Who’s running the immigrant rights movement?

Posted on August 12, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Lots of people.

No one.

In this regard, the immigrant rights movement isn’t very different from virtually every other social movement in recent American history.

While I’ve been awed by the bravery and commitment of the DREAM 9, subjecting themselves to arrest and potential deportation in the service of dramatizing the need for comprehensive immigration reform, others involved in the struggle for a very long time were less enthralled.  At the LA Times, Cindy Carcomo has the story of divided opinions among immigration rights activists.

Civil disobedience here is risky and it’s polarizing, and it’s unlikely to do anything over the short and medium term to affect the balance of power and commitment in Washington, DC, meaning mostly the US Congress.  Carcomo cites Dave Leopold, an immigrant rights lawyer, who says the efforts would be better directed at pressuring House Speaker John Boehner.

How?  Not so clear, but there’s a hint elsewhere in the Times.  A front page story reports that a liberal group, America’s Voice, has been donating money to support South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s reelection bid.  Senator Graham is a conservative Republican who supports international military engagement and comprehensive immigration reform, that is, not conservative enough to head off a Tea Party-ish primary challenge.  Pragmatic politics?  Foolish compromise?

Advocates of immigration reform will differ on shorter term demands, tactics, and strategies of influence; they’ll also differ on longer term goals.  And they won’t be able to stop those allies they disagree with from pursuing approaches they view as foolish or counterproductive in the first place.  Remember, immigrant rights activists were initially reluctant to allow the DREAM Act, what seemed like the most tractable piece of their broader agenda, to be carved out from a comprehensive bill.  But they couldn’t stop the DREAMers.

Social movements in America do not easily submit to anyone’s control, even that of long time activists.  Made up of multiple groups and individuals who drift in and out with a range of ideologies and resources, movements develop idiosyncratically as leaders frantically try to cultivate cooperation and coherence.  And the immigrant rights and reform struggle is just another example.

Remember that gay and lesbian activists divided over the wisdom and value of a strategy based on access to marriage.

And that the early Tea Party groups were supported by well-funded national groups that mostly supported an open approach to borders and immigration.

Now marriage equality is the prime front in the gay rights struggle and Tea Partiers–if not all the national organizations–are on the front lines fighting immigration reform.

America is an entrepreneurial environment for social movement activists, and groups and leaders have a harder time establishing monopoly control of a movement than companies do in markets.

Movement strategy emerges from competition, as organizers try to get support from activists, funders, and authorities, while they try to convince, cajole, and contain their allies.

It’s complicated to watch, and more than that to try to coordinate.

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DREAM 9 and organizing around civil disobedience

Posted on August 8, 2013 by David S. Meyer

I’m in awe of the courage and commitment of the DREAM 9, and their (probably inappropriate) confidence in their ability to move the immigration debate forward toward some kind of reform.

On July 22, the nine young non-citizens, who had been brought to the United States as children, entered the United States by crossing the Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona.  (Cindy Carcomo has been covering the story for the LA Times.) All had grown up in the United States, and three went to Mexico specifically to stage this action.  They didn’t try to sneak in.  Instead, dressed in graduation robes, they announced their undocumented status, hoping to be detained and tried before an immigration judge.

[It’s not so easy; these are not the sorts of people either Homeland Security or the Obama administration wants to focus on.  See a recent report on This American Life, which featured a powerful story of young DREAM activists who worked hard to get into an immigrant detention center in Florida in hopes of preventing the deportation of others.]

These DREAMers asked for political asylum, claiming specific threats of violence and discrimination if returned to Mexico.  But from the start, they’ve been looking for legal relief for perhaps a million people just like them, and for another 10 million long term undocumented residents of the United States.  It’s a bold and risky strategy.

Oh, of course all activism entails some risk or cost, but in America most of us have ready access to all kind of extremely safe and protected ways to protest, including demonstrations, petitions, and pickets.  But the nine knew that they were courting a long term of incarceration in bad circumstances followed by deportation to a country most of them didn’t know very well.  All had friends and families and most of their worlds in the United States.

Their bet is that their bravery in exposing the costs of a dysfunctional immigration system would generate a round of attention that could spur a concerned American public to press Congress to move on comprehensive immigration reform, or at least a DREAM Act.  It’s a bet that’s not likely to pay off very soon.

