyian continental politics, green politics, Lula-esque developmentalism, etc. So there is plenty of substance here to build a sustained movement that supports democracy in the US without always centering the US, and I hope that is what it becomes: it isn’t just US democracy in decline, it’s global democracy that has been declining for a quarter-century already.
Citizens of every country have as much to protest as the US does, not least because the US is currently abusing you! The US is hitting you with tariffs, bombing your countries, destroying your sovereignty, renditioning your citizens, ejecting your academics. Why do you not protest this? Obviously some are (in Canada, etc), but not very many.
You are right that there’s a tension in all of these areas b/t protesting to protect vs protesting to progress, and that explains some of these outcomes.
But there’s also the issue that Trump was democratically elected on a free and fair vote, and that his presidency has been received by leaders all over the world, including the monarch of the United Kingdom in a truly garish celebration. Corporate leaders everywhere celebrate this moment, as do religious leaders. The Supreme Court of the United States has largely validated his consolidation of power, the Republican party has openly embraced corruption and racialism, so what we are protesting is not an illegitimate government but a legitimate one.
In the US we have found a clear message to organize around (despite having no opposition leadership to speak of): No Kings. This will carry us into the midterms next year — elections are focal points for resistance activity and hopefully we can mobilize sufficiently to overwhelm inevitable repression. In 2018 and 2020 we were able to win, maybe we can again… we obviously have to try our best.
But the rest of the world has a role here too: demand your leaders cut off diplomatic channels to the US while the US is renditioning people without due process. Stop traveling to and doing business with the US. Demand your leaders cut off economic access to US-based companies who violate EU law (or local law wherever it is). Stop inviting American academics — and especially American policymakers — to events, and restrict US-based scholars from public funding. You can increase the pressure on the US government, and thus support those of us who ARE protesting. Solidarity, remember?
If Trump is trying to erect an apartheidist regime in America, then think about what it took to end apartheidist regimes previously: internal resistance, yes, but also substantial external pressure. Where is that going to come from? These days I mostly see it from China. Everyone else is trying to get their little carve-out, while otherwise focusing on fairly inconsequential local squabbles, exactly as 47 hoped.
No Kings events on October 18, both in the US and elsewhere (largely Europe): https://www.nokings.org/?SQF_SOURCE=50501#map
Be there or be square.
Quite Likely 10.16.25 at 6:33 pm
“But first of all, dear readers – do you think that the hypothesis is true at all? Or is it even true that there is so little protest? I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong!”
Not true that there is been little protest. In fact we have had the largest protests in American history, far more than in 2017: https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-kings-biggest-protest-u-172552711.html?guccounter=1
The issue is that they’re getting relatively little media coverage such that even fairly informed people like yourself can keep repeating this “why is there so little protest?” line.
Salem 10.16.25 at 7:31 pm
I think you are onto something with “Sigh, I can’t believe we need to discuss this again!”
I think the issue is that most legacy positions involve a degree of compromise. All the examples you give – the Paris Agreement, prior American abortion law, etc – were more-or-less-uneasy compromises that didn’t truly satisfy anyone. As a result, it is difficult for activists to extol the status quo ante wholeheartedly, because they don’t believe in it themselves, and doing so would split their coalition. This is different from the right-wing populism you mention because they are willing to wholeheartedly endorse a purported Golden Age, and the greater distance makes it easier to do so.
And of course the less you are willing to make the case for the status quo ante, the less value it has as a Schelling point, and the harder it is to hold onto it when the tide moves against you.
Jim Harrison 10.16.25 at 8:54 pm
Dispensing with the consent of the governed is right up there with replacing human workers with AI in the tech bro wish list. What’s missing isn’t protest, but a system that listens to and responds to people. I recall a counterfactual story in which the victorious Nazi eventually get around to invading India. Gandhi opposes them with mass nonviolent protest. The Germans simply mow them down.
notGoodenough 10.16.25 at 9:16 pm
This is just random thoughts and impressions, so best taken with a fistful of salt, but…
Admittedly this is from a UK perspective, but all things considered I see quite a lot of protest and mobilisation (how effective it will be in the face of ever-increasing crackdowns and an intransigent politico-media class who would rather burn the world to the ground and salt the ashes than risk even the mildest of social reform may be another matter). I do agree there seems far less defence of the centrist status quo than in previous times (though, perhaps uncharitably, I suspect partly because it is difficult to raise enthusiasm for a system which not only fails to protect you, but seemingly struggles to even protect itself). Nevertheless, communitarian approaches appear to readily attract attention as the necessity of building an alternative framework seems ever more imperative (you cannot, after all, blow up a social relationship – the conditions themselves must be overthrown) which can be both a good and bad thing (simplistically, our ruling class appear to have decided that “feudalism beats socialism”, and consequently are less putting thumbs on scales and more hefting several ton weights around – though it remains to be seen if the usual smears and non-stop screaming outrage and rage moves the needle much on those who are not yet convinced, or if the metaphorical experience of having toxic waste sprayed out of a high-pressure hose by a red-faced hatemonger actually has the reverse effect despite the media’s best efforts). The Green Party has rapidly increased membership, and (allegedly) hundreds of thousands signed up for a mildly socialist party which doesn’t even exist (whatever your personal views on these and their faults, they do seem to highlight the ravenous hunger for anything other than the bleak cycle of plundering the public purse and selling off assets so they may be rented back in perpetuity followed by austerity, crackdowns, and blaming of the scapegoats-of-the-day).
