(i’m an aussie so i have no place to actually comment on lived experience in the US)
… but i will add, because this is similar in most places i think:
Public activism and willingness to volunteer is frequently redirected by capitalists to spoil outcomes or just waste activist energy.
on the rare occasion that activism is getting somewhere, they’re very good at giving just enough to make just enough people stop participating that it falls apart, and the “just enough” that they give are short-term concessions that they claw back in other ways (or sometimes not even in other ways: just straight up revert)
(i’m an aussie so i have no place to actually comment on lived experience in the US)
… but i will add, because this is similar in most places i think:
on the rare occasion that activism is getting somewhere, they’re very good at giving just enough to make just enough people stop participating that it falls apart, and the “just enough” that they give are short-term concessions that they claw back in other ways (or sometimes not even in other ways: just straight up revert)