I heard that the protests in MN were cancelled, which seems like a cut and dry tactical misstep from protest organizers to me, but I haven't been able to find a lot of details.

This doesn't look cancelled.

Anyone on the ground know more details?

[–] backwater5430@lemy.lol 12 points 1 day ago

We all knew about the stay home advisory. A lot of folk were only more determined to gather, and there was a general understanding that if there was an attack, it would throw gasoline on the movement as a whole. Crowd energy is weird.

Plus I spent three hours making my sign.

[–] triptrapper@lemmy.world 56 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I was there. The organizers were sending updates to anyone who RSVPed. I don't like the idea of RSVPing for something like this, but I did. They announced before the event that they had cancelled any elected officials who were planning to speak. They also said something like, "If you are told that the event is cancelled, that is just a rumor."

Several officials did speak and they were pretty epic, honestly. I don't know if they announced the cancellation as a red herring and had everyone speak as planned, or if the speakers I saw were the late replacements. IMO this was a much bigger crowd than the first Hands Off protest.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 10 points 1 day ago

They announced before the event that they had cancelled any elected officials who were planning to speak. They also said something like, "If you are told that the event is cancelled, that is just a rumor."

Ah, thank you! That makes a lot more sense to me now.

[–] joby@programming.dev 11 points 1 day ago

Interesting. I'm in small town VA, and moved house today, and am pretty keenly feeling frustration that I couldn't show up today. Searching for local actions, I landed on the base nokings.org page at some point, where there was a bright red banner saying that MN events that weren't already started were canceled at Tim Walz' recommendation, because the assassin was still at large. I can't say what time I saw that, I looked for news several times today

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 78 points 1 day ago (1 children)

According to various news reports, the suspect's car had a manifesto, a hit list of people to target (one report said the list had a bunch of politicians, another said the list had a bunch of pro-choice activists), and apparently the car also had a bunch of No Kings signs in it. I'm guessing they thought he was going to slip into a protest and try to hurt people?

Something important to know about the two people who were shot: until her death, Melissa Hortman was a member of the Minnesota State House of Representatives; and John Hoffman is a member of the Minnesota State Senate. Both were Democrats.

And up until they were shot, the Minnesota House had 134 Members: 66 Republicans vs 67 Democrats (with one seat empty to be filled later). And the Minnesota Senate had 67 members: 33 Republicans and 34 Democrats. If the assassinations had both been successful, both chambers would have been tied. As it is, they're only saying that Hoffman is "stable", but there are no further details.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 25 points 1 day ago

I'd heard it was over flyers in a car but I was hoping there was more to it than that. That's a pretty flimsy threat to be capitulating to when we're fighting murderous fascists, and sets a bad precedent.

I was not aware of how thin dem majorities were. That's very important context, thank you.

[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I know a bunch of people who went in st. Paul, and in Duluth there was definitely people out with signs. Can't cancel freedom yo!

[–] Aquila@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago

I was gonna go but heard they were cancelled too because of the shootings this morning