The Tea Party looked goofy in 2010, until they turned the midterm. They looked goofy still in 2011 and 2013, until they shifted the face of their party and had built the community infrastructure and energy that would eventually underpin Trump’s 2016 win. Maybe this is an incomplete telling, but I laughed at the Tea Party until I realized that people willing to look goofy can shift politics a lot more than people hiding in their homes. And that’s been true since the Boston Tea Party.
This whole “No Kings” bit is baloney. If they keep this up, there’s no way they will win in 2028. At its root is outrage that Kamala was trounced in a free and fair election by a guy they hate. TDS indeed.
As someone who protested on Saturday: I fully accept that Trump won fair and square. It sucks, it was a bad decision by the American people, but that's the way it is. What I'm protesting is that he's doing terrible and lawless things, not that he won.
Plus, Trump does not have a mandate for his “kingly”actions. Most people who voted for Trump did not vote for him so he could sic ICE on US citizens, recklessly impose tariffs without Congress, take billions in bribes via crypto, defund popular government functions like medical research without Congress, pardon all his allies, and demonize anyone who disagrees with him. They were hoping he’d lower prices, deport some violent criminal illegal immigrants, and bring back a sense of stability. He hasn’t done the first or third, and has vastly overreached on the second.
I think it is also sending a message to other americans and frankly the rest of the world that a large number of americans disagree so strongly with what the trump admin is doing that they are willing to take to the streets to protest.
Also the branding, "No Kings" is specifically pushing back on his authoritarianism, not that he won the election.
So if they instead protested at the capitol, broke inside, and attempted to overturn the electors, would that have been a better way to win next cycle?
You know what, I learned a long time ago that it’s pointless to wish for a better past. We can argue over 2)-6 happened five years ago and not achieve anything, or we can work for the country. These protests achieve nothing.
You had this awful protest that was widely panned and led to arrests. Pictures of a weirdo in a Viking costume were everywhere. And ultimately the protest failed in anything it wanted to achieve.
But then Trump won
Yet somehow this protest is baloney and is clearly leading to defeat in 3 years.
I protested Saturday and what I was there to protest wasn’t the fact that Trump won a fair election but rather that he has used our political system to bypass any checks and balances to act like a king in a free country where the executive does not have total power.
The underlying issue is that "cringe" as a concept is bad. It doesn't illuminate or explain anything, it's just a term of abuse that communicates nothing.
As my teenager uses it, it means anyone trying to be earnest about anything instead of being aloof and, frankly, so chickenshit you don't ever put yourself out there.
I would also note for the leftists that mock the earnestness of libs, the most exciting and charismatic leftist star on their side, Zohran Mamdani, is extremely earnest and talks with utmost sincerity.
Watching criminals direct our government in open collaboration with the *majority* political party, to compel a depth of judicial and legislative subservience while intimating fascist ambition with each policy and gesture — watching as these same sadistic, vindictive sociopaths annex private institutions using extortion and blackmail, while breaking laws with impunity as they seize control of our *elections*… is palpable horror.
But the simultaneous appearance of *7 million* Americans, in a union of 2700 venues nationwide, showcasing the breadth and enthusiasm of their opposition — confidently inhabiting a freedom to mock and ridicule the cosplay of MAGA authority while genuinely having a good time in the process, was as strong and as effective of a countermeasure to tyranny as you're likely to find.
No Kings was not "cringe". The concerns over its "cringeworthiness" were "cringe", as Jerusalem perfectly states.
I will add that the very use of the term "cringe", in this or any other context — but especially in this context — is cringe. Who would be so foolish and insecure as to diminish either the danger of our counterfeit-populist, proto-fascist government, or else the authenticity of our reply to it, by using such a patently unserious, self-mocking, strictly performative term as that?
Jerusalem's "Cringe is born of insecurity and fear", a few more paragraphs in, is as close to a flawless sentence on the topic as you're likely to find… that is, until you read her final remarks:
"I’m forced to conclude that the fear comes from being labeled as uncool by leftists on the internet. Fear that if you straightforwardly cover the protests as a clarion call in defense of democracy, someone will make fun of you for being a shit lib."
"And what could be more cringe than worrying about that?"
"Cringe" is the all-purpose insult for Zoomers to call millennials old without having to actually say why something is bad. At least their Gen X parents have the world Kurt Cobain. Zoomers give the world TikTok brain rot, falling literacy, and being in love with an AI chat bot.
