How will Trump deal with the protesters? Critics highlight his inauguration in 2017. | News about Donald Trump
Whether new protests against Trump’s second term will materialize remains to be seen.
So far, public reaction to Trump’s victory has been relatively muted, to none mass demonstrations which characterized the aftermath of his first victory in the 2016 presidential election.
Advocates note that this lackluster response is not necessarily due to law enforcement’s repressive tactics — or at least not solely due to them.
Gibbons, a free speech advocate, noted that the 2020 George Floyd protests followed the prosecution of J20 and grew in intensity and scale even after thousands of people were teargassed and arrested.
Instead, he suggested there was an element of “protest fatigue” and a “feeling of helplessness” following Trump’s victory in Elections 2024.
“We’ve seen a decline in protests,” Gibbons said. “But I don’t want to say that the lack of protest is because people are chilled.”
He noted that some of Trump’s critics have become disappointed with the current administration of President Joe Biden, particularly his support for Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
“Other than in Gaza, people seem to be really burned out on the protests,” Gibbons said, adding that even anti-Israel war protests have dwindled after hundreds were arrested at campus protests over the past year.
Gibbons noted that other government leaders, including at the state and local levels, have also passed laws to discourage or punish protests.
Led by Republicans in 2021 law in Florida, for example, indicates that a protester could be charged with a third-degree felony “if he or she willfully participates in a violent public disorder involving the assembly of three or more persons.”
Proponents argued the law could be used to launch “collective liability” charges in court, and in 2024 the Florida Supreme Court ultimately ruled that peaceful protesters could not be charged under the law.
“There is an ongoing federal, state and local crackdown on dissent that has been going on since the inauguration of Donald Trump and continues through Cop City, designed to discourage people from protesting,” Gibbons said.
Lagesse also noted that many protesters have lost steam this election cycle.
But she believes prosecutions like hers send a message that prevents people from exercising one of their fundamental rights: the right to protest.
“If you’re a young teenager or someone who, for whatever reason, has never protested anything before and you keep reading in the news, ‘Protester pepper-sprayed. Protester charged with criminal offences. Protester arrested. A protester beaten with a baton, you might not go out and protest that first time,” Lagesse said.
“Maybe you’ll tell your kids not to protest because it’s too dangerous.”