I am also not entirely convinced by the tone argument – while certainly how things are said is important, I think quite a lot of people are attracted to the core message (providing it is reasonably communicated). While certainly the left is not without fault when it comes to communication, I see little evidence that the right is much better – again, it seems that mostly things are the result of the ruling class being able to frame every argument (see, for example, the regularity with which UK politicians – lauded as responsible adults by a fawning press – plummet in popularity the second the public actually get more than the briefest of looks at who they are and what they are doing). And though there are certainly tedious people who cannot comment without several dreary passages with multiple footnotes and in-joke references to obscure left-wing movements that vanished decades ago (it’s me! I’m that tedious person!), there are many charismatic and energetic people using clear language to explain what sucks, why it sucks, and who precisely is responsible.
I am rather dogged in my belief in humanity (I think it near-impossible to remain a lifelong socialist without either being an incurable optimist or a pathological masochist), but to me at least it does seem that – even today, even despite everything – fundamentally most people are, if not pressured or propagandised otherwise, generally more prone to being ‘good’ than otherwise. Most people seem prepared to accept burdens in order to combat climate change or inequality, providing these are fair and can be enacted without the bulk of effort being on an individual level (by which I mean, people will act within the boundaries of what is reasonable – and this does require some societal/state intervention to provide alternatives to follow; e.g. people seem to use public transport if it is available and not-terrible, people seem to accept taxes if they aren’t just levied on the poorest and used to fund more bombs and bungs, etc.).
In short, while by no-means perfect, a lot of societies do seem to manage to create and maintain positive environments and action that benefits us all – and it is largely only the vast distortions of capital (combined with exploitation and subjugation of the subaltern working class) propped up by propaganda, state-capture, and straight up violence which really stops us. While one hopes that self-interest would prevail before the guillotines-and-tumbrels stage, our ruling class have yet to demonstrate the level of self-awareness that might precipitate such action – so…
In short, I think people will act, the solutions are on the table, and the will is there (whatever language is used to describe it, the issues of class and injustice remain as relevant and – arguably – at the forefront of the public’s mind as ever, despite strenuous efforts to supress it). Whether action will happen in time before civilisational collapse is the bit I’m far less sure of…
As ever, YMMV though!
Alex SL 10.16.25 at 9:24 pm
I agree that part of the malaise we are in across “The West” is the loss of a progressive vision. Maybe I am being naive, but it seems to me as if, despite their bigotries, flaws, and failures, past generations and their movements generally had narratives of progress, be they about increasing personal liberties, growing material wealth and comfort through economic progress, creating a communist utopia, throwing off the shackles of superstition and rationally understanding the world, or (to end on a less pleasant one) bringing proper civilisation and true religion to the savages.
What do we have today? What is our vision of progress? Best I can tell, having fancier electronic gadgets; getting rich quick through hustling or investing in the right crypto; super-AI suddenly doing something ill-defined but amazing … and that seems to be it. The first two don’t even qualify as visions of progress, because they are individualistic, and the third is half a lazy echo of religious eschatology and half a cynical shrug, as in, why should I worry about retirement savings, AI will make us all unemployed in five years anyway*. Even the hope of economic progress is hollow, because most people understand at an instinctive level that they wouldn’t get a share of that even if AI revolutionised supply chains or whatnot*.
At the level of large political parties, across “The West” we generally have one that wants to burn more coal and frack more gas, cut public services, welfare, and research, and make the billionaires even richer, and another that is broadly okay with burning coal and fracking gas, does not expand public services, welfare, or research, and lets the billionaires keep their power. If a leader arises in the latter party who tries to improve things even slightly, they get the Corbyn treatment, but at any rate their shockingly revolutionary idea tends to be something like slightly higher taxes on the rich or investment in infrastructure, ridiculously inadequate compared to the scale of the crises looming ahead, like putting a band-aid onto a fresh amputation wound.
Missing from this picture: anything that would fill an empathetic, young person with a sense of hope for the future or motivate any significant number of people to take risks and make sacrifices for such a future.
But as I have argued here in the past, the buck ultimately stops with the voters. Why isn’t there a progressive vision? If a third of the people could conceive of one, it would exist. The small minorities who are protesting against racism, the teens who do school strikes for climate action, they are the best of us, but they do not have critical mass to change the world because most of us are lethargic, have lost hope, or are actively working to make life more miserable for each other and value immediate convenience for themselves over creating a better future for everybody.
I don’t claim to be a Hari Seldon, nor even that societies behave that mechanistically, but I cannot help but feel that something has changed about our collective psychology that means we are now, unless something changes massively in the next few decades, in terminal decline. It seems difficult to imagine how good collective decisions can be made, or mobilisation towards such a decision be achieved, when the two competing visions of the future are “let’s actively make everything much worse” and “let’s actively make things slightly worse”.
*) I do not consider any of that to be plausible. Merely acknowledging that a significant minority of other people seem to say these things.
