Photo Credit: Gregory Schrader, Editor-in-Chief

It takes only a brief glance into internet commentary to find bitter criticism of the anti-Trump protests sweeping the nation. The fervor with which the marchers are oft criticized may be matched only by the willful ignorance the commentary shows in regards to the protesters’ state of mind.

Speaking as one who has been to the marches, who’s watched hundreds block off highways and confront police, the protests exist for a reason. But it’s not the reason those attending seem to think.

People are unhappy. A bit of an understatement perhaps, but certainly not untrue.

These protests exist to express this outpour of emotion, the rage and anguish of a merciless election cycle wherein each side screamed that if we didn’t pick this one candidate the armageddon would arrive, that this was our last chance.

Bernie or bust. Make America great again. Don’t you dare vote third party or you’ll be the problem, the reason that everything ends in fire and chaos.

We the protesters know that nothing will change, I hope, for having shouted “Fuck Trump” into the echoing streets, and into the faces of the local police whom we know had nothing to do with the election.

The protests aren’t about politics. They’re a way for half the nation to mourn, and to show solidarity to those mourning. It’s cathartic to step out with a movement at your back, to finally feel like your voice is being heard.

That being said, these protests will do nothing, and anyone who argues otherwise is deluding themselves of vital, if cynical truth.

Republicans have the House. Republicans have the Senate. Republicans have the presidency. Republicans have, even, what will be a new justice on the Supreme Court, appointed for life. There is nothing left to do, no vote to be made, no speech to be said that could change minds.

Priorities need to change.

Protests are a relic dating back before the age of social media. Raising awareness isn’t something that will affect change any longer, or, at least, a march won’t do any more than digital campaigns.

Some small measure of change might be enacted if every protester instead focused on local legislation, but even then, the areas that need it most are populated far too heavily by those that would prevent any influential law from passing.

A better use of one’s time is to show up to midterm elections and to engage in discourse with Trump supporters without painting them as racist pigs in the process.

The protests don’t work to accomplish this — quite the opposite.

The protests demonize Trump’s supporters along with the president elect, when what is instead needed are long and hard conversations with those you disagree with to instigate a shift in political morals.

What the protesters lack, just as Occupy Wall Street lacked, is a leader.

There is no one to unite us, no one we are rallying behind, no one in the streets with us.

And so thousands, tens of thousands take to the march, trying to heal, all the while knowing that despite all their work, nothing can be stopped now.

When you see us on the news, I beg you, have sympathy.