I take the “cringe” complaints seriously, not literally because, even going back to Trump’s first term and 2020…these sort of protest aesthetics (anti-radical, cos-play costumes, cutesy / humorous signage people spend the vast majority of their time obsessing over) have seemed to be treading water with efficacy and its hard to not look at Trump improving his numbers with key demographic and not see that the protests aren’t broadly working even with some of the most oppressed voter groups who have moved away from the Party of late…
Think it goes back to the “Theater Kid” critique of less radical Democratic leadership …the protests aren’t broadly working designed to appeal to the folks who are already with us…
Eh, I don’t see how minor changes to protest aesthetics would have changed any of that. Do you think this would have been perceived any better if people cosplayed as Edgy Radicals? Or conversely if everyone had worn suits?
I would say anti-Trump protesting in the first term largely worked. Defeating an incumbent is not an easy task, and the 2018 midterms were large Democratic wave. Even though 2020 was close in the electoral college, Biden won the popular vote by 4.5.
We didn’t really see any anti-Trump protesting in 2024, but we did see anti-Biden protesting from the left. I would guess that that contributed to Trump’s normalization in that cycle.
the “concern” Jerusalem had was “is this effective?” and honestly when it matters (in Presidential elections mainly) we keep under performing our own expectations and so…I don’t think it is.
I don’t think a more Radical framing would work any better, but I take serious the whole vibe the Party an it’s non-profit group lead extensions are not capable of being effective at crafting a vibe or atmosphere that is inviting or appealing to the masses and instead just keeps putting off the same one people are “meh” and tepid on expecting it will work this time just because….
I'm all for Democrats being more strategic, strategically moderating, being careful not to alienate normies, and so on. I'm in full agreement the Ezra Klein/ Matt Yglesias/David Shor line on all that. So sure, politicians, activists, big donors, PACs, partisan think tanks, opinion journalists, etc. should think about messaging and aesthetics and reaching out to people Democrats lost.
But I think nitpicking the aesthetics of random people at mass protests, which are inherently decentralized, organic things, isn't really that productive. I think any large-scale, peaceful protests of Trump are probably good, or at least harmless. They make Trump look weaker, and take back control of the news cycle for a few days. That said, I'm pretty skeptical protests will be a big part of the solution to beating MAGA, but I also don't think they're part of the problem.
When the Party has a branding problem overall, you are what the people see you associated with and so you should at least be cognizant of how you look and how normies “read” you if you will be showing up every 2 to 4 years and asking for their vote. Personally, i think leaders should do more to empower more normie coded vibes…but instead we just get kinda testy about the relatively minor critiques on how we might present better and then double or triple down 😒
RE: Trump 1.0 and 2020 protests “working”, it’s worth recalling just how *close* the elections were and to not over index on taking credit for baseline economic or voting pattern factors (Democrats are now the Party of old people who always vote in Mid Terms and Republicans are the “low propensity voters” who don’t show up when Trump isn’t on the ballot) when buttering our own strategic bread
I’ve noticed a pattern in right wing characterization of left-wing protests.
Either they’re fiery disturbances full of young antifa thugs, usually of color, or they’re peaceful but boring gatherings of old white people. If you’re paying attention, this is the full gamut of protests and protestors. Young or old. Peaceful or disruptive. White or people of color. In either case you have a ready made excuse to ignore the protesters concern and dismiss protestors as not people worthy of listening to.
Agree entirely. Now the Republicans are the ones doing the single least politically popular thing possible in America (blocking traffic in this nation of drivers, in this case by shooting artillery over a highway) and liberal are bringing out children and families to appeal to our founding principles. There is a lot of work yet to be done, but this is the right track
When I grew up people used to call politics show business for ugly people. And for a minute thanks to the Great Recession and the launching of social media making a lot of young people super political along identity lines this faded and now that people can just make a lot of money it’s back to being for extremely serious people which seems well cringe.
Cringe is extremely subjective, and having been to protests, nobody there feels cringe. They understand what they are doing and why. The first one felt a bit cringe, at this point it is understood that our job is to look like a lot of non threatening people. The culture of it is welcoming and exciting, and it is getting people excited to be there.
The chants are cringe though. I say this not to be harsh on them, but to say that people attending the protests don't want to commit to the chants. This is an area where we could be creative and inventive, and get something that people are excited to chant. Getting this better will make the message of the protests louder and reach more people. It will get more people eager to join. We haven't put thought into communication the way we have with image.
I feel, dare I say it, cringe, replying to my own post. But it popped into my head to make a joke about about how “cynicism is cool” is probably just an overgrowth of Gen X making sarcastic ennui a trendy personality trait.
And now I am not sure how much that is even a joke or if it’s just actually correct…
The Tea Party looked goofy in 2010, until they turned the midterm. They looked goofy still in 2011 and 2013, until they shifted the face of their party and had built the community infrastructure and energy that would eventually underpin Trump’s 2016 win. Maybe this is an incomplete telling, but I laughed at the Tea Party until I realized that people willing to look goofy can shift politics a lot more than people hiding in their homes. And that’s been true since the Boston Tea Party.