Martin Blythe 10.16.25 at 10:28 pm
I think your hypothesis is true. I also think there is so little protest in “The West” because we are unable to rally around anything forward-thinking. The US, UK etc (i.e. my neighbors, in my community, in my city) are unable and unwilling to move outside a fossil fuel mindset; they just can’t do it. China is doing it but because strategically it suits them to leapfrog the West. My own preference is for a revival of some kind of Animism which places value in the Nature around us and I enjoy reading writers reflecting on this, for example the oak tree in their back yard or in the films of Miyazaki. It’s not going to be enough. Our societies will drift into catastrophic climate change just as they drifted into two world wars because of a failure of imagination.
dk 10.17.25 at 1:23 am
Regrettably, this statement is widely applicable if you replace “society” with “centre-left government”, and I think that explains a lot of the drift to the right. What’s the point of supporting centre-left ideology if it doesn’t follow through on its own ideas?
Roger Farquhar 10.17.25 at 6:34 am
I have my own hypothesis.
By shifting the burden of welfare (health, education, retirement etc) from the State to the individual we have liberated the State from its social obligations while encumbering the individual with the financial obligations. Not all, and dare I say probably most individuals are able to meet those obligations all the time so at some point enormous stress is placed upon them. This is a stress that influences decisions making.
With retirement, many funds are linked to the stock market so already financially stressed individuals are sensitive to market performance.
So when it comes to crunch time, will I protest against this fossil fuel company while my fund is holding stock in same…it gets sticky. If you were to choose a more ethical but less remunerative fund, how will this affect your retirement plans and your desire to not be a burden on your siblings? And that cruise? How’s the mortgage?
We are caught up in a web of our own making.
John Q 10.17.25 at 9:14 am
I don’t have a clear view on how much the object of protest (opposing what governments do vs demanding they deliver on their commitments) matters. But I have been struck by how little protest there has been in the US, as democracy is dismantled at breakneck speed. There have been a handful of “No Kings” protests and that’s about it.
There has been plenty of resistance to ICE in the areas where they work, but that excludes most of white suburbia.
Tm 10.17.25 at 9:37 am
It really seems we Inhaber different worlds. About half the commenters point to often record breaking mass protests, the other half describes millions of protesters as “a handful” (JQ). These perceptions are clearly related to the state of the mass media (including social media), which are today to a frightening degree controlled by authoritarian and sometimes openly fascist oligarchs. It amazes me how little attention is paid to this fact in left and liberal circles.
Lisa Herzog 10.17.25 at 11:57 am
Thanks for all the interesting comments and reflections. It’s certainly correct that media ownership is a problem, and I also agree with the comments about inequality, and about the failures of center-left governments to deliver on (some of) their promises. I was aware of the “No King” protests, but as someone said, there seemed to be so little follow up that I maybe conflated “lack of protest” with “lack of effective protest.” According to the info provided, we’ll all know more (and maybe get a more overlapping picture, between us), after tomorrow! The point by Roger Farquhar, about people being entangled in the system, not least through pension funds, is something that came up when I discussed Marx with our very clever PPE students last week, and I share the diagnosis when it comes to entanglement with a capitalist growth logic. I don’t know, though, how much of a role this plays when it comes to democratic backsliding….
NomadUK 10.17.25 at 12:16 pm
Jim Harrison@10: That story was the first thing that popped into my head as I read this post. It’s a short story by Harry Turtledove, ‘The Last Article’.
Protests that do not discomfit or threaten the power of those in charge are theatre. The only way to get them to change course is to terrify them.
Tm 10.17.25 at 12:44 pm
„The point by Roger Farquhar, about people being entangled in the system, not least through pension funds“
I would go much further: In today‘s affluent societies (Europe and North America), the mass of the population is far more invested in the “system” than at earlier times in history. As ridiculous as it is, the Trumpists are painting their opponents as “communists” and “Marxists”, apparently not without success. Extremely rich people, capitalist oligarchs, are not hated any more, as they were in earlier times, they are admired by large parts of the population – aided of course by hagiographic coverage in media outlets owned by other oligarchs – and successfully run for election, which would have been unimaginable a few generations ago. That seems to me another underdiscussed aspect of the current fascism.
Berlusconi was a pioneer in this respect. I think he was the first billionaire to run a country directly instead of just buying politicians. Less known is Switzerland’s Blocher, an industrialist who successfully entered politics even before Berlusconi. His party is now at 30%. Many people in rich countries identify with the rich and won’t vote against their interests. That the media portray these oligarchs as “populists” is kind of the cherry on the Orwellian cake.
notGoodenough 10.17.25 at 4:25 pm
Again, usual caveats, but I suppose I would ask – what would effective protest look like, where would it come from, and how long should it take to occur?
It seems to me that protest against a committed ruling class is rarely (never?) effective without combined action (e.g. alongside legal challenges, economic and political action, the threat of revolution, etc. etc.). Which in turn leads to the question, which communal spaces remain that would be conducive to such organisation on the necessary scale, and which have been eliminated, repurposed, subsumed, and so on? Without the tools (that may still require adaptation for the modern age), much would have to be rebuilt – which, history suggests, took no little time and sacrifice the first time around… Just a thought.
