Protest Debrief: May 8th

The protests are working – see photos

Anti-Trump anger continues to build, adding new people and fresh locations to its series of nationwide protests. Already some 1500 cities have been the launching-pads for more than five million protesters – a number well over the figure cited by experts that could lead to the fall of an oligopoly.

Protests are the weapon of choice for resisters of authority. Voting by itself is not enough to dislodge extreme governments, because people realize that voter preferences have only had a miniscule impact on public policy, according to a 20-year study. Public policy, instead, has often been hijacked to meet the demands of the richest one-hundredths of one percent of citizens. They have made the laws and contributed (40%) to the political campaigns. This is getting steadily worse as time passes. When the last recession happened, the bankers got themselves bailed out, using tax money from the citizens, who were not aided at all.

The pressure against that reflex is building.

May has always been a memorable month for protesters, who have held it dear to their hearts since 1886, when more than 300,000 workers from 13,000 business walked out of their jobs across the country. They were protesting for a shorter workday. Their numbers built as more workers joined, reaching almost 100,000. On May 3^rd the peaceful nature of the protest changed, when police broke up a meeting on August 3^rd in Haymarket when a bomb killed may policemen and dozens of protesters. Four of the protesters were hanged, despite a lack of evidence. A new coalition formed of labor supporters who kept the May 1^st day going in honour of the fallen and their cause.

Fast forward to 2024: the same violent trigger launched a massive student protest in Serbia. A train canopy collapsed, killing 14 citizens. Belgrade University’s Slobodan G. Markovich, posting on Timothy Snyder’s site, stated that corruption in the construction process was to be blamed for the fall of the canopy. After the tragedy the government tried to minimize its own responsibility.

Here is what happened next:

“Then the students suddenly began their protest without any sign that it would happen. They organized themselves in plenums (plenary sessions) and took over buildings of faculties around Serbia. By the end of 2024 all 85 state faculties joined the protest, and students of some private faculties also supported the protest. On December 22, the protest reached the first climax with around 102,000 protestors who came to the Belgrade Slavia Square.”

By the winter of 2025 the student-led protest was the largest such movement in Europe since 1968, when strikes involved 10 million workers and came close to bringing down governments.

The Student Protest in Serbia is characterized by its non-violent nature. Another striking feature the is students’ inclusiveness, and ability to unite political and ethnic divisions.

Today’s protests are also non-violent, but there are clear illustrations of political targeting.

"I ain't got nothing to say to Donald Trump. It's clear," Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, told Salon newsletter in a recent article. "I got everything to say to my fellow Americans who want to create a society [where] they can make a fair wage, where they can have universal healthcare, where they are sheltered in homes that they can afford, where they can walk their children to a fully-resourced school down the block," she added. "That's the America that we're building."

Her union of Service Workers participated in a May 1^st Day of Action for higher pay and against the proposed cuts in Medicare that Congress is considering.

Trump has launched a number of actions of questionable legality, which are destroying the American economy and crushing the middle class. His tariff proclamations are boosting prices in a shock-wave across every sector, in some cases doubling the cost of goods and in other cases taking them off the streets entirely. Christmas will be especially grim this year, as China provides 80% of all the seasonable toys, and shipments from China have stopped arriving in American ports.

He has fired thousands of federal workers in an ill-defined campaign to reduce costs so that taxes can go down for billionaires. He has targeted Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) policies, removing them from the statutes. He has illegally arrested immigrants and illegally sent them to a foreign prison.

Most of his Executive Orders have been overthrown or declared invalid, and the rest are up for judgement.

He is going nowhere, and is causing chaos and pain enroute.

85% of the students of Serbia’s five state universities supported student blockades and their four demands, but a mere 2.5% of them participated in any activity of any political party or political organization.

The numbers needed to succeed in such a protest movement have been calculated at 3.5% of the population – and were in fact obtained in America in the first of the protests. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan are the authors of a large study that explored two related phenomena: why nonviolent resistance often succeeds relative to violent resistance, and under what conditions the nonviolent resistance succeeds or fails.

Sustained and systematic nonviolent sanctions have removed autocratic regimes from power in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003), and Ukraine (2004 – 2005), after rigged elections; ended a foreign occupation in Lebanon (2005); and forced Nepal’s monarch to make major constitutional concessions (2006). In the first two months of 2011, popular nonviolent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt removed decades-old regimes from power.

The most striking finding is that between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.

Nonviolent resistance campaigns are more effective in getting results and, once they have succeeded, more likely to establish democratic regimes with a lower probability of a relapse into civil war.

Today’s protests need to have positive goals. Robert Reich outlines what we need in terms of constructive action: “What would progressive populism entail? Strengthening democracy by busting up big corporations. Stopping Wall Street’s gambling (e.g., replicating the Glass-Steagall Act). Getting big money out of politics, even if this requires amending the Constitution. Requiring big corporations to share their profits with their average workers. Strengthening unions. And raising taxes on the super-wealthy to finance a universal basic income, Medicare for all, and paid family leave.”

On Thursday, May 8^th, the May Day Strong action network will hold an online debrief of the effectiveness of America’s protest movement to-date. It has a continuing update of protest actions for those interested in following events in their communities.

Its goals for the May 8^th debrief are clear: “Trump and his billionaire profiteers are trying to create a race to the bottom—on wages, on benefits, on dignity itself. We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, prosperity over free market politics. Join us as we debrief our national day of action and talk next steps.”

This is the kind of heroic action that America has been famous for. It is ‘unorganized’ in the sense that it has no central plan…this is cellular-level anger and response.

The photos of events that have already taken place in May are enough to inspire everyone:

The 3 E’s: End Impunity, End Autogenocide, End oligarchy;

May Day Movement , 50501; May Day Strong