While a lot of people are extremely unhappy regarding the House passing the American Healthcare Act without much debate. The question a lot of people are having is what to do now. Groups affiliated with the so-called Resistance will likely be protesting and making phone calls soon. However, for a lot of average people, our approach is not exactly winning people over. We're too focused on trying to shock.
Lessons from the Women's March
While the Women's March did a get a good turnout, there were a lot of things that could have been done significantly better.
For starters, some of the things people were doing did not attract many people to our viewpoint. That picture up there is one of those things. At the march, people were doing like dressing up as vaginas, some people were half-naked. Presumably, nobody thought about how that might look to people who were on the fence. What didn't help was that there was a general lack of a coherent message beyond "we don't like Donald Trump."
Sure, Resistance protesters say a large number of things I agree with and I'm not much of a Trump fan either. However, it's not what you say it's how you say it. A lot of the protesters were putting on demonstrations to be shocking for the sake of shock value (refer to my nudity comment).
What a lot of people, particularly those in the Resistance who are new to politics, don't get is that shock doesn't sell. If you're naked, people are not going to be overly concerned with your main point. They're going to be wondering why you are naked. They're not exactly willing to hear about how healthcare can be improved from a person who is dressed as a vagina.
This is why People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has largely failed in its aim of encouraging people to eat less meat and wear less fur. They focused so much on being shocking that they forgot to actually explain why the average person should consider being vegetarians. The Resistance can either model itself on PETA's tactics or it can do something that works to combat Trump's agenda.
Better groups for Resistance to model
Many groups have had lots of success over the years. The Resistance can look to them for inspiration. The disability rights group ADAPT is one example. They didn't get things like accessible transportation through every city by marching around without their clothes screaming about 400 different things. They got them by drawing attention to their cause, explaining precisely what their motives were and they conducted the proceedings with their clothes on. Even in the cases where shock tactics were necessary, there was a clear endgame in mind and not just doing things that ticked people off. As a result, ADAPT has had many great policy successes including playing a key role in getting the Americans with Disabilities Act passed.
Not so much so with the shock protesters. On the contrary, shock protesting has a history of ticking people off and alienating them when done wrong. Shock protesters spat on returning Vietnam veterans, many of whom did not go there by choice. Did they turn public opinion against the war? No. What it did accomplish was turn the military vote against the Democrats for the last 40 years. This is why Donald Trump and other Republicans can win the military vote despite many of them, especially Trump himself, having no military experience.
This is the hazard of focusing all your energy on being shocking. Shock for its own sake doesn't win people over. It just ticks them off.