But the DREAM 9 have generated national attention and concern, and Homeland Security has given them a path toward organizing, if not citizenship.  Their claims for asylum are unlikely to be accepted when heard before a judge; only a tiny fraction of such claims from Mexican immigrants are granted.  But it may be a few years before the cases progress, adn they think time is on their side.  In the interim, these DREAMers will be able to reclaim some of their lives. One, Lizabeth Mateo, will be starting law school at the University of Santa Clara; she wants to be an immigration lawyer.

And their political struggle continues.  They were welcomed as heroes when released at a bus station in Tucson, and within hours were back at the detention center, protesting outside, and they’re not alone.

The National Immigrant Youth Alliance and DreamActitivist.org have been tracking these Dreamers, and organizing around them since their arrest.  Their efforts have included rallies and vigils, a petition campaign, and a rolling hunger strike that allows supporters to take on a little of the hardship the nine embraced.  Activists have targeted President Obama for focused attention, and forty members of Congress have signed letters of support, although that number is probably already outdated.

The DREAM 9 are building upon at least three years of other DREAMers coming out by going public and revealing undocumented status, often in the context of civil disobedience actions.  The earlier efforts have whet public attention to the issue and the tactic, and built stronger activist networks of support.

There’s little reason to believe that these DREAMers, no matter how sincere, appealing or brave, are likely to move a majority of House Republicans to take their own risks in confronting anti-immigrant sentiments within their party.  But the nine have raised the issue, again and powerfully, giving supporters an occasion to do more.

Civil disobedience works, when it does, as part of broader political campaigns, by activating audiences and engaging larger numbers in a wide variety of actions.  The DREAM 9 may not be the the final effort that tips institutional politics toward reform, but these efforts and risks are not in vain.  This DREAM will not die.

 

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Cooper Union occupation ends with promises of consultation

Posted on July 16, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Cooper Union students, who have been occupying the offices of the school’s president for more than two months, have announced that they’re moving out.  Free Cooper Union started when the Board of Trustees announced that they would begin charging tuition next year–a departure from 111 years of free tuition for admitted students.

The student protesters were stalwarts, maintaining a constant presence of dozens of students through the end of the school year and beyond.  What got them out?

As the (former) Occupiers, administration, and trustees of Cooper Union announced on the school’s website, the administration and the students negotiated a deal that will allow politics to continue in a less disruptive way.  The Occupiers get amnesty for anything they might have done in the struggle, providing they agree to obey school rules in the future.  They also won the creation of a new Working Group which will be charged with finding ways to restore a tuition-free education.  The agreement stipulates student and faculty membership in the Working Group, and that if outside financial expertise is needed, it will be provided from acknowledged experts on finance at elite universities (none of which are tuition free).

This may be the best deal the students could get; after all, their occupation couldn’t go on forever, and they were well-aware that the administration had the capacity to end it summarily by calling in the police.  But it’s hard to think that this working group will reverse the trustees’ decision to charge tuition.  Really, creating this kind of special commission/working group/ad hoc committee, is a common tactic for taking the steam out of protests.  (This is, by the way, what Lindsey Lupo’s fine book is all about.)

Cooper Union’s tuition-free model apparently collapsed during the Great Recession when rent from its primary asset, the Chrysler Building, faltered.  Outside experts deplored the school’s failure to develop a diversified portfolio over the years, or to build a more sustainable model for funding its program.  A Working Group can rehash all of this.

But earnest, intelligent, and hard-working students in the new Working Group will be sitting at the table with far more sophisticated financial players, people who will tell them how much they regret having to charge tuition, and how committed they are to making sure that needy students will get sufficient financial aid to be able to attend Cooper Union.  They might even be telling the truth.  Students will have to manage their classes, their own finances, and their post-college aspirations.  The next generation of Cooper Union students will enter the school with individual plans for managing the new tuition and debt.  It will be extremely difficult to reopen the tuition issue in a serious way.  Students will have been heard, then herded into an institutional politics that’s unlikely to generate anything they imagined they wanted.

This is the kind of thing that most people think of when they use the word, COOPTATION.

Full disclosure: many years ago, on a less important issue and with a much less developed protest, I was part of a group that signed off on such a deal.  We got to make a presentation to the Board of Trustees, and I sat on a special committee that discussed space for a year.  I wish the Cooper Union students a better fate.

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Martin, Zimmerman, judicial backlash and policy change: update

Posted on July 15, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Yesterday I claimed that the disappointment and mobilization in the wake of unpopular judicial verdicts in the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson cases didn’t lead to changes in policy.  (That’s another disappointment!)  I asked for corrections.

