Notes #3/2025: Mocking XR is easy but protest strategy still matters, and local politics even more.
Mocking XR is easy but protest strategy still matters, and local politics even more.
A long Prelude
Recently, a social media post by Extinction Rebellion (XR) really annoyed me. Again. This time, XR claimed that the Dutch public broadcaster NOS is adopting âextreme rightwing framing.â Now, the NOS is certainly not a beacon of quality or depth when it comes to news coverage, but extreme right? No. And since when is XR a human rights group?
XR included a few screenshots to support their claim. Ironically, those examples did the opposite: they showed the NOS is actually doing a decent job with its headlines. Take the first example: "Cabinet wants to send rejected African asylum seekers to Uganda". XRâs âcorrectedâ version was: "The cabinet wants to violate human rights and send African asylum seekers to Uganda, with a high risk of persecution of LGBTQIA+ individuals."
First, the original NOS headline is an accurate statement of facts and doesnât suggest any interpretation of motives. XRâs correction, on the other hand, attributes intention; that the cabinet wants to violate human rights. The current government is deeply flawed, no argument there, but to claim they explicitly intend to violate human rights? More likely, they accept it as a consequence, which is already bad enough.
Second, XRâs point about the risk of persecution is valid in itself, but itâs just one of many consequences of this policy. And âAfrican asylum seekersâ is a far broader category than only those at risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Sure, a headline can include consequences, but leaving them out doesnât make it incorrect and certainly not a case of âextreme right framing.â
Beyond that, XR added more âcorrectionsâ in their post, all in a similar vein. All essentially weakening their own argument. They also linked to a source to back up their claim of bias: mediabiasfactcheck.com. But here is the real stupid part: either XR didnât read the source, or they misunderstood it. Because what does it say?
Overall, we rate Nederlandse Omroep Stichting or NOS Right-Center biased based on story selection that slightly favors the right and High for factual reporting based on proper sourcing. By American standards, this would be a Least Biased source.
Oops.
(And now the funny part: There was one minor error in the headline. In Dutch, the country is spelled âOeganda,â not âUgandaâ. Although the latter is accepted, itâs not commonly used.)
I am no expert in media and journalism, and certainly not on human rights or asylum policies. But neither is XR. And thatâs my point here! Already in 2024 I wrote âClimate activists, please stay on messageâ. This call seems to be necessary still now.
Messaging Matters
In 2023, the Dutch climate movement pulled off something rare: a slogan that worked. âStop Fossil Fuel Subsidies.â That was it. No footnotes. No ten-point theory of change. Just one clear demand that rallied a surprisingly wide range of people from all over society. Not just the usual suspects.
In my view, this âStop Fossil Fuel Subsidiesâ was a success because it was emotionally clear but not hysterical. It pointed to a real policy problem without prescribing one solution. It was specific, yet generic enough to allow multiple interpretations. It didnât say who to vote for. It didnât name and shame. It didnât try to explain capitalism or colonialism or climate science, or the intricated workings of public finance. It just said: maybe we shouldnât give public money to oil companies. Fair enough.
Did the underlying issue come with complexities? Absolutely. Even defining a âsubsidyâ is a bureaucratic exercise that could keep five ministries and a dozen consultants busy for years. But that was not the point. The point was momentum. And momentum is not improved by precision. Itâs improved by simplicity. Which is why itâs so puzzling though not surprising that it was a short-lived success.
Because rather than building on that clarity, parts of the movement did what activist movements often do: they made things more complicated, less accessible, and ultimately less effective. What could have remained a high-impact public campaign turned into a moral Rubikâs cube and a spaghetti of intertwined topics.
Then came the fog of war
While the campaign was still gaining ground, parts of the movement began inserting extra demands and interpretative layers: climate change is about gender. Climate change is because of colonialism. Climate change is to blame on capitalism. Some started linking it to nuclear policy. Others tried to inject de-growth talking points. The unifying slogan turned into a policy buffet: pick your (left wing) ideology.
And then came the Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza which immediately reframed climate protests. Demonstrations merged, signs multiplied, and slogans blurred. The public response was equally predictable: support dropped. Media interest shifted. The campaign dissipated into noise.
Let me be clear: this isnât about whether any of those causes are justified. It's about strategy. Blending a climate protest with a geopolitical demonstration doesnât double your impact, it halves it. If that other issue then gets associated with masked protesters destroying university buildings, intimidating sit-ins in railway stations, and interruptions of all kinds of events, you will lose even more sympathy. The Venn diagram of shared interest shrinks fast when you overextend the agenda. If your message requires a PhD or a loyalty oath to a dozen interconnected causes, itâs no longer a message.
Strategic Clarity above Moral Certainty
Movements that prioritize moral consistency over public impact often end up with neither. Iâve watched too many activist spaces prioritize being ârightâ over being effective. The conversation turns inward. Messaging becomes liturgical. If you donât frame the problem with the correct intersectional vocabulary, you're gently (or not so gently) corrected. If you believe in market-based climate tools, you're suspect. If you care about impact more than ideology, you're probably compromised.
The irony, of course, is that most people outside these spaces already agree that climate change is bad and something should be done. But rather than pulling them in with a shared goal, like âstop fossil fuel subsidiesâ, movements push them away with increasingly narrow terms of engagement.
Method Is Not a Side Note
Then thereâs the question of how to protest. And there are good examples. Blocking a major road near parliament and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to demand change from lawmakers? Thatâs targeted civil disobedience. It forces a conversation at the heart of where decisions are made. It has optics and a rationale.
Blocking traffic near the former (!) office building of a bank? That requires too many explanatory twists and turns. It just doesnât make a good story.
And then thereâs the other stuff: throwing soup at a painting, gluing yourself to something in a museum. The justification, supposedly, is "raising awareness." But who, exactly, is being made aware? The museum visitors? Sure, it generates headlines but not the kind you want. In this case, negative publicity is just that: negative publicity.
More importantly, who are you alienating? People who care about art are already overwhelmingly in favor of climate action. Those who donât now have a new excuse to dismiss both. Meanwhile, underfunded and overstretched museums are forced to divert money from programming to security. A win for the climate? If the goal is to get people on your side, attacking institutions that already broadly agree with you is a strange strategy.
Protest movements are essential for driving societal change and transformation. We need climate protests. But we need climate protests that make an impact. You're not out on the street to satisfy a personal sense of moral superiority. At least, I hope so. In my opinion, youâre there to help change the world for the better.
What doesnât work is confusing moral performance with political traction. Or confusing being loud with being heard and being right. What is needed is a disciplined, clear, broad-based protest strategy that prioritizes messaging, not moral maximalism. The question is: do we want to be right, or do we want to win?
Postscriptum: The Boring Work That Moves Things
Protests are valuable, as long as the messaging and methods unite rather than alienate. But there are other ways to win in another arena that many protesters seem to overlook: local politics. The long march through the institutions, where compromise, eventually, leads to real change. Local politics may be slow, frustrating, and deeply unsexy. But itâs also where things actually get done. Itâs incremental. It requires talking to and working with people you disagree with. But unlike most protest tactics, it doesnât end with a viral video and a good feel. It ends with policy. And in the long run, that matters too (or more).
Local politics, and bureaucracies, for that matter, are struggling to attract talented, energetic people. So letâs use the demand for good people there. Letâs not invest all our energy and talent in protests that denounce policy while leaving the policymaking to others. Letâs invest some of that energy in making policy instead. Boring local policy. The return on investment might actually be betterâthough framing it in these terms is probably enough to get me kicked out of the movement.