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Well, surprise, we have a helluva lot more power than you think, and protests are our secret weapon.

Listen to this👇

A couple of professors––Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan––did a massive study about whether protests work.

And the results were a surprise, even to them.

When just 3.5% of a country’s population takes to the streets, peacefully and consistently, even dictatorships have fallen.

🤯 3.5%!

That’s just about 11 million of us, less than half of the number of us who turned out for No Kings Day Rallies–and there’s more of those to come.

Another surprise, peaceful protests have been the main driving force behind cultural, political, and economic changes in America.

Women’s suffrage — decades of marches, hunger strikes, and civil disobedience led to the 19th Amendment in 1920.
The end of the Vietnam War — sustained campus protests, mass marches, and draft resistance helped turn public and political opinion against the war.
The civil rights movement — the Montgomery Bus Boycott, sit-ins, and the March on Washington helped drive the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The eight-hour workday — decades of labor strikes and organizing, including the 1886 general strike tied to May Day, eventually forced it into law.
Marriage equality — decades of organizing, visibility campaigns, and legal advocacy by LGBTQ+ activists helped shift public opinion and paved the way for the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
Child labor laws — labor and social reform movements in the early 20th century pushed through protections that eventually became the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
The Americans with Disabilities Act — the “Capitol Crawl” of 1990, where activists left their wheelchairs and mobility aids to physically climb the Capitol steps, helped push the ADA to passage that year.
Environmental protections — the first Earth Day in 1970 drew an estimated 20 million Americans and helped lead directly to the creation of the EPA and landmark laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

And it isn’t just an American story.

Poland’s Solidarity movement grew from a single 1980 shipyard strike in Gdańsk to 10 million members, about a third of the country’s population, and it helped bring down a Soviet-backed government from the inside.

How to Protest Effectively: A Quick-Start Guide

1. Show up more than once.

One march doesn’t topple anything.

The research is clear that sustained, repeated participation over time — not a single big day — is what shifts power.

Think campaigns, not events.

2. Recruit outside your bubble.

Movements succeed when they pull in people who don’t usually protest — retirees, clergy, businesspeople, veterans.

Nonviolent campaigns succeed in part because they lower the moral, physical, and commitment barriers to participation, letting them draw from a far wider range of people and communities than violent movements can.

The bigger and more diverse the crowd, the harder it is to dismiss or crush.

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3. Stay strictly nonviolent — even under pressure.

This is the single biggest factor in the data.

Nonviolent discipline keeps public sympathy on your side, keeps media coverage favorable, and makes it far harder for authorities to justify a crackdown.

4. Target loyalty, not just policy.

The real tipping point in these movements isn’t the government suddenly agreeing with protesters — it’s when police, soldiers, civil servants, or business elites start refusing to enforce the old order.

Look for ways to make continued loyalty to the status quo costly or embarrassing.

5. Diversify your tactics.

Marches are just one tool.

Strikes, boycotts, walkouts, sit-ins, and mass non-cooperation all count — and using several at once makes a movement harder to contain or predict.

6. Organize locally, connect nationally.

Local chapters build resilience (a crackdown in one city can’t kill the whole movement) while national coordination keeps the pressure aimed at a single, clear demand.

7. Track your numbers.

Momentum is contagious.

Publicizing turnout and growth — even rough estimates — helps convince the undecided that joining isn’t a fringe move, it’s the direction things are heading.

8. Have a clear, simple ask.

Movements that win tend to rally around one or two unmistakable demands, not a sprawling list.

Clarity makes it easy for new people to join and hard for opponents to muddy the message.

The math says 12.2 million people.

The history says it’s been done before, in this country and others.

The only open variable is whether enough people decide to be part of that number.

The bottom line: when we get out there, we win.

Know someone who's decided it's all hopeless? Send them the math. 3.5% isn't a dream, it's a number we can actually hit.

Maybe not every time.

But we gotta get out there.

Mark, November 3rd on your calendar in big red letters.

This Saturday, we go deeper in the first piece of our new weekly column. That one’s for members… so join us.

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What chance do real people have against trillionaires, billionaires, puppet politicians, and politicized judges?