/r/50501 Mirror

Originally Posted By u/rb3po At 2025-03-31 07:06:31 AM | Source

A number of folks on 50501 and elsewhere have asked if it is safe to go out and protest. This is understandable. We live in scary times!

We all know that America’s twin wannabe kings, Trump and Musk, are employing intimidation as a weapon right now: Trump posted a nonsensical rant on twitter about protests and boycotts being “illegal.” He sent ICE to deport Mahmoud Khalil and other green-card/visa holders because of their history protesting for Palestine; a French scientist was denied entry to the U.S.; over two hundred people have been sold to an inhumane El Salvadoran prison; Germany has issued travel advisories for the U.S., etc.

You all know that I could go on!

But this is the time to fight. Things are not really getting any better!

You will never be safer than you are right now.

You will never be stronger than you are right now.

If we don't protest, trike, and boycott now, we will become further entrenched in authoritarianism.

Authoritarian governments are extremely dangerous for their citizens. Trump and Musk are trying to transform our liberal democracy into an authoritarian regime: this attempt presents us with wild uncertainty. On a scale of Hungary to Venezuela, Russia to 1930s Germany, how bad will it get?

We don’t know! Did anyone expect Trump to deport random people to El Salvador -- a country that they’re not even from?

But we do know that authoritarian governments disappear people for no reason. They jail people without trials. They destroy social safety nets. They punish any dissenters. Authoritarian governments often start wars, commit genocide, and may kill people en masse.

This is the safest you will ever be. This is the strongest you will ever be. That’s why our first response should be to fight. Always fight back first, as hard as you can, for as long as you can.

Remember Historian Timothy Snyder's first tenet for fighting back against authoritarians:

"Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."

A weapon is bluff before it’s a tool. Call their bluffs; seize their tools.

Protest. Disrupt. Boycott. Strike.

(On a more personal note: I have attended protests every week for the last two months. Big protests of 5K+ in major cities. Small protests of 50-200 people in suburban towns. So far these have been objectively very tame protests. They have all been peaceful, friendly protests full of folks mostly 55+ carrying homemade signs. People have been passing out cookies! Very chill.)

Originally Posted By u/kccm06 At 2025-03-30 10:52:10 PM | Source

At the time I'm writing this, one of the top posts on r/Conservative is about Trump teasing a run for an unconstitutional third term. Every comment in that post I've read has completely blasted President Trump for being so brazen.

While us here at 50501 and the folks at r/Conservative disagree on much, we gotta give credit where credit is due. Thank you conservatives for sticking to constitutional principles!! I hope we can work together on other issues to prevent executive overreach. 🇺🇸

Here is the current top comment with 4,000 upvotes ⬆️:

No thank you, the 22nd Amendment exists for a reason. You're done after two, no matter what you accomplish or who you are. We have plenty of leaders who can step into the role in 2028.

Originally Posted By u/Beginning_Bee9935 At 2025-03-31 12:14:04 AM | Source

For context, I recently moved to LA from Austin, expecting to find a community with similar values. I quickly realized that wasn’t the case, and the protest I attended made it even more apparent. I anticipated seeing a diverse crowd of young people and POC, with a strong turnout. Instead, it was a small group of older white people. I (28M Biracial White/Indian) was by far the youngest and darkest person there.

What disturbed me even more was the reaction from the crowd. Most of the hecklers were young, Hispanic, and often first-generation like me. I was shocked. Engaging with them felt like talking to a brick wall. They repeated the same talking points, but when questioned, they couldn’t explain or justify their views. It was disheartening.

I used to believe the younger generation would be a driving force for change once they were old enough to vote, but that hope feels misplaced. While I’m sure parents and broader influences play a role in shaping these perspectives, I couldn’t be more disappointed as someone who moved across the country to be part of this community.

I know this was just one event, and I sincerely hope the rest of the country is doing better. But that experience left me feeling like there’s no hope.

To the mods - sorry if I posted this wrong, I'm new here and bad at following directions

Originally Posted By u/__Elessar At 2025-03-30 11:06:09 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/monna_reads At 2025-03-30 11:08:50 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/East-Beyond3494 At 2025-03-30 10:13:43 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/transcendent167 At 2025-03-30 11:06:16 PM | Source

I was thinking of doing something like this Iron Front poster but replace the WP flag with the Trump flag (obviously still fuck WP). What will you guys be putting on your signs?

Originally Posted By u/Technolio At 2025-03-30 06:31:33 PM | Source

Musk is in that building right now, bribing local voters with money to cast their vote for Wisconsin Republican Supreme Court Justice candidate Brad Schimel. If Schimel wins the election on Tuesday, Republicans will have majority in the state court. VOTE SUSAN CRAWFORD APRIL 1ST IF YOU ARE A WISCONSIN RESIDENT!

Originally Posted By u/Hikari_No_Willpower At 2025-03-30 06:36:21 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/NH_50501 At 2025-03-30 07:52:16 PM | Source

This is in Redding CA and after I gave this "speech", they stopped doing it. Fight back against the nonsense and disinformation.

Originally Posted By u/thesatiresire At 2025-03-30 08:27:15 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/BananaBustelo-8224 At 2025-03-30 04:34:58 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/MrsWidgery At 2025-03-30 05:28:18 PM | Source

I've asked family and friends that are liberal and always up to date on news (and in different regions) if they've heard about the protests on April 5th.

ALL of them said no!!

I really do think the social media algorithms are working against us. We need to take this analog and one-by-one.

