I ended yesterday’s post with a question: What is the actual strategic impact of the fact that seven million protesters showed up this past Saturday?
Seven million is not enough to convincingly sway national elections, since it could be argued that those were mostly people who didn’t vote for you-know-who. But here’s a clue:
Someone I know told me the other day that he tried to write a letter to the New York Times on this topic, and his letter was blocked. His theory was that it was blocked because he used the phrase “general strike”.
Those two words together are very powerful in America. This is, after all, a capitalist country, and corporations take their bottom lines very seriously.
For example, in the wake of the Jimmy Kimmel incident, we and many others summarily cancelled our subscription to Disney Plus. It took only three days after that for Disney to bring Kimmel back on the air. Clientes locuti sunt.
These days, politicians are largely funded by corporations, in the wake of the Citizens United decision. So when corporations speak, politicians must listen. And when consumers speak, corporations listen.
Which shows the real strategic power of a seven million person protest: The implied threat of a general strike.
Pretty powerful stuff. No wonder the New York Times is afraid to talk about it.