You could fill all of the sidewalks? Blocking roads doesn’t make allies. Where I live there is no other way to get to work or the hospital or the store. We don’t even have sidewalks lol. We have to protest from the ditch, at least that’s our public easement.
That’s really not practical and besides, protest has to be somewhat disruptive to work. Ideally you target that disruption as much as you can towards the group whose behavior you want to change but some level of disruption for ordinary people is inevitable and often desirable.
There is a lot of research that supports the idea that disruptive protests are effective in building support for an issue, especially if it’s something most people support after learning about it but it’s not top of mind for them otherwise. Some classic examples are racial and climate justice movements. Even if they get annoyed by the protesters themselves, it often increases support for moderate factions within the same coalition by sparking the conversation. This is especially true id the state responds violently which can help to build sympathy for the movement. Creating problems for the state to entice them into violent repression can sometimes be a part of an overall strategy though obviously this can be more physically risky for activists and organizers.
You could fill all of the sidewalks? Blocking roads doesn’t make allies. Where I live there is no other way to get to work or the hospital or the store. We don’t even have sidewalks lol. We have to protest from the ditch, at least that’s our public easement.
That’s really not practical and besides, protest has to be somewhat disruptive to work. Ideally you target that disruption as much as you can towards the group whose behavior you want to change but some level of disruption for ordinary people is inevitable and often desirable.
There is a lot of research that supports the idea that disruptive protests are effective in building support for an issue, especially if it’s something most people support after learning about it but it’s not top of mind for them otherwise. Some classic examples are racial and climate justice movements. Even if they get annoyed by the protesters themselves, it often increases support for moderate factions within the same coalition by sparking the conversation. This is especially true id the state responds violently which can help to build sympathy for the movement. Creating problems for the state to entice them into violent repression can sometimes be a part of an overall strategy though obviously this can be more physically risky for activists and organizers.