This whole “No Kings” bit is baloney. If they keep this up, there’s no way they will win in 2028. At its root is outrage that Kamala was trounced in a free and fair election by a guy they hate. TDS indeed.
As someone who protested on Saturday: I fully accept that Trump won fair and square. It sucks, it was a bad decision by the American people, but that's the way it is. What I'm protesting is that he's doing terrible and lawless things, not that he won.
Plus, Trump does not have a mandate for his “kingly”actions. Most people who voted for Trump did not vote for him so he could sic ICE on US citizens, recklessly impose tariffs without Congress, take billions in bribes via crypto, defund popular government functions like medical research without Congress, pardon all his allies, and demonize anyone who disagrees with him. They were hoping he’d lower prices, deport some violent criminal illegal immigrants, and bring back a sense of stability. He hasn’t done the first or third, and has vastly overreached on the second.
I think it is also sending a message to other americans and frankly the rest of the world that a large number of americans disagree so strongly with what the trump admin is doing that they are willing to take to the streets to protest.
Also the branding, "No Kings" is specifically pushing back on his authoritarianism, not that he won the election.
So if they instead protested at the capitol, broke inside, and attempted to overturn the electors, would that have been a better way to win next cycle?
You know what, I learned a long time ago that it’s pointless to wish for a better past. We can argue over 2)-6 happened five years ago and not achieve anything, or we can work for the country. These protests achieve nothing.
It’s a weird disconnect though.
You had this awful protest that was widely panned and led to arrests. Pictures of a weirdo in a Viking costume were everywhere. And ultimately the protest failed in anything it wanted to achieve.
But then Trump won
Yet somehow this protest is baloney and is clearly leading to defeat in 3 years.
Don’t see you squaring that circle.
I protested Saturday and what I was there to protest wasn’t the fact that Trump won a fair election but rather that he has used our political system to bypass any checks and balances to act like a king in a free country where the executive does not have total power.
The underlying issue is that "cringe" as a concept is bad. It doesn't illuminate or explain anything, it's just a term of abuse that communicates nothing.
As my teenager uses it, it means anyone trying to be earnest about anything instead of being aloof and, frankly, so chickenshit you don't ever put yourself out there.
I would also note for the leftists that mock the earnestness of libs, the most exciting and charismatic leftist star on their side, Zohran Mamdani, is extremely earnest and talks with utmost sincerity.
Watching criminals direct our government in open collaboration with the *majority* political party, to compel a depth of judicial and legislative subservience while intimating fascist ambition with each policy and gesture — watching as these same sadistic, vindictive sociopaths annex private institutions using extortion and blackmail, while breaking laws with impunity as they seize control of our *elections*… is palpable horror.
But the simultaneous appearance of *7 million* Americans, in a union of 2700 venues nationwide, showcasing the breadth and enthusiasm of their opposition — confidently inhabiting a freedom to mock and ridicule the cosplay of MAGA authority while genuinely having a good time in the process, was as strong and as effective of a countermeasure to tyranny as you're likely to find.
No Kings was not "cringe". The concerns over its "cringeworthiness" were "cringe", as Jerusalem perfectly states.
I will add that the very use of the term "cringe", in this or any other context — but especially in this context — is cringe. Who would be so foolish and insecure as to diminish either the danger of our counterfeit-populist, proto-fascist government, or else the authenticity of our reply to it, by using such a patently unserious, self-mocking, strictly performative term as that?
Jerusalem's "Cringe is born of insecurity and fear", a few more paragraphs in, is as close to a flawless sentence on the topic as you're likely to find… that is, until you read her final remarks:
"I’m forced to conclude that the fear comes from being labeled as uncool by leftists on the internet. Fear that if you straightforwardly cover the protests as a clarion call in defense of democracy, someone will make fun of you for being a shit lib."
"And what could be more cringe than worrying about that?"
Exactly.
This essay was a pleasure to read.
"Cringe" is the all-purpose insult for Zoomers to call millennials old without having to actually say why something is bad. At least their Gen X parents have the world Kurt Cobain. Zoomers give the world TikTok brain rot, falling literacy, and being in love with an AI chat bot.
Good piece. I'm not in high school anymore, do I still have to care about doing cringey things?
I take the “cringe” complaints seriously, not literally because, even going back to Trump’s first term and 2020…these sort of protest aesthetics (anti-radical, cos-play costumes, cutesy / humorous signage people spend the vast majority of their time obsessing over) have seemed to be treading water with efficacy and its hard to not look at Trump improving his numbers with key demographic and not see that the protests aren’t broadly working even with some of the most oppressed voter groups who have moved away from the Party of late…
Think it goes back to the “Theater Kid” critique of less radical Democratic leadership …the protests aren’t broadly working designed to appeal to the folks who are already with us…
Eh, I don’t see how minor changes to protest aesthetics would have changed any of that. Do you think this would have been perceived any better if people cosplayed as Edgy Radicals? Or conversely if everyone had worn suits?
