Protests in Korea, US
MIn Seong-jae
Ordinary citizens push back against actions they say cross democratic lines
A little more than a year ago, I witnessed one of the most remarkable moments in Korean politics. A sitting president declared martial law, triggering a massive wave of public outrage and protest. What followed was not merely a political confrontation but a collective struggle over the survival of democracy itself.
For Koreans, martial law isn't some abstract constitutional theory; it’s the smell of tear gas in the 1980s and the memory of tanks in the street. That’s why the reaction was so surgical and so total. People didn't wait for a "call to action" — they just went. They went as grandfathers, as students and as office workers, effectively firing the government in a single weekend.
Today, across the Pacific, I am watching another historic protest moment unfold. The U.S. Donald Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown has been overreaching, harsh and violent, resulting in civilian deaths and widespread fear. In Minneapolis, ground zero of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, people have been putting their lives on the line in front of ICE vans. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities are seeing a wave of mass protests as well.
What is unfolding in the United States deserves deep respect. The courage of those who march, risk arrest and, in some cases, lose their lives is nothing short of historic. These protests stand squarely within a long U.S. tradition of civil resistance, from the civil rights movement to antiwar mobilizations. The grief, anger and moral urgency driving people into the streets are profoundly warranted.
But I cannot help noticing some differences between the two mobilizations. Compared to the Korean protest of late 2024 and early 2025, the current protest movement in the U.S. seems more muted, fragmented and messier. In Korea, public outrage rapidly converged into a nationwide force so overwhelming that it produced immediate political consequences. The declaration of martial law triggered a rare moment of near-consensus. Across ideological lines, citizens interpreted the move as a direct threat to democracy itself. As a result, the crisis was framed not as a partisan disagreement but as a national emergency. Once the government’s legitimacy collapsed so broadly, people flooded the streets not as liberals or conservatives, but as citizens defending the democratic order.
In the U.S., the violence surrounding immigration enforcement is morally shocking, but it is not experienced equally across society. It disproportionately affects immigrant communities and marginalized groups. For many Americans, the harm feels real but socially distant. As a result, the crisis is often understood as a policy dispute rather than a system-level democratic issue.
More importantly, intensely deep polarization further complicates mobilization in the U.S. The same events are interpreted through radically different moral lenses. Where many see governmental overreach and human rights violations, a sizable number of conservatives see legitimate law enforcement and border control. This division prevents the kind of broad legitimacy collapse that fuels massive unified protest waves. Outrage exists, but it does not synchronize.
Geography also seems to be destiny in these things. In Korea, Seoul is the only stage that matters. When Gwanghwamun Plaza fills up, the government can look out the window and see the end of its leash. The outrage "stacks up" vertically — it stays in one place, gets louder every hour and eventually becomes a physical wall the administration can't walk through. In America, however, that energy just leaks out. You have a massive, beautiful crowd in Minneapolis, another in LA, and 10,000 people in New York. But because the country is a continent, these moments feel like scattered storms rather than a flood. The distance doesn't just separate the cities; it thins out the pressure.
In no way do I underestimate the power of American protests. The contrast between the two countries is not about passion, courage or moral clarity. American protesters are showing extraordinary bravery under frightening conditions. The difference lies in how societies aggregate dissent. Korea’s protest became a tidal wave because legitimacy collapsed across camps and mobilization infrastructures were primed to converge. The U.S. protests resemble powerful but scattered storms, intense yet dispersed across political and geographic fault lines.
Still, there is something deeply admirable in both cases. Korea showed how unity can defend democracy when its foundations are directly threatened. The U.S. is demonstrating the persistence of resistance in a society fractured by polarization and doubt.
Together, these moments point to a simple truth: Democracy does not defend itself. It endures because ordinary people decide that some lines must not be crossed, and step forward when they are. The form that action takes may differ, but the democratic impulse behind it remains the same.
Min Seong-jae (smin@pace.edu) is a professor of communication and media studies at Pace University in New York.