Lindsey Lupo, a political scientist at Point Loma Nazarene University, who has studied the issue, wrote in response:

Regarding your question about whether police policy changed after the Rodney King beating, you are correct in that it did not…even in LA.  Just after the beating in 1991, Mayor Bradley instituted the Christopher Commission to study the LAPD. It was headed by Warren Christopher and released 4 months after the beating, but 13 months before riot.  It made sweeping recommendations but not much changed in LAPD culture after its release (a report called “Five Years Later” was released in 1996 and confirmed this, particularly with regard to use of force, bias, cultural awareness, and racism). In 2000, another commission was instituted to study the LAPD in the wake of the Rampart scandal.  It too found that not much had changed in the last decade.  I’d venture to say that not much has changed even now….in LA or elsewhere.

Professor Lupo is an expert on these issues, and the author of the excellent book, Flak-Catchers: One Hundred Years of Riot Commission Politics in America (Lexington Books, 2010).

Full disclosure: I was proud to serve on Prof. Lupo’s dissertation committee.

 

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Zimmerman, Martin, and the Courts

Posted on July 14, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Don’t count on the courts to produce justice, but sometimes it’s disappointment with the legal system that does make change.

We expect too much from the courts and we’re constantly disappointed.  The trial in Florida could have ended with George Zimmerman sanctioned in some way for shooting and killing an unarmed teenager; a court could have given him a long prison sentence.  It didn’t end up that way.  Pundits can argue about whether the verdict was appropriate legally, even if not morally, but it’s clearly not enough.

Even under different circumstances, that court couldn’t do anything about:

a hollowed out public sector which leads to the proliferation of untrained but armed amateur police patrols;

the availability of firearms;

the practice of racial profiling;

the fear of crime.

Even worse, if horrifically obvious, no court can undo the damage done.  A civil suit may later lead to a financial judgment that garnishes Zimmerman’s earnings for the rest of his life, but that doesn’t bring back the child.

Social movements try to advance causes, but courts try and resolve cases. The legal system is all about containing and managing disputes, filtering out politics and larger issues.

The legal system may not yet be done with George Zimmerman.  The federal government could file civil rights charges; the Martin family can file a civil suit for wrongful death.

All that is far less important than the larger causes.

In the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal, frustrated and angry people have tried to find ways to channel their efforts.  Activists, supported by the NAACP and Moveon.org are pressing the Department of Justice to prosecute Zimmerman for civil rights violations.  There’s a petition you can sign.

Some activists have tried to raise money for Trayvon Martin’s family.  Money is no substitute for a son, of course.  It’s just what they can do; it’s not a very good way to say you care, but it’s a way, and it may be the best they can do.

There have been vigils and rallies and protests across the country, mostly very peaceful and sad.  In Oakland, however, demonstrators have broken windows, set fires, and clashed with police.  It’s part of a longer story there.

What happens in these painful days is less important, ultimately, than what happens in the weeks and months that follow.  The criminal justice system generated this verdict, an unsatisfying judgment about an awful event.  It becomes something more only if activists are able to shift focus from the courts to the less contained and even more difficult world of politics, turning the killing into a catalyst for policy reforms on guns or public services or racial profiling.

Note: this rarely happens.  Neither the acquittal nor the subsequent conviction of the police who beat Rodney King led to changes in police policy nationally–or even in LA.  (Correct me, please, if I’m wrong on this.)  The frustrations over O.J. Simpson’s acquittal didn’t lead to better protections for women seeking protection from stalkers–even famous ones.

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Massive hunger strike in California prisons

Posted on July 9, 2013 by David S. Meyer

An astonishing 30,000 prisoners in California prisons have refused meals.  The Corrections Department doesn’t call it a hunger strike until 9 meals have been missed, but what’s going on is pretty clear.

A hunger strike reflects commitment and desperation; prison inmates have very little leverage in influencing the decisions that affect their lives.  California prisoners have employed the tactic recurrently in recent years.  Immediately, the inmates in 10 other prisons are supporting the ongoing campaign of inmates that the super high security Pelican Bay facility to limit solitary confinement to five years.  (five years!)  But California inmates have other grievances: they want education and rehabilitation programs; they want decent medical care; they want less crowded prisons.

A panel of Federal judges agrees with them.  An appellate court has ordered Governor Brown to reduce the population held in California’s prisons.  Governor Brown, no political neophyte, knows releasing nearly 10,000 prisoners on relatively short notice is bad politics; he also knows that paying for adequate housing and health care is bad for the budget.  Governor Brown has delayed and appealed repeatedly, hoping for a win that seems unlikely, but he’s been able to stall reform for years.  The inmates are doing what they can to try to enter the debate.