I would say anti-Trump protesting in the first term largely worked. Defeating an incumbent is not an easy task, and the 2018 midterms were large Democratic wave. Even though 2020 was close in the electoral college, Biden won the popular vote by 4.5.
We didn’t really see any anti-Trump protesting in 2024, but we did see anti-Biden protesting from the left. I would guess that that contributed to Trump’s normalization in that cycle.
the “concern” Jerusalem had was “is this effective?” and honestly when it matters (in Presidential elections mainly) we keep under performing our own expectations and so…I don’t think it is.
I don’t think a more Radical framing would work any better, but I take serious the whole vibe the Party an it’s non-profit group lead extensions are not capable of being effective at crafting a vibe or atmosphere that is inviting or appealing to the masses and instead just keeps putting off the same one people are “meh” and tepid on expecting it will work this time just because….
I'm all for Democrats being more strategic, strategically moderating, being careful not to alienate normies, and so on. I'm in full agreement the Ezra Klein/ Matt Yglesias/David Shor line on all that. So sure, politicians, activists, big donors, PACs, partisan think tanks, opinion journalists, etc. should think about messaging and aesthetics and reaching out to people Democrats lost.
But I think nitpicking the aesthetics of random people at mass protests, which are inherently decentralized, organic things, isn't really that productive. I think any large-scale, peaceful protests of Trump are probably good, or at least harmless. They make Trump look weaker, and take back control of the news cycle for a few days. That said, I'm pretty skeptical protests will be a big part of the solution to beating MAGA, but I also don't think they're part of the problem.
When the Party has a branding problem overall, you are what the people see you associated with and so you should at least be cognizant of how you look and how normies “read” you if you will be showing up every 2 to 4 years and asking for their vote. Personally, i think leaders should do more to empower more normie coded vibes…but instead we just get kinda testy about the relatively minor critiques on how we might present better and then double or triple down 😒
RE: Trump 1.0 and 2020 protests “working”, it’s worth recalling just how *close* the elections were and to not over index on taking credit for baseline economic or voting pattern factors (Democrats are now the Party of old people who always vote in Mid Terms and Republicans are the “low propensity voters” who don’t show up when Trump isn’t on the ballot) when buttering our own strategic bread
"Cringe is born of insecurity and fear." That right there. And I think relatedly, cynicism is born of unoriginality.
I’ve noticed a pattern in right wing characterization of left-wing protests.
Either they’re fiery disturbances full of young antifa thugs, usually of color, or they’re peaceful but boring gatherings of old white people. If you’re paying attention, this is the full gamut of protests and protestors. Young or old. Peaceful or disruptive. White or people of color. In either case you have a ready made excuse to ignore the protesters concern and dismiss protestors as not people worthy of listening to.
Agree entirely. Now the Republicans are the ones doing the single least politically popular thing possible in America (blocking traffic in this nation of drivers, in this case by shooting artillery over a highway) and liberal are bringing out children and families to appeal to our founding principles. There is a lot of work yet to be done, but this is the right track
When I grew up people used to call politics show business for ugly people. And for a minute thanks to the Great Recession and the launching of social media making a lot of young people super political along identity lines this faded and now that people can just make a lot of money it’s back to being for extremely serious people which seems well cringe.
Cringe is extremely subjective, and having been to protests, nobody there feels cringe. They understand what they are doing and why. The first one felt a bit cringe, at this point it is understood that our job is to look like a lot of non threatening people. The culture of it is welcoming and exciting, and it is getting people excited to be there.
The chants are cringe though. I say this not to be harsh on them, but to say that people attending the protests don't want to commit to the chants. This is an area where we could be creative and inventive, and get something that people are excited to chant. Getting this better will make the message of the protests louder and reach more people. It will get more people eager to join. We haven't put thought into communication the way we have with image.
There’s something in this cringe dynamic about this mistaken but very powerful idea that being cynical is cool.
I don’t know where that came from, how old a dynamic it is, or anything. But it’s definitely something.
I feel, dare I say it, cringe, replying to my own post. But it popped into my head to make a joke about about how “cynicism is cool” is probably just an overgrowth of Gen X making sarcastic ennui a trendy personality trait.
And now I am not sure how much that is even a joke or if it’s just actually correct…
I feel like this type of cynicism is simultaneously very online and like teenagers pilled I guess?
Like there def was a time in my life where I think “being cynical is cool” but I guess maybe you should grow out of it…?
Can it be large, not cringe and not particularly effective?