I was initially surprised that the large national effort by No Kings, staging some 3,000+ events on October 17, got relatively little attention in mainstream media. There are lots of good pictures of earnest people carrying funny signs in groups large and small, with all kinds of interesting backdrops. (The picture above of a Philadelphia demonstration is from NPR, which posts lots of other neat phots.)

But then there’s France, where the crowds have been larger and unruly, policing has been vigorous and violent, and politicians of the left and right are eagerly trying to get in front of the disruption and convert it to some electoral advantage.

Car fires, broken glass, and confrontation with police is always going to get more attention from an editor than a colorful slow walk through the streets of sober citizens carrying witty signs.

But both sets of actions are demonstrations intended to signal something to authorities and potential allies. Activists make a statement of who they are, what they want, and what else they might do.

No Kings is about “regular Americans,” angry about the Trump presidency. No Kings has also become a holder for all kinds of other specific grievances on issues, which vary around the United States. Organizers are deliberately trying to herd those marchers to the ballot box for this November’s elections: they might vote. At this moment, it’s a warning to a very unpopular president and the Republican Party, and a bit of encouragement to Democrats.

France is different. Although there’s an election coming there as well, the follow-on actions are more varied and certainly more threatening. President Emmanuel Macron is term-limited and even less popular than Donald Trump (<20% approval). Voting for any one of his would-be successors hardly seems enough to the masses of young people angry about their severely underfunded and dilapidated schools and their economic and educational prospects for the future. Many of them, too young or not citizens, can’t vote anyway. They are banging away at the pieces of the state they can reach, hoping for some kind of response. And those candidates are offering very different options: those on the left are promising some way to manage the cost of living and heal the beleaguered welfare state, while Marine Le Pen, from the far right, promises law and order.

Sometimes banging on a broken appliance gets it working again; sometimes, it just falls apart.