The connection between voting and political change is straightforward: If you don't like President Donald Trump's policies, you vote against him and his party. If enough people join you, better people will get into office and institute better policies.
The theory of change behind direct action, though, is less clear. How does marching, or blocking a highway, or punching a Nazi, lead to change? To many critics, direct action seems like an outlet for expressing anger and frustration, rather than a considered strategy. "I'm happy to entertain arguments that incivility will help beat Trump," Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote on Twitter this past June. "But most of it I actually see from the left strikes me as counterproductive politically but emotionally satisfying for them, not done regretfully because it works."
Even left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders has expressed discomfort with some forms of direct action. After a restaurant owner refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the senator said, "I think people have a right to go into a restaurant and have their dinner." He added that people who want political change should "take that anger out in a constructive way, and that means ... get involved in campaigns." Political change, in this account, comes through the electoral system—not through disruptive protest.
[For more on this story by NOAH BERLATSKY, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...nse-of-street-action]
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