One overlooked value of mass protests: a nationwide civics education

 In the words of the founders of Indivisible, they see their purpose as a  "Coming together in community to process what’s happening, to sift through what’s important and what’s just noise, and coalesce around strategies for fighting back. "   

Update: 6/23/25: This is a response I gave to those who shamed those who protested...as "what is best for our country is to support our president and our country," on June 14. Indivisible was one of the major organizations.

To confuse allegiance to our country with allegiance to Trump is what the difference is between democracy and dictatorship. Our country, right or wrong, is fine, but not when he is a president that his followers support and are so loyal to him that whatever he says or does is right to them, and those who dare criticize and protest are always wrong and disloyal to America. That is an attitude that is held by those who do not support the kind of democracy we have had for 250 years.

I pledge allegiance ot the flag and the republic for which it stands; I do not pledge allegiance to a president, whoever is in the Oval Office. I have the right to be free to praise or object without being called disloyal to the US.

Political loyalty and ideological loyalty are distinct matters that shape how individuals with diverse viewpoints are motivated to act or agree in speech and thought. Different opinions are permitted (and protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution) in a democracy, but not in an autocracy where dissent to the leader/president is considered disloyal to the nation, and is worthy of suppression and persecution. Do not confuse political loyalty with loyalty to the country in our democracy. They are not the same. Those who want a country where dissent against their choice to be a president is called disloyalty to their country are ideologically not pro democracy but for autocracy (rule of a king or a dictator). One cannot be both for democracy and autocracy at the same time: they are opposites in the most simplistic definition. One is for the rule of the people, and the other is rule by one person.

Rule means who controls what laws are devised, interpreted, and executed. Ours is a republic that elects those to government power who represent the people they choose through free and open elections. Government power is limited or delegated by a constitution, which government officials and the military are sworn to protect and defend.

We as a nation need a refresher course in civics, and we are getting one.https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/we-are-in-midst-of-education-in-civics.html

One overlooked value of mass protests: a nationwide civics education

 The " sifting through" I see as not only consensus builiding for a pro democracy movement within communities, it is also an education in civics for the whole nation about the value of the kind of democracy we have had fo 250 years in contrast with the opposition movement personified by the Trump administration to turn the US into an autocracy. It at least should raise curiosity among those who do not yet get the "how and why "democracy is under attack, and why that is a bad thing.  

This protect democracy movement differs from some pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the world whose goals are to unseat a dictatorship. This movement's purpose, as I see it, is to keep the democracy we have now from being turned into an autocracy (king, dictatorship). The strategies for fighting back employed by groups like Invisible and 50501 are rooted in the traditions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King

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