-Text people you know

• Ask people to join you
• Print out flyers and post them
• Email people you know
• Ask neighbors

Do we know if any major political figures are advertising this, like Bernie or AOC? I haven't seen anything but I haven't checked everything of theirs to be completely sure.

Can we reach out to our local congress-people? They have newsletter reach that's expensive!

This is the biggest opportunity yet and it's honestly not looking as big as it should. We want this to overwhelm the administration.

If everyone who read this printed 5 flyers and posted them, that would help immensely.

Details here for protest info: https://handsoff2025.com/

Originally Posted By u/lilangelkm At 2025-03-30 06:52:34 PM | Source

Remember why we are marching.

Originally Posted By u/Winkinsburst At 2025-03-30 12:36:50 PM | Source

We, the good people of this country, MUST keep protesting in the face of the fascist Trump Regime’s lies and intimidation tactics. Much of the media is in their pockets and have already begun spinning narratives about us, even though our resistance movement has just begun.

They have been saying that we are advocating for the burning of Tesla cars and the attacking of fellow citizens who drive them. WE ARE NOT. We are advocating for peaceful if disruptive protest at Tesla locations in the wake of the vicious and illegal attack on our government by Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, a fascist supporter and Nazi-saluter.

They have been saying that we are an astroturfed movement funded by Soros/Zelensky/Hillary or whatever other boogeyman they want to use. They are wrong; we are a bunch of pissed off REAL people against Trump and his acolytes. No outside funding needed to get us out there.

They have been calling us terrorists, largely because they have tried to conflate our movement with vandalism of Teslas, which they have conflated with terrorism. We are not terrorists, and again, we are not advocating for violence of any sort.

They will inevitably drive narratives like these about us that paint us in the worst terms possible, but they will fail. You know why? WE WILL KEEP SHOWING UP. Being a thorn in their side. Making people pay attention. Every time we show up acting peaceful their narrative will crumble.

The facts are clear: they are AFRAID of what we are doing and just getting out there publicly against them is something we can do right now to disrupt their radical, racist, hateful right-wing agenda. Your prescence and activism IS making a difference. I hope to see you guys on April 5th and at as many protests as are necessary until this tinpot tyrant is brought to heel.

Originally Posted By u/arguer21435 At 2025-03-30 04:48:32 PM | Source

At a Utah protest it was noted the MAGA counter protestors lost energy and excitement when the protestors chanted "Protect the Constitution"

A lot of the far right have studied the founding fathers (sometimes to excess) and love the constitution. Hearing that can gain empathy, it appears.

Insulting Trump/Musk whipped them up. They were ready for that.

Maybe start your protests everywhere on April 5th with "Protect the Constitution" if there are counter protestors and take some wind out of their sails.

Originally Posted By u/N1ghtmareC0rsair At 2025-03-30 09:49:07 PM | Source

The DC protest on April 5th in Washington, D.C. will be the SIGNATURE EVENT in the National Save Our Democracy movement. And it would be incomplete without both Bernie and AOC addressing what could be 1 million+ demonstrators.

Both are informed, angry, articulate, and gifted public speakers. As they’ve shown on their ongoing Fighting Oligarchy Tour, they’re a dynamic duo and a powerful draw. Their speeches would fire up and motivate the crowd to go out and help build the growing movement to take on Trump and Musk and save American democracy before it’s too late. This would be the largest crowd both have ever addressed.

Rain or shine, I’ll join you at noon on April 5th under the Washington Monument listening to Bernie’s and AOC’s address to we million+ protestors.

Originally Posted By u/UpstairsAd9203 At 2025-03-30 04:14:20 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/StatusVarious8803 At 2025-03-30 03:48:52 PM | Source

FYI - The orange man has signed an EO for the upcoming April 5th protest. This is not to deter anyone from going, but be mindful of your surroundings. They will be having MAGA storm troopers ‘police’ protestors. Special attention to 3.C. (iv) that allows them to detain people for longer if there is concern that the person may be “dangerous” aka they can just claim it (they specifically talk about detaining maximum extent of the law.)

The silver lining, this means they’re worried about the protest and mass resistance. They wouldn’t do this EO if they weren’t scared.

Originally Posted By u/StarryEyedSparkle At 2025-03-30 03:01:22 PM | Source

If you're not able to attend a protest on 4/5, this is something we need from you.

People will be posting their protests throughout the day, either in this subreddit or the state subreddits. I'll leave the link to the state subreddits below.

We need people sharing evidence of our protests all over the internet to build solidarity and strength within this movement. We also need more Americans to see our protests since our press barely covers them. We also need people compiling many protests into megathreads so that people can view many at once. Please post these megathreads in this r/50501 subreddit. The last time I did this, Reddit removed my megathread so having multiple people making megathreads will help. Please comb through the state subreddits for 50501 as well as this subreddit on 4/5 and link those protests.

Also encourage people in your posts to "check in" via the comments by posting photos of their protests. I recommend adding their locations to your posts as people check in. When people check in, be sure to comment on their posts so that the post gains more visibility. More comments and upvotes equals more exposure. Additionally, if you find links to live streams, add them to your posts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/comments/1jn7awi/official_50501_state_and_region_subreddits_updated/

Thank you to everyone that can help!!

Originally Posted By u/Winkinsburst At 2025-03-30 03:44:26 PM | Source

Green Bay, WI 3/30/25

Amazing turnout... heard a few people estimating over 1,000. So many news cameras.. let's see what the coverage looks like.

Originally Posted By u/Key_Journalist4797 At 2025-03-30 07:29:58 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/DevinGraysonShirk At 2025-03-30 02:48:54 PM | Source