Are protests, marches, "No Kings Day", making any progress?

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/10/are-protests-marches-no-kings-days.html

I must admit, I've had my doubts about the effectiveness of this direction the opposition to Trump has taken. For the most part, at least at the beginning, the GOP, and more specifically the MAGA wing of it, serenely ignored the protests and marches, as did Trump and most of his administration. Personally, I thought that it was too passive, that it was getting people out, but not really directing the energy anywhere, while the Democratic party leadership in Congress seemed to be kind of separated from it, disengaged, cowering behind the excuse of "well, we don't have a majority."

We didn't do what we could have when we had a majority.

So, the primary value of these protests so far seems to be the creation of an increased awareness of exactly how bad things are, and to move people, especially those who sat out the last election, to the ballot box. If the trends of the more accurate polling data continue in the same direction, the Democrats will have a House majority after 2026, and it is also likely that they will have at least one more seat in the Senate than the Republicans can overcome with the Vice-President's presence. That would, at least, put a stop to the MAGA agenda.

Will enough Republicans get the message to make a difference now? That's doubtful. But they are paying attention.

Republicans, especially the MAGA core of the party, have gone from ignoring the protests, as much as they can since the size of some of them have been at record proportions and they are hard to ignore, to name calling and labelling. Inventing "Antifa" presence, because it sounds unAmerican, claiming the huge number of protesters are paid, or are Hamas allies, or terrorists is a change from simply ignoring them early on, are signs that the GOP is not only well aware of the size and scope of the protests, but they are intensely frightened of the potential outcome of them.

A couple of the GOP's less intellectual fascists have already broken cover and run.

Then, there's the approaching midterm elections themselves. Of course the Republicans are scared spitless that they are going to lose at least the House, which would be the end of anything Trumper or MAGA. There are signs they believe they are going to lose the Senate as well. So they are exploring all possibilities and taking every step to try and stack the deck in their favor, including the open possibility of simply figuring out how to get the Supreme Court to help them disqualify enough votes to favor their candidates.

Their little scheme, starting in Texas, seems to have stalled out. There's no guarantee that redrawing districts in a state where Democratic voters are over the 45% threshold now, and may actually be in the majority, given Trump's shenanigans since January, will net more than a couple of the five seats they are hoping for, if that much. The last time they tried this, they barely flipped one seat. Other states poised to join them, Missouri, Indiana, Florida, haven't even reached the point of introducing the legislation yet.

Of course, the blue states who say they will counter this move if the GOP tries it in Texas can flip about an equal number of seats, according to the data from the 2024 election. So there's that. But the fact they are doing this is evidence these rallies indicate to GOP political leadership that they are going to lose. And that's one reason they are successful and should continue.