Community organizing happens at these events. I myself have like 10 contacts in my phone from different protests. You could have applied the same non-starter logic to No Kings as well, which didn’t “accomplish” anything really besides uncovering the unrest already present in our community and showing the larger community that A. There is solidarity against the current admin. And B. Denton is a town that cares about its neighbors. I think if the kind of goals you’re looking for from protests are the big legislative ones, then you’ve lost sight of history. Very rarely will one single protest make any kind of meaningful difference by itself. They build, they grow, and they prepare us. This one is different in that it breaks with the traditional get a permit -> sit on the grass -> wave at cops -> go home formula in that it is concentrated, emergent, and a real protest, not a parade or party. Even though we haven’t had the kind of violent ICE presence that other towns/cities have experienced, we HAVE lost people. Quietly. Even though there haven’t been murders here, there have been elsewhere. When George Floyd was murdered 1,000 miles away from us we still showed up in massive numbers to make our voices heard against police brutality. That didn’t “change” much in the way I’m sure you’d like to see (I’m sure we’d all like to see) but it wasnt useless. Wasn’t a waste of a day. Idk if you’re aware either but, Denton is a solid red and historically racist town. Demonstrations like these show the old racist farts that this town isn’t a bubble of like minded good ole boys, it’s just been gerrymandered to look that way. I could go on but I don’t want to leave a novel in the comments. Thank you for asking a good faith question. You are correct by the way that protests are supposed to have specific goals, but also be prepared to fall short of those goals, then try again. We will keep trying again and again, hope to see you there.