J, not that one 10.17.25 at 8:44 pm
Speaking from the US, the idea that right-wing causes “bring more people to the streets” these days than left-wing causes do seems odd. It’s not clear to me that the OP was intended to focus on US events at all or whether I’m being too US-centric, as the usual accusation around here goes.
I don’t know what kind of evidence would support or refute the OP. I’m not sure it matters, however, as the OP seems to be making a higher-level argument that isn’t really about real-world trends. I also have absolutely no idea what impression people outside the US are getting about what’s happening in the US and don’t know how I could find out — I wouldn’t know what kind of things might be happening in German or the UK that might support the OP’s argument or might not. It doesn’t seem like a plausible narrative to me in several respects but I assume those are my own preferences and just not what the OP means to be getting at.
somebody who remembers the largest anti war protest on earth and what happened one day later 10.17.25 at 9:41 pm
While it can be tempting to say “well, the powers that be don’t listen to protest anymore”, this overlooks the many other benefits of protest. You’re connecting with others in your community who feel the same way you do. You’re gathering together to discuss next steps, to encourage each other, to literally stand with each other, to learn from each other. At a protest you will hear new information that helps you, learn about new community concerns that can motivate you. Even if it’s just you and a friend standing outside the courthouse (or whatever) you will come away with your movement in better condition than it was before you went, almost every time.
To put it another way, the far right protests and rallies, funded by the most racist millionaires you can imagine. They don’t invest time and money in that for no reason. We shouldn’t put aside a weapon just because it doesn’t seem to have the effect it wants. It has many effects. It’s often a very good time.
America is frantically hostile to protesters and many dozens of millions support laws that allow passersby to kill protesters with their cars. Millions on millions have been spent to obliterate student protesters who don’t want Gazan pediatric hospitals to be reduced to rubble so an IDF guy can do a Tik Tok dance on the ashes. The hatred of protest is another good reason to think protests actually have strong effects. Nobody would be that hostile to something that didn’t matter.
J-D 10.18.25 at 1:51 am
If somebody asked me ‘Do you think people are protesting more or less than they used to?’ I would say ‘I don’t know, I’m not even sure whether that’s the kind of thing that can be measured, and I would suspect anybody who had a definite answer to the question, one way or the other, of over-hasty generalisation from an inadequate evidentiary base’.
J-D 10.18.25 at 2:00 am
The Council of Europe has forty-six member countries; only ten of them have hereditary monarchies.
There were protests at the coronation of Charles III, and there have been others since:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_Kingdom#Protests
Matt 10.18.25 at 2:45 am
I maybe conflated “lack of protest” with “lack of effective protest.”
Given the context and the current political reality, what would you consider an “effective protest” to be in this situation? I’d think “momentum builds” and “Democratic politicians develop more spine and resolve” and “more institutions resist” would be possible and useful outcomes that are not pie-in-the-sky, but if you have something more in mind, I’d be interested to hear about it.
J-D 10.18.25 at 8:31 am
If somebody asked me ‘Do you think extremely rich people are more or less hated than they used to be? Do you think they are more or less admired than they used to be?’ I would say ‘I don’t know, I’m not even sure whether that’s the kind of thing that can be measured, and I would suspect anybody who had a definite answer to the question, one way or the other, of over-hasty generalisation from an inadequate evidentiary base’.
You may not be able to imagine that extremely rich people ran successfully for election a few generations ago, but whether you can imagine it or not, it certainly happened.
John Q 10.18.25 at 9:08 am
To be clear, my point isn’t whether the US protests are bigger or smaller than earlier ones over issues like climate and police brutality. It’s that they are nowhere near what we ought to be seeing in response to the imposition of a fascist dictatorship, in size, but especially in frequency. In lots of European countries, governments much less bad than Trump’s are facing massive weekly protests. In the US, there have been two.
Stephen 10.18.25 at 7:16 pm
I a not a US citizen, but I have some memory of recent (by non-US standards) events in 2020 after the death of one black citizen at the hands, or knees, of US police.
To quote Wikipedia: “An estimated 15 to 26 million people participated in Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making it one of the largest protest movements in the country’s history. The vast majority of BLM demonstrations in 2020 were peaceful, but BLM protests from late May to early June 2020 escalated into riots and looting in most major cities.”
Protests against Trump (for whom I have no sympathy) seem, given the initial grievances, to be disproportionately feeble.
Barry Grau 10.18.25 at 11:15 pm
We see the protests going down in Chicago where there is clear and present danger. Elsewhere, there danger is less noticeable so the divide and conquer approach the occupying blue America is working. That and there is no group out there organizing ongoing daily protests. No Kings Day happens every few months. The organizers need to make it every single days AND come up with a plan for where and how to protest AND a plan for effecting real change.
I’m starting to think I may have to take a leadership role in the Boston protests even though I’m unknown and I’ve never done anything like that before.
