President Trump’s campaign and presidency has fueled a resurgence in public activism: 1 in 5 Americans attended a protest or a rally in the past two years, with about one-fifth of that group attending for the first time, according to a recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll. The survey asked Americans to compare people who attend rallies or protests today with rallygoers 50 years ago, and it found many see the latest wave of activism in a more negative light.
The survey found 50 percent of Americans saying rallygoers today are “more extreme in their views,” compared with 9 percent who said they are less extreme and 38 percent said they are about the same. A similar 49 percent said recent rallygoers are “more violent” than those in the late 1960s, while less than half as many see them as less violent and the rest said they are about the same, had no opinion or volunteered that it depends.
On the other hand, a 45 percent plurality said today’s rallygoers are “more organized” than those who attended events 50 years ago, compared with 23 percent who said they are less organized, a striking perspective given the way technology and social media have enabled massive protests without the resources of dedicated advocacy groups. The public is more mixed on whether recent rallygoers are more effective than those in the late 1960s — 38 percent say they are more effective in getting their voices heard, while 30 percent say they are less so, and 29 percent see little difference.
Protesters and rallygoers since 2016 have come out for and against Trump, on issues such as teacher pay, white supremacy, women’s rights, climate change and new gun laws. But the year 1968 brought a range of passionate activism that is in some ways incomparable, from campus antiwar protests to civil right demonstrations and the violent backlash to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. The same year, the Poor People’s Campaign camped on the Mall and feminists disrupted the Miss America pageant.
The relatively positive opinion of rallygoers in the past may reflect the fact that Americans were more divided about the Vietnam War, civil rights movement and women’s rights back then, but are more likely to agree on those issues today.
By contrast, the issues being protested today remain divisive, and high-profile protests against Trump seem to have had an impact on rallygoers’ reputation. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say today’s protesters are more violent and extreme in comparison with demonstrators during the late 1960s. There are generational gaps too, with 18- to 29-year-olds much less likely to say protesters today are more violent, compared to Americans who are old enough to remember rallies from a half-century ago.
