I think a generous interpretation of this comment is that voting, writing reps, and protesting (likely the permitted kind) are somewhat ineffectual at the level of policy change especially if the goal is federal-level change.

Even at the state level, you're still reined in by the fact that America operates on the slave economy logic that land represents people which results in rural communities that have a few hundred in population with the same table stakes as a rep in a million+ constituent district. You can write to your rep all you want but if Bubba from Farmtown, USA says trans people should be barred from youth sports [0] and he can get a dozen of his other buddies from the depopulated rural localities to co-sponsor it, it doesn't matter what your rep says or does.

The end result is that effective organizing has to be hyperlocal - this means showing up to county/municipal council meetings, sitting on neighborhood planning groups, broadening awareness in your community via doorknocking and public events.

Specifically to that point against protesting, some forms of 'protest' that seem pervasive with groups like No Kings and 50501 are effectively self-neutered. The vast majority of those protests are permitted with police escorts.

On it's face, these 'protests' are similar to those of the past - people show up, they wave signs, they chant. But like a child imitating being a fighter pilot, it accomplishes nothing real. The point of a protest is disruption - economic disruption, traffic blocking, etc - because that disruption buys you leverage with the local government. When you can say 'I can shut down your arteries at any time so meet me halfway with our demands or face millions in economic damage', you have an effective protest. This is how the Europeans do it between burning down their Supreme Courts to piling up tons of manure outside of Parliament - and that gets actual results.

Asking your local government liaison for permission to say mean things about a federal official does nothing except give them a chance for easy points with the crowd. Nothing changes, all that energy and labor that goes into organizing a safe protest dissipates, and the status quo remains fixed, even consolidated now that the already limited shared pool of movement labor has been siphoned off into a performative act.

[0] https://ltgov.georgia.gov/press-releases/2025-04-28/lt-gover...