Barry Grau
Lisa H 10.19.25 at 5:14 am
So the numbers from yesterday protestes are impressive – I do stand corrected on the part of “how to get people into the streets.” And yet… I’m still not sure what effect the protests will have, with their message about what is NOT wanted. One possibility is that they convince voters not to vote for Trump next time. We’ll see what happens in the mid-term elections, but it’s a complicated counterfactual what would have happened with the protests in comparison. Another possibility is that they are targeted at civil servants, judges, etc., – the ones who can, in many different processes, prevent Trump from being king (or in analogy, at politicians passing laws). So in that sense, the message could be read as “We stand behind you in resisting the attack.” All these things will be relatively hard to measure – which is of course also true for other protests, so their effectiveness will often be difficult to evaluate. But I’m curious to see what will be said about yesterday’s protests and what kind of effects can be ascribed to them.
I did use the US as an example, but I did mean other countries as well – from what I know, the picture is very mixed. Some eastern European countries have lively protests; the Anti-AfD protests in Germany were big, colorful, and then suddenly over without any directly traceable effect; in the Netherlands, there were big pro-Palestine protests, but fewer on other topics…
J-D 10.19.25 at 6:25 am
This is the kind of topic where searching for information turns out not to be as straightforward as I hoped it might be. A simple Web search for information about protests in Europe produces a lot of results about ‘No Kings’ anti-Trump protests and Gaza solidarity protests but not about protests against European governments. Wikipedia has a page listing 21st-century protests, many of them, most of which I know nothing about, which makes me confident there are many more examples that I also know nothing about, and although it does include a number from 2025 it seems probable to me that there are many that have not (or not yet) been recorded there. None of those on the Wikipedia list, however, are current protests against the government of a European country. But then, how else can I find more information about anti-government protests in multiple European countries? If I focussed on just one country, and it happened to be one where there are current protests, I think I could find information about those protests after a reasonable investment of time and effort; but what if the first one, or two, or three that I pick to research turn out to be ones where there aren’t currently protests? Any tips on how I can find more information about current anti-government protests in European countries would be gratefully received.
John Q 10.19.25 at 8:12 am
@32 I looked up protests in Slovakia, since I knew they had happened, and that gave me a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Europe_protests_(2024%E2%80%93present)
Matt 10.19.25 at 10:19 am
At least in some cases, it’s good news to see crowd size in protests going down, though they are still too high: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-19/tensions-flare-melb-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-rallies/105908634
SusanC 10.19.25 at 1:14 pm
I think if we were to give an honest account of the level of protest at the moment, for the UK at least we’d have to include far right protests, protesting against immigration, and protesting for, the protesters are saying, free speech.
It’s kind of astonishing how Keir Starmer manages to to alienate both the left and the right at the same time.
On the one hand, the left feel betrayed by Starmer.
On the other hand, the right think Starmer’s an authoritarian who will censor political speech, especially on the Internet.
(Yes, it is logically possible for both of them to be correct in their reasons for hating Starmer)
SusanC 10.19.25 at 3:14 pm
On the effectiveness of protests …
My best guess is that our current political crisis in the confluence of multiple different factors, but I’d like to highlight one thread, without claiming it’s the sole cause: Tony Blair and Iraq.
There were big protests at the time, which were, mostly, ignored by the government. So you might think they had no effect.
But it looks like one of the components of Keir Starmer’s current problem is that a Jeremy Corbyn shaped opposition to the Iraq war under Tony Blair has now transmuted into almost but not quite an entire opposition political party, consisting of Corbyn plus a bunch of folks who were protesting against Iraq war back in the day but more recently were protesting over Gaza. This is splitting the vote and seriously putting at risk Labour’s ability to get elected.
So, sure, Tony Blair could ignore those protesters in the short term. It would appear that, in the longer term and combined with other factors (financial crisis, Covid, etc.), ignoring those protesters killed the Labour Party.
Chris Bertram 10.19.25 at 4:28 pm
Back in March, Erica Chenoweth and others challenged the idea that there was little protest this time around
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/03/resistance-alive-well-us/
J-D 10.20.25 at 12:01 am
John Q, thanks for that.
Tm 10.20.25 at 8:22 am
J 22: Speaking from the US, the idea that right-wing causes “bring more people to the streets” these days than left-wing causes do seems odd.
I too wonder what Lisa Herzog is referring to. It is definitely empirically wrong, as far as North America and Western Europe are concerned. Right wing causes rarely bring many people to the streets. Nevertheless we tend to hear a lot about these protests. I was in the US at the time of the “Tea Party movement”. I remember the local newspaper running a big story about maybe a dozen Tea Party people meeting. Meanwhile there were Occupy protests and climate protests that were quite big, some might remember, that received comparably way less media attention. And that attention was often negative, especially for Occupy.
I mentioned the anti-fascist protest movement in Germany in early 2024. It provides a perfect experiment because the movement (which went on for several months) overlapped with a farmer protest movement. There is no doubt that the farmers’ protests were much smaller by number of participants (if not by the size of the tractors), but they definitely dominated the media discourse. Furthermore, the coverage of the farmers protests (who were often affiliated with right wing parties and whose main political demands were to abolish environmental regulation) was overwhelmingly positive despite the fact that there was substantial violence and law-breaking involved. Climate protesters blocking traffic have been labeled terrorists. The tractors blocking Autobahns (and sometimes causing serious accidents) were almost celebrated by the same media and politicians.
