A brief note:
Two retired lawyers in the D.C. area who I respect and consider good friends posted a photo of themselves, smiling and standing in the freezing cold at a street corner holding a “No King’s” sign. About 20 more of my friends “liked” or “loved” the post.
What earthly good is such a pointless protest? Are these lives so empty and without purpose that they couldn’t find something more productive and beneficent to do? Like..oh..anything? Make a pot-holder. Memorize “The Highwayman.” Learn chess.
Is this virtue-signaling? Is this insanity? Both of these friends could engage on Ethics Alarms, for example, and learn something. Maybe teach something, make someone smile, make a freind, have their assumptions challenged. A trained chimp or a 6-year-old could hold a “No Kings” sign.
Madness.
Ethics Alarms 
Did they at least have a ‘Support Maduro” sign next to the ‘No Kings’ sign?
No, but I’m sure they would tell you that they support the King of Denmark.
I think it’s similar to what happened during COVID:
I think people convince themselves that masks and distancing helped, that they were doing something to control a bad situation.
Here, they’ve convinced themselves that protesting is changing minds and affecting the trajectory of the political will of the US.
That’s a pretty lucid and viable explanation, Folder. Thanks for that.
When Trump was elected in 2016, an earnest lefty neighbor started volunteering at the local (an hour’s drive away) NPR station because, in her words, “she felt she had to do something.” (I doubt she made more than one or two visits to the station.)
I think your summary goes a long way to answering my incessantly asking, “What’s wrong with these people?”
“Is this virtue-signaling? Is this insanity?“
It is better, I think, to believe that they believe what they profess. It is not possible to ‘believe a lie’ unless you no longer believe such a lie. Then you call it a lie (or self-deception). Virtue-signaling is too simple of analysis, and it is a term assigned by the other side to what they believe their opposition do. So again, people are trying to present their best selves in defense of what they believe to be right.
What I most notice from paying attention to the information that is available on blogs, on MSM sites, in talks by intellectuals and those who aspire to intellectuality, and in short on all the different streams of information where people describe what they see, what they fear and hate, and what produces apprehension, is that there is no longer any ‘agreement’ within the social body. Agreements have disintegrated. People with their 2 eyes do not look out on the same world. So, it is not ‘insanity’ but has more to do with a postmodern crisis. It is a question of interpretation (of the world).
The fact is that if you asked them they would pose your question back to you. And if they had the power and influence they would send you to the ‘reeducation camp’ to have your circuits rearranged.
To say Trump is acting like a ‘king’ is a sort of abbreviation of what they mean, isn’t it? Isn’t the issue that of (the use and also the abuse of) executive power? That the incoming president erases sets of policies that the previous administrator set up to the delight of his percentage of the voting public? Isn’t what they object to here that Trump and his lieutenants are working to rewrite into the legal codes what has been outlined in that *Project 2025* document?
All of this, or the most of it, is received emotionally. That is to say that they believe that what so-called ‘conservative America’ desire to do is to set the country back “fifty years” — or even more. There was an ‘opinion article’ yesterday in NYTs by a woman saying that the some document by the Heritage Foundation declaring that women should return to the home and child-rearing is a retrogressive wish. It called forth her moral objection. But the actual fact of the matter is that there is, beyond any doubt, a cultural battle playing out that is nearly religious (or metaphysical) in tone.
So they believe “No Kings”? What the hell does that mean? It means, I hate the President no matter what he does. I’m sure they believe it. So what?
I am guessing it has been a minute since you participated in a physical protest (as opposed to this on-line stuff?)
A big part of it is the community building — gathering in solidarity with others who have similar values.
Kind of what happens here on EA for many, I suspect?
Also analogous to the motivation of those avid Trump Rally participants who traveled from state to state to be a part of the show. Identity, solidarity, etc.
Also explains (to me) why Deadheads were willing to do the same, given my difficulty understanding the appeal of the music itself.
Oh, and football games, apparently. People like to gather with others who they feel are on the same team.
Hope that helps clarify for you why someone might choose this activity rather than playing chess (not that one couldn’t ALSO play chess at a rally — my partner seems to be constantly playing chess on his phone)
On the potholder front, I believe there WAS a knitter’s table at some of the Portland ICE-capade gatherings. And free salsa lessons! (the dance, not the sauce).
Of course I also understand why you consider this a STUPID activity, in other words, it is one you don’t personally choose to engage in. So much stupid in the world!!
You now have an obligation to read the Ethics Alarms Protest Ethics Checklist. Many posts here have precedents and histories. Apply the protest I described to the 12 questions.
If you don’t want to deal with a post on its own terms, than don’t waste my time with a comment. A vague “me too” protest that has no particulars, only can convince people who agree already, and that is devoid of facts and arguments, IS stupid. And, as we have seen, encouraging such nonsense can get people killed. This comment is trolling. The day Ethics Alarms posts a single King of Diamonds blow-up with “No Kings” on it, and nothing else, then I’ll accept a comparison of that empty protest and my blog. Absent that, it’s a gratuitous insult, and I resent it.
Resentment received and acknowledged! Sorry to add to your stress.
For clarification I wasn’t equating the content of your blog and their signs, which seems to have been the trigger point for your resentment (?).
I enjoy the content of your blog, and also the community you have built! I find it quite informative.
Instead I was addressing the *motivation* behind attending a protest (any protest, really, with signs or not)… and what people might get out of an activity like this, which you suggested you find mystifying.
“What earthly good …” etc.
among the constructive activities you list is “make someone smile”
Let’s see:
“Two retired lawyers… smiling and standing” — so they WERE smiling! Perhaps enjoying one another’s company? Does that qualify? Even if doing a not-approved-by-JM activity?
“About 20 more of my friends “liked” or “loved” the post.” Hmm, perhaps one or more of these friends smiled when they saw the picture?
I guess you need to be more specific re your instructions for constructive activity:
“Make someone smile, but not for any old reason… needs to be something that would make ME smile.”
Otherwise… it is stupid, pointless or even….
Madness?