Comment by ethbr1
Some wisdom: There are and have always been problems with American democracy. Yet at the end of the day vote counts and protest counts are the things that change the country's trajectory.
Part of the toxicness of current news media is the "And this can never be changed" doomerism.
Bullshit. Everything can be changed. It just takes action and convincing others to take action.
Protests mostly make people feel good, but rarely invoke change. MLK did not accomplish his goals through life, it was the violence that followed that precipitated actual change. Did RvW protests stop the SC? Did Palestine protests stop our involvement with Israel? Did Occupy Wall Street work? Did the LEO system get reformed after the massive Floyd protests? No. Not a single one of those protests with tens of millions of total participants worked.
France didn't preserve their retirement age by walking around with signs. They had to get disobedient. Break shit, stop collecting trash or running services.
Shockingly, people who are going to fuck you for power or money could care less if you're upset about being fucked. And now that the majority of media in America is controlled by 7 billionaires and they've spent 30 years justifying shooting or run over protestors, they're calling the bluff and betting Americans will roll over and take it.
And they're probably right.