The crisis in California prisons is real and has been a long time in developing.  Since the 1970s, ambitious politicians have learned that proposing harsher treatment of criminals, particularly longer sentences, was potentially helpful and politically unassailable.  The voters joined in, passing a Three Strikes law, mandating life imprisonment for the third felony conviction, by referendum in 1994.    California has also historically posted the highest recidivism rates in the nation, with more than 70 percent of released prisons returned to prison within three years.  So, California prisons are overcrowded, filled not only with dangerous and violent felons, but also sickly geriatric prisoners in need of health care; the prison system is inadequate and extremely expensive, crowding out spending for programs that provide more direct benefit to most Californians.

Convicted felons in prison have little say over any of this, and those that do–elected officials and voters–are generally not very sympathetic to the prisoners.  The hunger strike doesn’t have much of a chance of influencing the debate and refocusing attention, but it’s the best chance the inmates have.

By refusing meals and work, California’s inmates are trying to remind everyone else in the state of their existence.  Skipping the first few meals is painful, but after a few days, hunger apparently disappears, then strength follows.  I’m not aware of any hunger strike that has mobilized 30,000 people in a fast.  Whether Corrections officials deem it a hunger strike today or not, be sure that they’re trying to figure out a strategy to handle massive non-cooperation, hoping that they can avoid both force-feeding and inmate fatalities.  If even half of those who started continue on, any strategy will be unlikely to succeed.

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Social movements, governance, democracy, and Egypt

Posted on July 4, 2013 by David S. Meyer

What are we to make of the military coup that the military refuses to call a coup in Egypt?  I’m generally ready to cheer the departure of an unpopular putative theocrat, but quite suspicious of the military deposing elected officials while claiming to act for the good of

Tahrir Square, 2013

the people.  Taken altogether, the past two years of the Arab Spring in Egypt delineate both the power of popular movements, and the severe constraints they face.

The diverse crowds that filled Tahrir Square just over two years ago, in January 2011, forced an autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak, out of office after thirty years, but they didn’t do it on their own.  When Mubarak left it was the military command, not a peoples’ council from the streets, that claimed control of the country, and it was the military that organized elections and forced an unpalatable choice upon the people.  While the images from Tahrir Square may have fed the imaginations of reformers around the world–and in Zuccotti Park, it’s important to remember that the Occupiers weren’t waiting for the military to make decisions and take sides.

Thirteen months ago Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s first elected president, defeating an opponent from Mubarak’s government, after the military had sifted and sorted a longer list of candidates for office.  The Islamic Brotherhood, which supported Morsi, was one of the stronger and better organized forces in the streets during the revolutionary period–although they certainly didn’t represent the majority of those reformers demonstrating to remake Egypt.  At the same time, Morsi’s election represented a victory for the religious movement.  In office, President Morsi tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to balance conflicting pressures for reform and the interests of his religious party.  His popularity, limited from the outset, unraveled quickly, and many of those who’d taken to the streets two years ago returned to Tahrir Square.

Witnessing disruption and violence in the streets–as Morsi’s supporters fought back–the military leadership again saw the need to intervene in would-be democratic politics.  After President Morsi announced that he would not relinquish power or responsibility in response to the threats of the military, the armed forces seized power, put him under arrest, and commenced clearing his allies out of government, announcing a provisional ruler and elections some time in the future.  For the moment, democratic reformers can cheer the military action, but maybe it’s only a wary half-cheer, a fist pump up not quite so high.

The throngs in Tahrir, both in 2011 and last week, are the spirit and vision of democracy,

Tahrir Square, 2011

but governance is harder and far more complicated; it’s easier to run a movement than a state.  The Muslim Brotherhood, which has actively opposed secular government in Egypt since its founding in 1928, finally gained a chance to make policy as well as politics when President Morsi took office, but Morsi and his allies had been more adept in opposition.  The government couldn’t deliver on the very high expectations it generated and the people who had taken to the streets were unwilling to settle for less and stay quiescent; the military was unwilling to force them to do so.  Egypt is now in a reset mode, with the military firmly in control, the Muslim Brotherhood, understandably, less enthusiastic about working within the system, and democratic reformers willfully hoping for something better than they can realistically expect.

