Crowd Mantras for Now

An artist friend making visual art for demonstrations against the dangerous 2017 Republican administration asked me to write some crowd chants. When I mentioned this on Facebook, the lively dialogue that ensued, with many enthusiastic suggestions, started me musing. What makes a good protest chant or–as I call them in my book Tea with Demons–a good crowd mantra?

Crowd mantras are far more than just information. They are physical. They vibrate the air between us and they vibrate our own molecules. They astonish us with their force. Like some old nursery rhymes or like drum beats, effective crowd mantras are rhythmic, simple, repetitious, mysterious, and empowering–a challenge, a call to arms, the repeated thunder clap of a thousand voices.

To create successful crowd mantras, we must look to successful past crowd mantras, no matter the political intent of their authors. Strictly from a propaganda point of view, no matter if a crowd mantra insults or is mean, as long as it pierces to the heart of its hearers.

Three historic crowd mantras:

HELL NO, WE WON’T GO! [angry chant, helped stop Vietnam war, 1967]
YES, WE CAN! [uplifting chant, helped elect Barrack Obama, 2008]
LOCK HER UP! [evil chant, helped defeat Hillary Clinton, 2016]

Six crowd mantras I came up with to deploy now– use them:

NO MORE HATE! NO MORE LIES!

LIAR, LIAR, LIAR! SHAME, DONALD, SHAME!

DONALD IS NOT LEGIT! TRUMP HAS GOT TO QUIT!

BAN ALL RACISTS! DEPORT DONALD TRUMP!

PUTIN’S PUPPET, YOU’RE FIRED!

TRUTH TRUMPS LIES!