This is not new of course. Everybody who has ever participated in progressive protest activism has made this experience. That is to be expected when you challenge those in power! It should also be remembered that earlier protest movements like the civil rights movement in the US, the students protests of the 1960s, the May 1968 in Paris, received overwhelmingly negative coverage. In the 1960s, a majority of (white) Americans viewed MLK and his movement negative (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/how-public-attitudes-toward-martin-luther-king-jr-have-changed-since-the-1960s/). The Paris May was followed by a fierce political backlash in the 1968 and 1969 elections. Retrospective narratives are often deceptive.
J-D 24: “‘I don’t know, I’m not even sure whether that’s the kind of thing that can be measured”
Are you saying that the number of people marching on the street can’t be counted? Maybe you use the term “protest” differently than I do, but I clearly stated what I was referring to @2: number of participants in mass protest. How is that difficult to measure?
Tm 10.20.25 at 8:54 am
There have been big mass protests in recent years in non-Western countries like Thailand, South Korea (*), Iran, Georgia, Serbia, Turkey, and probably many more. They were often met with extreme repression and it’s hard to say what the long-term effect might be (the Jin Jiyan Azadi movement has not succedded in changing the system but it defibnitely has been delegitimized). But millions and millions of people all over the world are courageously protesting for their rights and against tyranny.
I find the tone of some comments here a bit annoying, sitting on the sofa munching popcorn and complaining “where are the protests”. If you personally participate in protest, you know whether there are protests and how big they are.
(*) The South Korean protests were maybe the most (measurably) successful in recent times, with a straightforward message of “restore the constitutional order”. Which doesn’t support the thesis of the OP that negative protests are ineffective. In my experience, it’s far easier to protest “against” a specific grievance or abuse than make a case for bold social change.
John Q 10.20.25 at 10:58 am
TM @40
As mentioned by Matt @34, we have plenty of protests on both sides in Australia. But it’s hard to protest much against torpor, the dominant mode of our Labor goverment.
My point is specifically about the limited US resistance to Trump, whether that’s protests, strikes, and general activism. As I mentioned, the big exception is resistance to ICE.
Tm 10.20.25 at 11:43 am
For much of the mass media, millions of people protesting for progressive cases are simply not a news story. Are we doing the protesting wrong? I’d rather say the Media are doing the reporting wrong, or to put it bluntly, they are simply not doing their job. We have to contend with that reality.
„Media coverage of Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protests included the New York Times’s shrug“
https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/who-cares-about-7-million-people
Tm 10.20.25 at 2:48 pm
„Protesting for progressive causes“.
SusanC 10.20.25 at 3:14 pm
I have just tried doing a web search for UK political protests…
Gaza. Gaza again. Yet another protest about Gaza. (Protest against Labour from, mostly, the Corbynite left)
Trans rights (protest against Labour from the LGBT left)
Identity cards. (Not sure whether this was mainly left or right. But anyway, protest against Labour for being too authoritarian)
Tommy Robinson (protest against Labour from the anti-immigration right. Also against Labour for being too authoritarian re free speech)
More anti-immigration protests.
Protest against anti-semitism (ok, this one is maybe pro Starmer)
Well, there certainly seem to be protests …
somebody who always reads the comments 10.20.25 at 5:03 pm
Thanks to Tm for that link. It truly is amazing. Here in the comments of Crooked Timber, “oh, people in America aren’t really protesting, it’s not significant” or “oh it’s only in a few big cities” or “it’s nothing like 2020” but in reality it’s 2500 locations and more people in one day than any day in 2020, the biggest day of protest in American history. People’s comments saying America doesn’t protest just sitting in the queue ready to embarrass them 24 hours later. And the link Tm provides has comments which bear out my observations above. People are protesting in places Trump won 70-30, and praising the experience. Why? Because they are showing their solidarity with each other, building community with each other, backing each other up, and showing others that they will do the same. Of course when faced with the largest day of protest in American history most newspapers shrugged and put it on page 9 under the dog track results. “Yawn! Boring! Don’t these people know that the only people that matter in America now are ultra-wealthy super-racists and their slobbering sycophants? Why won’t they LOVE them the way that we do?! Let’s do another story about a ‘well dressed white nationalist’!”
J, not that one 10.20.25 at 6:51 pm
JohnQ @ 16
I don’t think this is an appropriate or productive place to try to produce a full account of current events (incidentally I agree with Tm especially after comparing my observation of smaller events Saturday and earlier, a listing of which can be found online pretty easily, with press coverage, which with a couple of exceptions is non-existent), but this sentence would seem to include several paragraphs’ worth of assumptions and is still bothering me. It’s not as if there was a wall between the suburbs and the cities or urban areas, and only white people and domestic activities (sleeping, eating, watching TV, and so on) are permitted in the former, and the people who sleep in the suburbs also not being permitted outside to engage with the wider world.
LFC 10.20.25 at 9:08 pm
J-D @32 wrote:
Any tips on how I can find more information about current anti-government protests in European countries would be gratefully received.
One thought — there’s Keesing’s Record of World Events, which (according to Google) is published online 11 times a year, but I don’t know exactly what the situation is w.r.t. access. Also, Reuters and the BBC probably cover this sort of thing, as would, e.g., the NYT, though the searching might be laborious. I would also guess there are more specialist sites but not sure offhand which to suggest.