The Arab Spring eruptions of democratic dreamers inspired activists around the world,  but two years later, there aren’t many unambiguous victories to claim.  Most of those challenged survived, and the replacements of those who were toppled have still to prove themselves.  Meanwhile, a terrible civil war continues in Syria.

Everyone wants something better, but there’s no easy transition from bravely marching in the streets to making effective and wise decisions about power, taxes, water, and so many other things, once in power.

Democracy is in the streets?  Maybe, but it can’t be only in the streets and still be democracy.

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How the anti-gay movement faces defeat

Posted on June 26, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Social movement activists lose all the time.  The stalwarts find ways to be more optimistic about the next battle (see Bill McKibben tracking the Keystone pipeline).  Occasional activists and amateurs can pick other issues and redirect themselves to more promising efforts, political or personal.  For the professionals who’ve built reputations–and careers–in a movement that’s losing, recognizing defeat and finding an exit strategy is a little tougher–and it’s all public.

Even before today’s Supreme Court decisions about marriage, the road ahead looked very rough for opponents of same sex marriage.  The change in public opinion, rapid and rooted in demography, makes life particularly difficult for the “traditional marriage movement.”

So, what do you do when you’re losing, and when it looks like it’s going to get worse, not better?

1.  Give up and join the winners.  A few visible national Republicans have publicly changed their minds on same sex marriage, generally describing the conversion as heartfelt, pragmatic, and really conservative.  Rob Portman described two years of coming to terms with the conflict between his position and his gay son’s welfare.  More recently, Lisa Murkowski, whose victory over a Tea Party challenger has afforded her the space to be a truly independent conservative, described her new support for same sex marriage as inspired by a conversation with a lesbian veteran.  Some larger number of people will acquiesce to political reality more quietly.

2.  Change the battleground. Republicans in Congress decried the Court’s decision today, but shifted the political focus to the states.  This is pragmatic in every way, most notably in relieving themselves of doing anything on the issue.

3.  Change the battle.  Last year one-time traditional marriage stalwart, David Blankenhorn, said he saw the writing on the wall about same sex marriage.  Standing up against the flow of history was futile, he said, and even worse, counterproductive.  Blankenhorn had been the spectacularly ineffective expert witness in the federal trial about California’s Proposition 8, unable to cite damage that same sex marriage would do to anyone.  Blankenhorn had a personal story also, developing a friendship and empathy with Jonathan Rauch and his husband as they traveled around the United States debating same sex marriage.  More important, Blankenhorn decided it was more important to engage a larger battle that might be winnable: preserving and strengthening marriage generally.

Ok.

Gay conversion ministry Exodus recently announced plans to shut down, including an apology for damage done from founder Alan Chambers.  Homosexual activity is still a sin, he said, but there are lots of sins, and Christians should try to help and support each other.

4.  Redefine the battle and claim victory.  Young conservative Dana Loesch writes at Red State that the Supreme Court’s decision was a victory for limited government and conservative principles.  It keeps the federal government out of people’s lives, and repudiates a policy, the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton.  Nice juggling.

5.  Dig in and deny.  The National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown described the Court’s decision as the product of corruption.  It’s time to nourish and mobilize the faithful for more struggles, in the public sphere generally, in the states, and in future Court challenges.

We know that Supreme Court decisions don’t generally resolve highly contested issues, and that the losers in a Court case can organize, make significant politics (See the backlash from Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade), and sometimes, even engineer a reversal over time (see Bowers v. Hardwick).  It’s hard to think it works out for them on this issue, but the groups have to do something.

One strategy is building alternative organizations.  When the Southern Baptists criticized a new Boy Scouts policy that welcomed gay scouts, they urged local churches to form Royal Ambassadors troops as an alternative.

How viable is this?  Over time, it gets harder and harder to avoid being completely marginal, as the distance between the remaining gay marriage opponents and the Westboro church gets smaller and smaller.

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Inspiration across borders: Brazil and Turkey

Posted on June 18, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Will a clever name, like Arab Spring or Occupy, link the protests erupting in disparate parts of the globe?  Will 2013 become a sign uniting all of them in memory, just like 1848, 1968, and 1989?

The spread of wildly different movements in very different places makes us wonder about why and how.  People live with grievances and disappointments all the time, only occasionally taking to the streets in dramatic action to try to get what they want.  What makes the protest switch flick on?

Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them young, have taken to the streets of all of Brazil’s major cities in recent days.  The protests started in Sao Paolo, explicitly focused on a relatively small hike in transit fares, but clearly demonstrators saw much more at stake.  Protesters are mad about the poor quality of public facilities, mad about corruption, and mad about massive spending on soccer stadiums to prepare to host the World Cup.  They were angry that President Dilma Rousseff seems to retain sufficient popularity to win reelection next year, in spite of their frustrations–and that there are no apparent channels to influence government that seem meaningful. And once the demonstrations started, the vast majority of them peaceful, they were angry about aggressive policing that included tear gas and rubber bullets.

More than a few demonstrators said they took inspiration from the Turkish demonstrators in Istanbul’s Taksim Square (“standing man” at left), who have been challenging the government of long-standing prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

On the surface, the demands and the contexts seem very different. Demonstrators in Turkey are worried about protecting the secular identity of their Muslim democracy.  Among the litany of complaints in Brazil, incipient theocracy is not one.

But people take inspiration from the very existence of others trying to take action to make their governments more responsive and to better their lives.  Remember, the Occupy demonstrators in Zuccotti Park cited the Egyptian crowds in Tahrir Square as inspiration, even as none of the Occupiers was waiting for the military to take sides and escort a president out of office.  A protest song is a sing-a-long.  And even though the lyrics may be quite different, the tune feels the same, even a little familiar.

By the way, some demonstrators wore the Guy Fawkes mask popularized by Anonymous and Occupy.  When people pick up such symbols of revolt, they invest them with new meanings, their meanings.

When the sufficient tinder is dry, any spark can start a fire.

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Just another Moral Monday

Posted on June 17, 2013 by David S. Meyer

Democrats and liberals have been losing in North Carolina.  Democrats lost control of both houses of the legislature in 2010, but Republican legislative efforts were slowed by Democratic Governor Bev Perdue.  In 2012, Republican Pat McCrory soundly defeated Perdue’s lieutenant governor–and Barack Obama lost the state as well.

Once the Republicans had full control of North Carolina’s government, they sought about doing all the things they believed in.  According to state senator Thom Goolsbee (Republican), “Once ensconced in power, the pro-growth, commonsense Republicans went to work like the business people they were.”

This meant cutting unemployment benefits, funding for schools and preschools, implementing Voter ID laws, reducing early voting, and relaxing environmental regulations to encourage fracking.  It meant rejecting federal money to expand Medicaid.  And it means restructuring the state tax code by cutting property and income taxes and relying more on sales taxes.

Having lost at the polls, opponents of this agenda took to the streets, or more accurately, the lawn of the state capitol in Raleigh.  Organized by Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the NAACP’s state conference, the first protest took place on April 27, including a rally and ending with 17 arrests.  Each week, more people have turned out at the rallies and more people have been arrested.  More than 400 people have been arrested to date.

A large share of the original protesters were clergy or religiously-motivated (see Rev. Barber’s description of the agenda, replete with quotations from Scripture), but as the protests have gone on, the crowd has grown and diversified, and so have the grievances.  The advocates for the poor have been joined by environmentalists, educators, death penalty opponents, and organized labor; they share a common opponent.

The demonstrations are sending a message which starts with “Stop.”  But who’s listening?

With more or less vitriol, Gov. McCrory and the Republican state legislators say that they already know what the protesters think; the governor has refused to meet with them.  Less graciously, some say they are “outside agitators” (note: 98 percent of the arrests have been of North Carolinians) or just “old hippies.”  It’s unlikely that Republican legislative stalwarts will trim their sails because of new information about the issues or the passions of their opponents.

But,

Governor McCrory, who had to be elected by a broader electorate than any of the legislators might–and it doesn’t have to be visible.  In backroom negotiations, he can shape the bills that come to his desk.

Even more significantly, allies and potential allies who are now quiet or less visible can see the amount of support they might be able to mobilize for something else, likely related, in the future.  People who will demonstrate or get arrested are likely to also be people who will work in campaigns, organize communities, sign petitions, or even donate money.

And, in an era where advocates of the poor are just as frustrated as national conservatives are, the protests in Raleigh send out a message that something else is possible.  If Rev. Barber is successful, you’ll see imitations elsewhere–in places even he probably doesn’t expect.

Protests matter, just not always and not by themselves.  They matter when they engage a broad audience and get them to do things in addition to protesting.  Rev. Barber clearly knows this, he says:

The protests are only one part of our four-part strategy. We have a voter registration and voter education strategy, a social media strategy, and we have a legal strategy, because many of these things, not just the voting rules, are going to be challenged in the courts using our state and federal constitutions.

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