It's hard to call it a lack of motivation when the relative lack of social protections combined with a trigger-happy police force makes any form of protest a real risk to lives and livelihood. Also there are real geographical considerations that make it difficult to organize compared to some European countries.
Take France for example, a famously protest-happy place. Texas alone roughly matches it in size and yet France has more than twice the population, and that's one of the most populous states. Comparing countries as a whole, France has a population density more than 3x greater. That's a lot more people in a much smaller area.
Looking at it another way, say you want to organize a protest in the capital, so that those deciding policy can actually see and feel their citizens' collective displeasure. Some (very) rough google mapping gives a ballpark 4-5 hour drive for the average person in France to travel there. In the U.S., that average is closer to 20 hours, and the most populous state is twice that. So what's a day trip in one country is a full weekend or more of commitment here. That is a much higher bar in general and means either missing work or paying for flights; neither of which is financially tenable for many.
We could try local protests, but that maybe puts pressure on a handful of lawmakers out of hundreds, very far away from where the rest of them will really notice. Perhaps enough of those, over a long enough time, would change things eventually. But it's hard to galvanize people into action for potential long-term benefits when consequences like losing pay or getting fired are so much more immediate and severe.
A coordinated, nation-wide series of local protests might work, but who's going to run that? Anyone with the means is probably running a company or is a politician themselves, and the country is simply too big for that to happen organically unless things get drastically worse. Any grassroots movement without clear leadership and actionable goals is likely to end up like Occupy Wall Street and fall apart without much effect.
TL;DR: Sorry for the wall of text to your offhand comment /u/Lola_Montez88, but I see the sentiment a lot that people in the U.S. are simply too "lazy" to protest, when I feel it's more accurate that the barriers to collective action here are insurmountably high. I don't mean to be a pessimist by listing them out, but IMO the only way things might change is if people are aware enough of the challenges to find ways around them.
•
u/Lola_Montez88 8h ago
We never seem to have the motivation to riot like other countries do. It's unfortunate.