Part of what I see with 50501/Hands Off protests is that they have a theme of “defending the Constitution” from Trump. This is really a somewhat conservative position and doesn’t have much historical rigor to it.
Prof. Aziz Rana of Boston College Law School is having a moment on Jacobin Radio right now. His basic thesis is that the Constitutional order is so deeply antidemocratic that the left argued with itself and the liberals over whether to focus efforts on challenging it in the early 20th Century. In the broad sweep of history since then, Americans have come to view the Constitution as a sacred text, but in fact, that order is part of what gives the Republicans and the far right their advantages despite losing the popular vote.
The shorter interview: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S250424 (April 24, 2025)
The 4-part long interview: https://thedigradio.com/archive/ (see the Aziz Rana episodes starting in April 2025) - Part 4 isn’t up yet.
So why should we venerate the Constitution, when it holds us back from real, direct democracy? I think part of what our liberal friends and family hold onto is a trust in the Constitution and the framers. They weren’t geniuses, they were landowners worried about kings taking their property. Use these interviews, or Prof. Rana’s book, to handle those arguments.
These people who spend their days trying to prove how “leftist” they are by destroying every tool we have are literally right-wingers.
If you believe words on a piece of paper are going to protect you. you’re incredibly delusional.
You believe words have power or you wouldn’t be out here trying to sabotage us with them.
Ding ding ding you broke the code lol.
I also like how, if you sort of unfocus your eyes and take a broad look over the comments, it’s very obvious that the chief purpose is shitting on “liberals.” There’s very little interest in the topics about democracy and improvement of the government and people power that are the ostensible purpose for this whole thing. Basically, almost all of it boils down to:
Absolutely. It’s just a way to demotivate the left and trick people with the best intentions into shooting themselves in the foot. These people are out en masse here literally because we’re such a leftist space.
If you see someone posing zero solutions but shooting down any possible way of moving any cause that might oppose authoritarianism forward? They’re a fucking MAGA cuckoo.
Yeah. They’re not all fakers, either, I’ve seen these people at actual protests too. The one time it’s happened I thought about interacting with them but I decided it wouldn’t go well and went and hung out with the pro-Palestine people who didn’t feel the need to be injecting a whole bunch of leftist infighting (to the point that it eclipsed anything pro-Palestinian and the leftist infighting became the main thrust of the message).
It wouldn’t be an effective strategy if it didn’t sucker some people into playing along. At this point, though, I think it’s more important to point out that this is happening than to make sure we tiptoe around the few people stupid enough to actually buy into it.