In order to defeat Trump, we have to understand that he’s using the media to run an unReality TV show—and beat him at his game. On our signs, we have to deliver visually interesting images that communicate what words cannot.
Protests have three main goals:
1. To show the public and public officials that a policy is unpopular
2. To reassert the key constitutional principles that government is subordinate to the governed and that rights are inherent, not favors granted by the government
3. To communicate—not just with the TV audience but with passersby and even police and counter-protesters; this is perhaps the most important part of protesting.
We’re in this situation because Americans have stopped talking to each other. That’s the result of a society where people move frequently and where electronic media has replaced so much of conversation...and also because alienating people from one another is an authoritarian strategy to weaken the power of the people vs. that of the state. Fox News is an alienation machine, sowing fear, distrust and especially falsehoods.
Many of us do not understand just how effectively mass media twists the situation. Listen to Dan Froomkin, a professional journalist formerly with the Washington Post:
The mainstream media has become a key partner in Donald Trump’s quest to cast the small-scale rioting in Los Angeles as an existential threat to the country.
This is happening in two ways.
- The media is focusing on the visually dramatic rioting and property damage rather than the overwhelmingly peaceful expressions of support for friends and neighbors and a widespread backlash against over-militarized and cruel immigration raids.
- The media is casting Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard and the Marines as an attempt to “quell” the rioting, when in fact it is incitement, pure and simple, intended to stoke the violence rather than abet it.
The images of burning Waymos and grafitti saying “Amerikka must die” are most of what the public sees of the LA protests. They don’t see how small protests turned into larger protests because of the government response. They don’t know that the Waymos were burned because protesters are afraid that they will be used by the police for surveillance. They probably don’t know that there have been no deaths and only a few minor injuries on the police side—but the police have inflicted a lot of injuries, including what looks like the targeting of journalists. They don’t know that the National Guard much less the military has never been used for unrest on par with what happens after a Superbowl victory.
We have three things at our disposal to undercut Trumps unReality TV: our own demeanor (including clothes and language), our willingness to talk calmly to other protesters, passersby, police, and—when it won’t stoke confrontation—to counterprotesters. To implement those, we have two tools: our voices and our signs.
Effective signs will have these things: a striking image, a very few words, and a message reinforced by the words and the image. They have to be legible!
Ideally, signs use the language of the opposition. “Republic” instead of “democracy.” Quotations from scripture. Quotes from Republicans. We’re not writing for ourselves. We’re writing for people who aren’t engaged.
Humor is another important angle.
The image used in the title, added to the DK library by rebel ga, conveys the sense that Trump thinks he’s a king, but it’s an illusion. With the right words, it could be used to convey the idea that Trump is delusional. So an ineffective title might be “Trump is so crazy he thinks that all immigrants are criminals. They aren't. Many are nice people. My neighbor is.” Too many words. A complicated message.
A better title might be: His delusion won’t destroy the Republic. Your inaction might.”
It’s fun to yell at protests. It’s fun to play drums. It’s fun to sing. But unlike past generations, we’re up against a media that all too often bends the story into Trump’s unReality frame.
We have to be smarter.
We have to make signs that break through.
