TODAY: The Free America Walkout Is At 2PM!
Throughout history, coordinated noncooperation has been one of the public's most effective tools. Here's how to use it.
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TL;DR
Throughout American history, citizens have used coordinated action to signal that they have not accepted what those in power assumed they would tolerate.
Today’s walkout follows that tradition. When enough people withdraw their routine participation, even briefly, systems feel it, and the assumption that the public has accepted what is happening begins to break down.
What a walkout does
Different tactics do different things.
A march is visible and shows numbers. Marches don’t withdraw participation from anything, they add an event to the day without disrupting it.
A boycott creates economic pressure over time. But boycotts are invisible. No one sees you not buying something.
A walkout combines both. It’s visible and it withdraws participation. When people leave work, school, or commerce at the same time, that absence is noticeable in empty classrooms, paused production lines, quieter cash registers. And because it’s coordinated, it can’t be dismissed as scattered individual choices.
Why we walk out today
Authoritarian politics expand through repetition and silence. Each unanswered test makes the next one easier.
A walkout answers the test. It demonstrates that the public is paying attention, that coordination remains possible, and that consent should not be assumed.
That may not reverse what has already happened. But it changes what comes next.
This is what we’re doing
Those who study authoritarian governance have noted that regimes pay close attention to public response to calculate their risk.
When the public is quiet, the cost of the next action drops. When the public responds visibly and in numbers, that cost rises.
A walkout registers in that calculation. It signals to this administration that the threshold for passive acceptance has not been met and that further escalation will not be unnoticed. Whether or not it gives us immediate policy change, it alters the conditions under which future decisions are made.
If you’re participating today
Throughout the history of social movements, one of the most important functions of public participation has been bearing witness, being physically present so that what happens cannot later be denied or minimized. When we show up, we create a record and become part of the documentation. And that documentation is important, both in the moment and afterward, when the history of this period is written.
If you can’t walk out
The visible actions of social movements… the marches, the walkouts, the public demonstrations, are only part of how movements function. Every successful action is infrastructure by people who spread information, coordinate logistics, verify reports, and ensure information in one location reaches activists in others.
If you cannot attend in person today, you can still be part of the infrastructure by sharing verified information, amplifying what you see and helping the action travel beyond people who are physically present.
What happens after today
There are forms of public response that can be absorbed. A statement can be ignored. A petition can be filed away. A news cycle can be waited out.
Coordinated, repeatable collective action is harder to manage. It does not depend on a single person who can be discredited. It doesn’t rely on a single organization that can be defunded. It comes from a distributed network of people who have learned that they can move together and who can do it again.
For some of you, this is your first public action. For others, this is one of many. If you’re new to this, we’d like to know what brought you here, what made today the day you decided to join us. If you’ve been doing this for a while, we’d like to know what keeps you coming back. What have you learned? And what would you tell someone who’s just starting?
I’m retired so I can’t walk out today. What I CAN do is not spend money, call legislators and speak out on SM! LETS DO THIS !!!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Now he threatens to "take" Greenland, he's a lunatic and criminal that needs to be incarcerated.