Why We Need to Move Beyond the Rally

Note: This originally was posted to my now-defunct Substack in April 2025. What I wrote here has now largely come to pass, and thus it’s now more important than ever to have it available for people to read.

What I am about to espouse is not anything novel in the activist world by any means, but it is something that I feel now more than ever is important to remember. I was talking with my partner the other day about whether or not to attend a rally. It would be the second rally in a month that we would’ve attended, and while it was a great way to meet people in our new region with similar values to us, I was not entirely excited to go.

Part of this was because the rallies - like the ones I’d attended in a support role in the last three years - were all about getting the crowd riled up, but then nothing apart from more rallies were being scheduled after that. There was a level of fatigue in this process - always getting angry, letting off steam, but then ultimately nothing productive coming from it apart from more anger to harbor for the next one.

It hurts to imply something is unproductive when the goal is to unlearn the systems that put a premium on how much we contribute to society and what that looks like.

What I really mean is this: there is a key difference between changing people’s minds (which, arguably, is one function of a rally) and changing people’s behavior (something a rally isn’t wholly designed to do).

We are at the point where we cannot only be focused on doing the former, and need to put more effort into doing the latter. It’s time to work with the minds of the people that’ve changed: encourage them to adjust their behavior to align with their new values - or even obstructing the behavior of others actively putting their energy into continued harm.

One simple and very effective method of obstruction, for example, is clogging phone banks. Folks can make it hard for others to report information to ICE by coming up with fake concerns to share with their tip line. It can be silly or even serious. This was a recently used tactic that made ICE’s tip line run busy just this afternoon! All participants needed was a phone and a sense of humor, and a bunch of friends who had 5-10 minutes to harangue operators (and get those friends to invite 5 friends and so on).

Another example of obstruction is a familiar one we have already seen: having a protest outside of a Tesla dealership, where one of the components was preventing people from getting into work or buying a Tesla.

What can organizing that look like internally? Maybe people agree to block the parking lot so Tesla dealers have to walk from further away. Maybe it’s shaming those going in to buy Teslas until they leave. Maybe it’s - as has been done - painting penises on the Teslas in the parking lot to make them worthless to potential customers.

Obviously, there is substantially more risk in these tactics and not everyone can participate in these specific activities. A successful protest, which itself is different than a rally, has roles for everyone. Maybe someone can’t be arrested because they’re the sole caretaker of their kids, but they still want to be involved - great, hand them a sign and station them further from where those who can take more risk are blocking the parking lot, etc. Is the risk absolute zero? No. But they have an out if they need it and are still involved. Their role is just as important as someone using spraypaint or yelling at Tesla customers.

Protests have a lot more complexity than rallies because there needs to be very specific goals and there needs to be group agreement around those goals. It involves more cohesion than agreeing to all show up on a sidewalk to yell at passing traffic and to have a couple speakers interspersed between. (Again, not to belittle this, but I think we are well past the point of this being the only way to resist.)

Building collective acts of resistance involves us to actually come together and make decisions as community. It’s not about waving our hands around to show how frustrated we are at the state of things and going back to our regularly scheduled activities.

Why do you think these rallies haven’t been broken up?

Why do you think the government wants to label Tesla vandals as domestic terrorists versus the people on your street corner with signs saying “honk if you think Black Lives Matter”?

Rallies by themselves aren’t threats to the regime.

By now everyone, more or less, is at least aware of the atrocities occurring within and beyond this country. People who like Trump are digging in. The ones who recognize his utter tyranny either have turned coats or have doubled down on their opposition to what he stands for. Minds, for the most part, have been made up. There are seats at the table for those who change their minds later, but we can’t sit around for dinner to get cold while we wait for them. (He says while inhaling yesterday’s room-temp noodles from a pot.)

Now is the time to act, to work closely in relationship with the people you trust and plan what you’re going to do. Not everything has to be with spray paint or an event where your physical body is on the line. This is where the personal behavior change I mentioned earlier comes in: make plans at work, in your neighborhood, in your household, etc. about what you’re going to do when Border Patrol knocks on your door. Who are you going to call? Who can you make agreements with? Notice that this is not an “if” anymore, but a “when.”

For example, my partner and I discussed today that we no longer will be crossing the border alone. We live a couple hours from one and used to cross with regularity. Now we save it for emergencies. We talked about it until there was consensus on what our plans were: what events constituted emergencies, if those would mean crossing solo to get help, and so on.

It’s also important to assess your personal risk level and meet in-person to determine what is in your power to do right now, in a week, in a month. Who in your network is best positioned to step forward when a Black man is being harrassed by the police or if a trans person is being strip searched at the border? What does care look like when the military begins to walk the streets of your neighborhood? (Again, not an “if” but a “when.” I don’t want to delude anyone with where my brain has been at regarding these things, and I know I’m not alone.)

Haven’t been in many group decision-making situations before where consensus is important? Educate yourself about the different ways this has been done throughout history. Understand conflict resolution, because there will be disagreements.

Part of why rallies, in my opinion, are the easiest for people to reach for as a method of group gathering is because it rarely requires more than a few decisions, often made by organizers without weigh-in from attendees. Strikes require union meetings. Protests, especially where more risk is involved, need everyone on the same page and to agree to certain roles in order to make sure they don’t go catastrophically awry. The Black Panther Party’s decision to offer a breakfast program to pressure political leaders into feeding children before school wasn’t the decision of one or two.

There’s historical precedence for all of this but, for the most part, it feels like we are still stuck in the first stage. The Trump administration is moving at warp speed but we are muddling through treacle. It is only to our detriment when boots (literally) hit the ground.