US doesn't have a social safety net for people to fall back on. So people here can't afford to lose their jobs by being out protesting for weeks.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2026
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I wish I could upvote this more than once. Without social safety nets, the average American cannot do anything to jeopardize their job without losing health benefits or income - and most folks are living paycheck to paycheck.
If mass firings happen, and people realize they will literally be fucked unless they can force the government to listen, then maybe we'll see wider scale protests.
I used to think that Americans are just too lazy and ignorant to protest, that it's just excuses, but... when COVID hit and tons of people got either fired or just couldn't go to work, suddenly there were protests everywhere. That made me reconsider my position in a big way.
Plus we fucking paid for safety nets, the billionaires decided they deserve it more
That is precisely what a revolution is about. It is about forcing the government's hand. If we worry too much about the idea of social safety nets while we protest, we will never get anywhere. Revolutions were never about being convenient or cozy. It's about fighting for a better tomorrow for the benefit of all who oppose tyrannical strangleholds.
I don't understand why people feel they should comfortably protest without worry of losing their jobs and everything. When, you're going to lose them anyways one point or another and it won't be your fault either.
I hear you, but there's a material difference between
- if I protest, I could lose my job, family healthcare, and roof over my head
- I don't want to protest because it's inconvenient/discomforting.
There's also a matter of critical mass. We've had it drilled in our head that unions are bad precisely to discourage group action. If I protest our use of AI at work, or if I want to raise a complaint against the local government, and I'm alone? That will 100% end with severe personal repercussions. If my team of 5 walk out, that's harder to fire all of us, but absolutely doable.
If the entire division walks out, then we have some change leverage.
Now scale this out to the ~340M Americans, and you can see the problem.
Also, critical mass affects the area of effect - if utah loses their shit over something, how does that impact New York? Missouri? Answer, not really at all.
So you need something that will get a critical mass of 340M people, across 3.1M sq miles (8M square kilometers). Can that happen? Sure.
Sure it can.
That's exactly why protests are needed.
It's also a huge country that's very diverse, so one region or state isn't going to be aligned with others they don't even know to have solidarity.
But there will start being hot spots for the same reasons in Europe. It's possible the US has better tools to control and pacify any movements (with work dependence - money and healthcare, being one of them).
We're also a settler colonialist state. We're set up from the foundation as a society that respects property rights over human life. People get shot for knocking on someone's door asking for help here. Our police torture and kill with impunity, and we imprison more of our population than any European country by far. It is hard to build strong working class movements but we have had some bright spots in recent history. But it's also true that rioting in a few US cities wouldn't have the same impact here as it does in France.
Ding ding ding. We can’t get healthcare if we’re unemployed, we’ve been broke for a long time, and we can’t pay the rent if we lose our jobs. Calling out to protest when our bosses can fire us for literally any reason means we’re inches from homelessness at any given time.
That just sounds like a very good reason to protest
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They won't
There are already riots and protests here and it's been happening for years, not sure where you are getting your information from if you think otherwise.
Now, I think these will intensify if anything illegal happens with the midterms, more people will definitely lose their shit at that point, but protests have been pretty steady in every state. In fact, they have been record setting protests, so to imply people aren't already protesting in the US definitely not true at all.
I suspect maybe the corporate owned news is part of the reason so many people think it's not really happening, but it is and if you make a point to look for examples, plenty are available.
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Why would European riots/protests spill over to America? That's not how this works.
Americans have been protesting. Rioting, not so much. Those are much more rare in the US than France.
Mass movements spring from the ground up, and the American working class quite famously doesn't see themselves as part of the global working class. Solidarity protests are few and far between.
Americans have been picnicking at unprecedented scale.
I saw a thread about it where someone asked "Ok, but what are our demands this time? All this turnout is useless if we don't do anything with it".
The answer given? Vote.
... That was all. ...
People are getting tear gassed, pepper sprayed, beaten, shot, etc., how is that a picnic exactly? You lose an eye picnicking? Pretty hardcore picnics over here in the states...
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Apart from the valid things that have already been mentioned in this thread: police violence in the USA is a thing. Hell, you can get shot for helping a fellow protestor. Yes I know, police != ICE, but if a real riot breaks out, I can imagine sending in the most ruthless (and psychopatically trigger-happy) shock troops to quell them.
Police violence isn’t just a US-specific problem.
Yes ACAB sure, but there is much less accountability. One of my friend works on a think tank that advices governments, hidden sources of protests and recommendations.
They've stopped taking US city clients. Let me explain why.
they'd have list of 15 recommendations, on how to deal with protest, top 10 generally aimed at addressing root cause and then maybe 5 or so for addressing issues with protests, like containing them in certain areas and for legal liability reason one recommendation has to be "arrest destructive protestors".
How this is interpreted in Europe is arrest someone who breaks a glass window and what ends up happening is police then beat up someone suspected of doing this. Sometimes suspect gets maimed, I don't think any have died for protest that the think tank covers.
How it happens in US is that think tank's recommendation is quoted in courts as justification for trying to arrest a "agitating protestor" and then slightest hint of refusal just get arrested, the protestor gets shot. In 2024 alone US cities used think tanks recommendations in court 3 times. 7 protestors killed across 5 cities. Most don't even make the news if protests are few hundreds in a small city.
I helped with formating of the presentation my friend used to convince board of think tank to stop taking US clients.
Anyway point being, there is difference between US police brutality and European one.
No it isn't and I am not saying that it is. Actually, our media are doing their best to downplay racist police violence in one of our biggest cities.
To return the whataboutism: in the US, as a toddler, you can get killed by the police because your mother alledgedly stole some groceries (and because you happen to have the wrong skin color). If that is the bar for police violence, I can only imagine what will happen during an aactual riot (as in looting stores etc).
This still isn't stopping people from protesting in the US. Whoever says there isn't protesting here is just straight up wrong, that is pure disinformation. I have seen the streets lined with protesters in multiple cities and towns on numerous going back years.
People are standing up despite the risk.
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Actually i would like to see it reach Russia first.
Americans when their country is overrun by fascists:
Ask me after the midterms.
Folks in the US are both comfortable enough and unsteady enough that they will not move. It was Zizek about a week back who said it, people are not desperate enough yet to get to this stage. *** sniff! ***
There is no reason to think that would happen
I honestly think it'll hit Canada first. Our population is smaller than France's. Not that I'm advocating for it or anything
Having grown up in the US, I don't see anything substantial happening short of civil war unfortunately. And even then it won't have clear borders, it'll be scorched earth class war
The US had the perfect opportunity on Halloween with the "de Flock" movement and that appears to have gone nowhere.
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50 years.
Cops are going to go ape shit if their supply of cans of Pepsi gets cut off.
If it doesn't happen by 1/4/27 it won't happen. I believe Max from UNFTR's theory that they'll deem a lot of candidate elects unfit to take the oath on 1/3. I predict more Americans will be worried about the Kardashians than the quiet coup and we'll continue marching toward feudalism.
They are waiting to be rescued by the Europeans. They will await, with the guns beside them.
They don't even reach all of Europe
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