In a world where protests have become weekend rituals and slogans substitute for substance, economist Daniel Di Martino has a message for Americans: “Vote — don’t worship politics.”
In the latest episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone welcome Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and PhD candidate at Columbia University, to unpack America’s growing “protest culture” — and why it looks so different from what he experienced in Venezuela.
Protest Culture: A Luxury of Democracy
Di Martino recalls marching as a teenager in Venezuela — but under vastly different circumstances. “We had to protest,” he says. “There was no democratic process left.”
In contrast, he argues, today’s American demonstrators have every tool for change within reach: elections, free speech, representation. Yet, they still fill the streets. “There are elections. People should just vote.”
The difference, Di Martino suggests, is that many young Americans have lost faith in the process itself — not because it’s broken, but because they’ve been convinced it is.
A Tale of Two Immigrants
Chuck Warren shares stories from two immigrants — one from Serbia, one from Venezuela — who watched recent anti-Trump protests with disbelief. Both marveled that Americans could live in freedom, prosperity, and order… and still rage against it.
“They don’t realize how good they have it,” said one.
That disconnect, Di Martino says, reveals a deeper problem: “People are deceived into thinking they’re living under tyranny, when in reality, they’re living under democracy.”
Faith, Politics, and “Woke Kings”
Co-host Sam Stone raises an idea that resonates throughout the conversation: in abandoning traditional faith, the modern left may have turned politics into its new religion.
“Protest has become their church,” Stone quips — a ritual that replaces spiritual renewal with outrage and spectacle.
Di Martino agrees, pointing out the irony of the “No Kings” movement. “If you’re a Christian, you can’t say ‘No Kings’—Christ is the King. The question is: who is their king now? Their king is woke ideology.”
The Reality Check
Despite the noise, Di Martino insists that things in America are not falling apart — they’re improving. Cities have become safer under stronger law enforcement, the economy is stable, and international tensions are easing. “There isn’t really anything meaningful to protest,” he says, adding that National Guard deployments have made even high-crime areas like D.C. and Chicago objectively safer.
Final Thoughts
While peaceful demonstrations are a protected right, Di Martino’s message is clear: outrage has replaced reason — and protest has replaced participation.
For a democracy to thrive, Americans may need to rediscover something deeper than protest signs and hashtags: gratitude for what they already have, and faith in the system that protects it.
Transcript
**Sam Stone: **Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds. Here’s Chuck Warren. I’m Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Daniel Di Martino, is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a PhD candidate in economics at Columbia University. His research focuses on immigration, especially selection, assimilation, and highly skilled immigration. Follow him on X at Daniel DiMartino. Daniel, welcome to the program.
Daniel Di Martino: Thanks for having me.
**Chuck Warren: **Daniel, so before we get into this great report you did on the fiscal impact of immigration, you had a great little podcast segment this week on what drives protest culture. I think it’s relevant after the no Kings rally. As I listened to your podcast, one thing I found funny is that overseas they had a no tyrants instead of no kings because there’s lots of Kings in other countries. Is that true? Is that true? They really did that?
Daniel Di Martino: Yeah so you know the Democrats have an organization called Democrats abroad for the Americans who live abroad and so they call it no tyrants abroad because you don’t want to upset you know the King of England all that stuff or even worse the King of Saudi Arabia.
**Chuck Warren: **Why? I find the protest interesting. So I had two responses when this was happening during the weekend. I got my hair cut, this woman’s Serbian, she’s from Serbia, first generation. And her comment was, Americans are the most foolish people in the world because they don’t realize how good they have it. And she goes back every summer. And then I had another person who’s from Venezuela.
And she just, she was just shaking her head. And I just said, well, you know, they’re concerned about due process. You know, I’m trying to give this side right. She goes, have there been any American citizens arrested? So they were both as immigrants to this country, first generation, doing it the right way, by the way. They were a bit stunned by it. Why do you think we had this protest culture, especially on the left? I don’t think the right could ever get that many people there unless there’s some real major constitutional crisis.
**Sam Stone: **People on the right have other things to do.
**Chuck Warren: **Yeah, I mean we have kids and soccer games. What do you think, why do we have this protest culture?
Daniel Di Martino: Well, you know, it’s interesting the protest culture because I did go to protest when I was a kid in Venezuela, but obviously the situation was much different. I think it’s because in the U.S. there’s been a lot of people, especially young who have been deceived in that the Democratic process starting off, right? In Venezuela, we have to protest because there was no Democratic process left. So the only way you could express yourself truly was protesting in the street.
Here in the U.S. I mean there are elections Donald Trump won. And now there are midterms coming up, and their special elections, and governor’s elections we have one in New Jersey very soon. There’s another one in Virginia. People should just vote. And you know demonstrations are fine. Its part of the first amendment. I think these protests are not something I would complain about because they have been peaceful largely unlike what they did in 2020 and I like what they did in other years on the left.
**Sam Stone: **I think peaceful, also really kind of toothless. I came away from that weekend thinking, okay, the usual suspects in the media, you know, went berserk over it, but outside of them, in just in everyday life, there was almost no reaction to that protest. Have they crossed the Rubicon where people are kind of tuning out these actions that they’re doing?
Daniel Di Martino: I think people are tuning out especially in the cities because they see that what Trump has done with the National Guard, which is part of what the protested is actually making cities safer. I mean objectively D.C. is much safer city now, Chicago you know LA you know. I hope they send the National Guard to New York City. Because the reality is that more policing deters crimes. You’re not going to have somebody robbing another person in front of a national guard that’s armed thats just a simple.
Now that’s not the final solution. The final solution is to actually increase local policing, indict the criminals, and it is the left that hasn’t done that. And even the moderate Democrats understand that at the local level. And also the economy is doing well. There’s not major scandal. Trump just achieved a more peaceful Middle East. There isn’t really anything meaningful to protest.
**Sam Stone: **I always wonder, and Chuck, you and I have talked about this a little bit, for the left, which has so aggressively abandoned religion, it seems like they’ve turned politics into religion and protest is their church. This is their worship that they all go out and get on their knees for. I just wonder if that’s healthy, because the difference to me between that and religious worship is that one is designed to build up the spirit and the other is designed to tear down everything around it.
**Chuck Warren: **Well, but Sam, we want to get with Martin here on the immigration. I think the thing is they do view this as their religion and they do view what they’re doing as building up. I mean, that’s the thing. It’s just building up a only one segment of society. Martin, tell me if you’re wrong, these same people at the No Kings or No Tyrants protest are the same people who would 100 % support England’s current regime of suppressing and arresting people for social media posts. Is that right or wrong?
Daniel Di Martino: Absolutely. I think you’re absolutely right. And not only that, if you’re a Christian or especially if you’re Catholic like me, you really cannot say no Kings because technically Christ is the King. And even Poland declared him King, right? So it’s not like you can’t just say no Kings. So the real question is who is their King? And I think their King is woke ideology.
**Chuck Warren: **100%.
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