Many major cities have think tanks or institutes that employ people whose job includes staying on top of almost everything that happens in a particular region of the world; e.g., Royal Institute of International Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council etc. etc. Looking at their websites might be helpful (emphasis on “might”).
J-D 10.20.25 at 11:39 pm
I don’t know. Can it be counted–I mean, reliably?
I have participated in protests and rallies and the only idea I ever had of how many people were present was ‘more than I can count’.
SusanC 10.21.25 at 1:23 pm
I think one (of several) functions of a protest is that it gives the people who show up to it a hard to fake signal of how many other people there are who also care enough to show up.
I am reminded of this because of the discussion above of reporting bias. So, sure, the media might make a protest sound bigger than it was, or smaller than it was. Which gives protesters a reason to want to signal to each other in ways the media don’t entirely control.
Tm 10.21.25 at 2:19 pm
J-D, if this is a serious question: participation at protest events has been estimated for a long time, by the police, the media, by the organizers. Of course estimates carry a margin of error but drone images and computers have allowed for far more reliable head count estimates than traditional methods. If a reasonably funded media outlet wants to accurately report on a protest, there is nothing to prevent them from obtaining fairly accurate numbers.
You also questioned (@24) the availability of longitudinal data. A quick search brings me to the German database
“PRODAT – Dokumentation und Analyse von Protestereignissen in der Bundesrepublik”
https://www.wzb.eu/de/forschung/beendete-forschungsprogramme/zivilgesellschaft-und-politische-mobilisierung/projekte/prodat-dokumentation-und-analyse-von-protestereignissen-in-der-bundesrepublik
Nice visualizations:
https://www.protestdata.eu/bundesweite-analyse
Tm 10.21.25 at 3:46 pm
Maybe the most important function of protesting out in the public is to remind each other: We are not alone. We are many. We won’t give up.
Kindred Winecoff 10.21.25 at 6:16 pm
The first No Kings event (on Trump’s birthday, as counterprogramming to his pathetic military parade in DC, which has since been completely forgotten) was targeted in part by Elon/DOGE on both policy grounds — these cuts were massively damaging — and on principle — an unelected billionaire should not be allowed to override the appropriations of Congress and fire workers on a whim.
Those protests were successful enough that Elon is no longer in the government and his businesses lost many tens of billions in revenue.
The second No Kings event has stiffened the spine of Democratic lawmakers who would not shut down the government in March but have done so now, demanding two things: secured health care financing and an end to impoundments/rescissions. They have also mobilized large numbers of people in the run-up to Nov 5 elections, which are off-year elections but still important for governorships, state legislatures, state judiciaries (yes, we elect judges in some places here), etc. And that builds engagement and momentum for next year, when there is likely to be substantial efforts made at repressing the vote.
So again, this most recent No Kings has both a substantive progressive policy goal (protect health care) and a principled opposition to authoritarian governance, with ICE as a particular flashpoint. Moreover, it has been successful in framing the gov shutdown as a principled opposition to autocracy, which is now the position of supermajorities of “independent” voters, per polling.
There was a third imperative for this No Kings event: demonstrate that the party stoking political violence is MAGA. And this was accomplished incredibly well, the only arrests I am aware of last weekend were arrests of counterprotesters (mostly armed/threatening). Nevertheless, we were called terrorists by the President and Speaker and all who support them.
It’s important to note: No Kings was not organized by the Democratic party. It is organized by a variety of groups, many of which were created during the first Trump term, like Indivisible. Another is 50501 (50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement). So these are decentralized movements involving lots of different local branches, and many different issues are represented at local gatherings. At the event I attended the speakers including candidates for local Sheriff — campaigning on a platform consisting of two main planks: “refuse to cooperate with ICE” platform and a “end domestic violence” platform — as well as state offices, congressional candidates etc.
So I would strongly encourage folks not to generalize by saying “they are ineffective” until at least after Nov 5. If my local Sheriff — who is currently using local tax dollars to collaborate with ICE, probably illegally, while facing lawsuits from local and national groups (including the ACLU and NAACP) — loses re-election to a progressive, then that is a tangible outcome.
The history of civil rights in the US is the history of winning local battles one at a time until they start gaining momentum through cumulation. At which point you have a mass movement capable of democratic victory with large enough margins to push structural change.
PS, to J-D, “only 10 hereditary monarchies in Europe” is not a line of argument that will impress many Americans, but rather than debate it hopefully we can agree with Lisa that progressives everywhere have a lot to protect and also a long way to go.
Kindred Winecoff 10.21.25 at 6:28 pm
J @ 46 (responding to JQ @ 16): I agree with you, that comment bothered me a lot too. It is completely wrong in the case of Broadview, Illinois. Which is both a suburb (outside of Chicago) and one of the largest sites of protest activity in the country.
E.g., here is media reporting on Kat Abughazaleh — a 26 year old Palestinian-American, who is partnered with a former NBC News journalist (who was suspended for criticizing Elon Musk’s use of disinformation), and who will likely be elected in the next US Congress as one of its youngest-ever members — being thrown to the ground by masked secret police last month:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/watch-democratic-congressional-candidate-slammed-174250824.html
There are scenes like this nearly every week, in suburbs and small towns as well as large metros. A big part of the Trump machine is about dominating the news-cycle, constantly, to never let this kind of thing get oxygen.
