“No Kings” protests have come and gone, and President Donald Trump is still in the White House where he is a danger to our economy, a threat to our freedoms, an ally to our enemies and a constant source of lies and misinformation.
What would it take for protests to be effective six months into a presidency that is being used to consistently breach the constitutional limits of the executive branch of government?
The answer may lie in the 2019 Puerto Rican Revolution — an event that was not a revolution but a powerful display of the power Americans hold in our free and open democracy.
By the time protests peaked in Old San Juan, more than a million people had taken to the streets, spending days and nights banging pots and pans, reading the Constitution aloud, and chanting the simple demand that the governor resign.
Remarkably, he did.
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares resigned in disgrace, leaving La Fortaleza – the oldest governor’s mansion in the United States – along with key members of the cabinet who had already left saying they felt a “moral obligation to resign.” Both external (the protests) and internal (talk of an impeachment process) pressures weighed on Nevares, but there’s no doubt that if the public had remained on the sidelines, Nevares would have remained in office.
The protests were substantially peaceful, although small skirmishes resulting in arrests, damage to property and injuries broke out when police tried to disperse the crowd with rubber bullets and tear gas. At one point, an interstate was shut down by protesters, and government offices were sometimes inaccessible because of the crowds. Protesters also were creative, taking to the ocean in kayaks and boats after streets outside La Fortaleza were closed for what the government called “security reasons.”
Could what happened in Puerto Rico happen on the mainland? Could peaceful protests really oust a man who took office with the support of a majority of American voters and who rules the Republican Party with an iron fist?
After researching the Puerto Rico Revolution and talking to a cultural anthropologist about what powered the persistence and intensity of protests in the Caribbean archipelago, I believe under the right conditions, Americans could sustain a protest long enough to bring about a voluntary change in leadership.
Carlos G. García-Quijano and Hilda Lloréns are professors of anthropology at the University of Rhode Island, who in October 2019 published a research paper on the “core cultural values” that fueled the summer protests.
“That’s the key part,” García-Quijano told me in an interview about his and Lloréns’ research. “Is there an issue or an action by a government that most people in the society will find objectionable, abhorrent or unfair enough that they can all agree for a moment, a brief moment sometimes, to work together despite their differences to protest?”
In Puerto Rico, their research found that the governor’s shockingly offensive messages on a chat group violated core cultural values held dear by most Puerto Ricans – “humility, respect for others and having some sense of shame.” Dissatisfaction with the administration had been building, including after revelations that key members of the government had been arrested by the FBI in the midst of a corruption scandal. But it was truly the disgusting messages that tipped the scales.
So first, Americans would need to coalesce around a core cultural value that Trump has violated. I am not sure if there is an issue that could lead millions of people to leave their jobs and families at home while they traveled to the nation’s Capitol to peacefully demand a resignation. This would be no vacation — hotels would be full, protest organizers would be unable to supply adequate food and water, and for it to be effective, commerce in the city would likely have to stop.
Naively in 2016, I thought Trump’s degrading remarks about women captured by an Access Hollywood video would be the end of the man’s political career. But America’s core cultural values are always shifting. We re-elected President Bill Clinton after he had oral sex several times with a 22-year-old intern in a corridor outside the Oval Office and then lied about it repeatedly. We re-elected Trump after his insurrection attempt.
So, if Americans, on the mainland, no longer value humility and respect, and are OK with shamelessness, what could be the spark that ignites mass peaceful protests in Washington, D.C., and outside his home in Florida?
Trump’s reckless disregard for the Fifth Amendment could be the spark. Americans from all walks of life understand that a cornerstone of our freedom is that the federal government cannot deprive us of “life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
Some Americans seem to be convinced – erroneously – that the Fifth Amendment only applies to U.S. citizens and are thus far unconcerned by the masked, plain-clothed immigration police that are snatching people from the streets and job sites without exercising due process.
If Trump’s police force erroneously snatch and deport a U.S. citizen, it could be enough for Americans to wake up to the dangers of bypassing habeas corpus. If they take you at night with no due process, you won’t even have the chance to prove you are a citizen before you’re on a plane out of the country.
“Every culture, and this is something that anthropologists work with a lot, has different agendas and levels of power, and different ways to exercise their power,” Cultures have agency, and people change culture and how they use their power,” García-Quijano said, talking generally about cultural anthropology and not about specific events in America today.
What could ignite a protest today may not be what would do it in a year from today.
But a spark also needs fuel.
It seems unlikely that a single-day organized protest such as “No Kings” could make a difference, even in swaying the policy decisions of Trump. In Puerto Rico, the protesters met the governor at the airport after he returned from a trip, followed him to the fortress, and then persisted for more than two weeks.
“How massive the protests were was important, that was a part of it, but also a big part of it was that they were still protesting day after day. People need to get back to their lives at some point, return to work or school, but those protests, they wouldn’t quit,” García-Quijano said.
I do think Trump is likely to fuel the protests with his disdain for the First Amendment’s right to speech, assembly, and petition. Trump was quick to deploy the California National Guard on protesters in California after less than a day of riots. Large groups of protesters and others drawn to the chaos decided to vandalize cars, buildings, and assault police as part of the demonstrations in Los Angeles. Others looted stores. Police intervention was needed, but nothing rose to the level of requiring a U.S. military response.
Trump’s heavy-handedness in Los Angeles points to how he would meet mass protests in D.C. The situation would be dangerous and volatile. Leaders of the protests would be responsible for the deaths and injuries that occurred if Trump’s military response provoked violent riots, or worse if the police opened fire on civilians. Keeping the protests peaceful in the face of a crackdown on speech would both fuel the outrage and save lives and property.
García-Quijano said they found protesters in Puerto Rico “kept referring to what united them on this issue.”
Americans, however, are more polarized than ever.
President Donald Trump has suffered two assassination attempts, largely because of the rhetoric that he is a danger to America’s constitutional republic. It is one reason why so many journalists are responsibly turning down their language as they write and report about Trump, while also trying to document all the ways he has eroded our Constitution.
Our society cannot move forward thus divided, but I do think we would find common ground in opposing a threat to our Constitution.
Finding a “core cultural value” that we all share and standing up for that right or social norm together could be what saves America.
This is a lot to ask of Trump supporters or even conservatives in general, who will ask where my call for mass protest was when I disagreed with how Biden was handling the Venezuelan refugee crisis. It’s true, while I called on Biden to secure the border and establish refugee camps, I never called for his resignation or for the kind of mass protests that could have actually gotten his administration to face the crisis head-on. The truth is I remain somewhat unworried about the thousands of asylum seekers who came to America — only a few have proven to be dangerous gang-affiliated criminals. Opposing illegal immigration is simply not a core value of mine.
I would ask that all Americans watch the president’s actions closely in the coming months and resolve that if and when he violates their core values they be willing to stand up for this country.
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