Do Demonstrations Matter?

Whether demonstrations matter is a current topic of discussion. In books and articles, experts debate what sort of demonstration works or doesn't work. 

Apparently the famous demonstrations that worked in the past did so in part because they hooked in high ranking members of the American oligarchy. For example, the civil rights demonstrations won over the Kennedys. (My first demonstration was a civil rights picket in Los Angeles.)

The civil rights movement was tightly organized and well planned by highly educated people.

Today's movements tend to be deliberately  leaderless collections of individuals and affinity groups who collect like flash crowds, using the Internet. Everyone from Quakers to the Black Bloc may join in on a given occasion. These protest demonstrations often have unclear agendas. They might be against generalities like police brutality or the deportation of children, but they are not united in how to fix things. They don't have a set program to push in the sense that the civil rights movement had one. 

Is this new kind of undefined demonstration useful? I'd say, Yes.  Politicians have mixed loyalties: to the 1% who fund them, to brainless ideologies, to their home towns, to political parties--and also to the voters, at least to some degree. It's sobering for American politicians to see a hundred thousand angry voters in the street. It matters.