General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Want to know just how fake some pro-TPP people really are? [View all]DirkGently
(12,151 posts)From women's suffrage to civil rights and segregation to the end of the Vietnam War to gay rights and on and on and on.
Around the world, "street protests" have upended regimes, expelled empires. Ended segregation and slavery and religious persecution.
NONE of that happened through the magic of an inert "representative democracy." That is a plutocrat's argument, and it is demonstrably false.
And of course the point of the OP is a narrower, even easier to prove proposition. The supposed passionate support for TPP is a sham; a lie expressly designed to mimic grassroots movements, precisely because they are so respected and so effective.
No one is in the streets for TPP because it is a money and power grab by a handful of elites. They don't like wearing out their shoes or getting their hands dirty. They excuse their anti-democratic conduct with weasel words about what a "Republic" America is supposed to be.
They are, largely and not coincidentally, mostly called "Republicans."
"Sane people" not only recognize the value of "street protests," but know enough to ape and manufacture them for unpopular causes, which is precisely why the tiny fraction of monied interests are doing exactly that with the astro-turfing of TPP.
The fact they aren't real enough to take to the streets proves the OP's point rather perfectly.