So you're thinking about going to No Kings...

No Kings protests are scheduled for March 28. As just a casual internet observer, I will say that I have seen significantly less promotion than last time, but approximately the same amount of derisive critique. I'm not invested in whether you attend or not: in fact, the purpose of this essay is exactly to help you figure out what feels right for you. It's not for me to say.

This check-in isn't going to be about operational considerations like keeping yourself physically or technologically "safer" while attending an action. There are plenty of others who have written about that, and written more broadly about how to assess what kinds of organizations you want to be involved with.

The following questions are meant more to help you attune to your own reasons for taking political action (or not) and in what form. They're about what you hope to accomplish and what path your actions set you on.

What are the goals of the action? What are my goals?

This feels like an obvious place to start, but if you don't agree with the stated principles or goals of an organized action, you probably shouldn't participate in it. So it's worth figuring out if an action has goals, and if they align with yours. Those goals might be for particular outcomes (an end to war, a change in funding, etc.) or they could be operational tactics (nonviolent/peaceful demonstration of discontent, direct action, etc.). Making sure you know what you signed up for** is the first step to acting in alignment with your own values. (**By the way, please do not "sign up" for protests. And if you don't know why, email me about it.)

On the flip side, even if you know an action doesn't align with your specific values or goals, it might be a place where others who are newer in their political journey or who are exploring and looking for a political home come to meet. If you're attending with an organization or collective, this can still be a good opportunity to meet new faces. But you have to go in knowing your own goals, even if the action itself doesn't seem to have any.

A common rejoinder you'll hear in organizing spaces and activist circles is that protests without demands are useless. I'd like to modify that slightly: protests or organized actions without demands aren't helpful as political interventions. Power responds to power, and exercising power typically requires leverage, so it's true that it is incredibly unlikely that a generalized group of people expressing vague discontent is unlikely to give rise to any meaningful changes.

However.

Protests can serve a variety of functions to the individuals who participate beyond what their political impact as a mass action is.

For some, the goal of attending the protest is emotional catharsis. It's being around other people who are going to outwardly express their anger, disappointment, discontent. It's validation that we're living in this reality together and that those feelings of upset are valid.

That might be enough for you. You might just need that catharsis, this "pressure release valve," and then you can go home and not need that release again for 6-9 months.

I obviously think that's insufficient (for me personally) but it's certainly a way to be, and what I'm asking by posing this question about the goals of the action as well as your personal goals is for you to be honest with yourself. Be honest about how you're intending this action to function in your personal political schema. Be honest about what you think it is achieving or can achieve. Be honest about whether that's enough for you.

Even deciding that only emotional catharsis is your goal can still lead you to more than just the first available political action. You might find that by asking that question, and realizing that you need the emotional release and validation, you've actually uncovered goals for yourself in the action that extend beyond simply showing up with a sign. Perhaps what you need is connection to people and groups that can continue reflecting this reality to you more than a few times a year. Perhaps what you need are people and spaces that share your emotional experience.

How am I showing up: what am I offering, and what am I taking away?

This question is deeply connected to the previous one. Knowing what you're showing up to an action needing and seeking, and what you're prepared to offer to others, is part of preparing and assessing whether an action is a good fit for you.

This question also has an implicit thesis, though: you should be intentional about showing up planning to offer and planning to receive. Knowing what you have capacity for in both is part of preparing to keep yourself safe, too.

Knowing in advance that you're planning to let down some anger in public might seem like enough. But even if your primary goal is that catharsis, or collective effervescence, ask why this action is the place for you to get that need met.

Who and what am I in alignment with? How will I know?

You may already have an answer to this based on the first question. You might know that you don't fuck with communists, or that you want to stay away from newbie liberals. But how you'll know who you're in alignment with is a question of how you intend to relate to others at the action. It's also a question about how you'll behave if someone or some group of someones isn't acting how you personally would act. Are you going in intending to police those actions? Are you intending to act in opposition? Are you intending to just go along with whatever happens? Are you intending to defer to others (if so, who? how will you know you should defer to them?)

What next steps arise from this action? Where do I go from here?

Mass actions are necessarily boom and bust. They don't happen every day. But that doesn't mean that there must be large discontinuities between them, either, if you set expectations and intentions appropriately.

Before participating in an action, ask yourself how you want to walk away from it. Are you just looking for that catharsis we talked about earlier, or are you hoping for more concrete ways to stay involved? If one of your goals is to connect with others, how could that happen during the action: will you pass out zines or stickers? will you high five anyone wearing a shirt you like? will you ask to be invited to group chats or approach particular orgs or people?

Dig in deeper: what's your political path?

These questions are just the tip of the iceberg, really. Part of acting with intention, and operating in alignment with your political values, is checking in with yourself about the kind of world you want to live in and how your behavior matches up with that vision.

The Radical Reading + Practice Group crew has been digging in on these questions the last few months as we explore what it means to use your political voice, or remain loyal to the status quo. If you're wanting to go a bit deeper, I recommend starting there. Part 3 is coming out at the end of this month, so there's still time to catch up.