Title : "Protest is a kind of theater, as abortion rights activists who dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid’s Tale' outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett know."
link : "Protest is a kind of theater, as abortion rights activists who dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid’s Tale' outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett know."
"Protest is a kind of theater, as abortion rights activists who dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid’s Tale' outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett know."
"The performance is not just for the target of the protests but also for anyone who sees it via news images or video or social media. The fact is, a group of people targeting just one person, at home, particularly at night, appears menacing.... Florida’s lawmakers went so far as to ban 'picketing and protesting' at any person’s private residence.... I believe such bans to be unconstitutional. The right of all Americans to peacefully assemble must be protected. But that doesn’t mean that protesting at the homes of public officials is effective.... I expect that those who gathered outside my home also felt shut out from power when they screamed at me [in December 2020]. But showing up at my home to shout falsehoods about an election because they didn’t like the results did not help their cause.... These protesters attempted to bully me into abdicating my duty to protect the will of the people of Michigan. But the people who made me fear for my family that night also emboldened me to do my job with integrity.... [P]rotesting outside an official’s home is rarely if ever effective at achieving the goals of those gathering — and oftentimes, it backfires."
From "Protesting at Judges’ Homes Must Remain Legal. That Doesn’t Make It Effective" by Michigan secretary of state Jocelyn Benson (NYT).
If sensible people realize that a protest outside of a public official's home is likely to backfire, then we may infer that people who protest outside a public official's home are irrational. That's an idea you might want to use if you need to argue that the bans on these protests are constitutional. Benson makes a good argument, but if it works, it won't work on 100% of the protesters who would otherwise take to the street right outside someone's house. The ones that are left are those who are least likely to care about lawful, peaceful persuasion.
But also: Protests are not really about rational persuasion. They're about stirring up emotion, and emotion is inextricably intertwined with even the most earnest efforts at rational decisionmaking. I assume that the elite, educated, accomplished Ms. Benson endeavors to "do [her] job with integrity," but I don't believe she can exclude all feeling. In the case of the pro-Trump protesters screaming at her house, she felt "emboldened" — that is emotional. The protesters stirred up her fighting spirit. Yes, it backfired for them, but — by her own report — she was not impassive and solidly grounded in neutrality.
Thus articles "Protest is a kind of theater, as abortion rights activists who dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid’s Tale' outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett know."
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