Kindred Winecoff 10.21.25 at 6:30 pm
J-D @ 48,
G Elliott Morris is a statistician (formerly of 538) who publishes his data and methods here:
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/no-kings-numbers-update-and-democrats
JimV 10.21.25 at 7:25 pm
This is part of what Paul Krugman said on his substack on this issue:
Paul Krugman, at his SubStack — “Civil Resistance Confronts the Autocracy”:
…The march I joined was immense. G. Elliott Morris and the independent science newsroom Xylon estimate that 320,000 people protested in New York, and their median estimate is that more than 5 million protested nationwide. As Morris says, Saturday’s events were very likely “the biggest single-day protest since 1970.” Furthermore, the event was completely nonviolent: The New York Police Department reported zero arrests…
… my second question arises: does it matter whether people are out there marching and carrying signs, even if they number in the millions? Well, there is a solid body of research by political scientists like Erica Chenoweth about the effects of civil resistance — nonviolent shows of opposition to those controlling or attempting to control the government. The clear answer from this research is that demonstrations like No Kings Day can make a big difference. They are a show of the depth and popularity of a movement, reassuring those who are opposed to a nation’s direction that many, many others share that opposition.
J-D 10.22.25 at 8:58 pm
Wikipedia tells me it came to an end in 2016.
Laborious, yes! How would you even begin that search? You try using ‘protests’ as a search term at the Reuters website and see where it gets you.
Yes, I know, but the way they frequently disagree with each other does not inspire confidence in the reliability of their methods.
Good. I cannot regard ‘impresses many Americans’ as a reliable indicator of quality. How many Americans could name ten different countries in Europe?
Tm 10.23.25 at 12:51 pm
J-D, I contend that the number of people present at a specific time and place is a physical entity that can be measured. Crowd size estimates, like all estimates, carry a margin of error but that doesn’t mean they are fundamentally unreliable, it just means they have to be treated with care like all estimates. Trump himself demonstrated this successfully when he claimed his inauguration was the biggest ever and was proven wrong. And the fact that Trump continues to claim that the estimates by independent observers are wrong doesn’t actually undermine their reliability. It just means that Trump lied as he always does.
I’ll leave it there.
J-D 10.23.25 at 10:46 pm
Are they normally accompanied by reference to the associated margins of error? That’s not what I recall.
Kindred Winecoff 10.24.25 at 6:15 pm
J-D, if “reliable indicators of quality” of government are what we are after, then there have been none in Europe for decades (centuries?).
As I wrote before: our fates are linked, and no one has a strong track record, so it’s best that we focus on what is ahead. If you’d like to discuss the extent to which Europe shares responsibility for the resuscitation of fascism then I am more than prepared for such a conversation, but I hope those energies can be put to better use organizing the next protest, the next campaign, etc.
In the meantime, I called my shot on No Kings, and I posted a link to the statistical work of Elliott Morris and several of us posted the — very famous to even casual observers! — studies of Erica Chenowith (who others also linked to). There are entire subfields committed to estimating the size and impact of protest movements. Dismiss them in ignorance, fine; in response, be dismissed.
Tm 10.27.25 at 1:41 pm
From Texas to Tennessee, Even Trump Country Is Marching Against Trump
A new Harvard study shows that 2025 protests are likely the most geographically widespread in US history.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/no-kings-from-texas-to-tennessee-even-trump-country-is-marching-against-trump/
J-D 10.27.25 at 11:32 pm
I don’t think they are; certainly I made no such reference. I did make an indirect reference to ‘reliable indicators of quality’ of a line of argument, in the negative sense that ‘it impresses a lot of Americans’ isn’t one.
I don’t know what might make you think that would be something I would like to discuss–again, it’s something I’ve made no reference to. It occurs to me to wonder whether you’re under the misapprehension that I’m a European.
You posted a link to a webpage with a paywall–the statistical work you’re referring to may be behind that paywall.
What percentage of the world’s population, do you suppose, have heard of Erica Chenoweth?
Chris Bertram posted a link to a piece co-written by Erica Chenoweth which mentioned, among other things, that there was a much larger number of protests in the first few months of 2025 than in the first few months of 2017, but did not comment on the number of people participating in protests. JimV referred (without citation) to work by Erica Chenoweth suggesting that protests are effective, without referring to how the number of people at a protest can be estimated.
Tm 10.28.25 at 12:19 pm
This is beyond tedious so let’s just remember that you J-D questioned whether protest activity even can be measured. Why don’t you just admit that yes of course people gathering in a public place is an empirical fact that can be observed and measured, and be done with it. If you are really interested in the technical details, it’s up to you to familiarize yourself with the literature.
J-D 10.28.25 at 11:36 pm
Because I don’t understand how counting them could be done. I’m not saying it can’t be done, only that I don’t understand how.
And if I don’t do that, I still won’t understand how it can be done and still won’t have an adequate evidentiary basis for concluding that it can be done, but that seems to me like the kind of thing that shouldn’t bother you.
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