You labor under the delusion that protests are not state level intimidation and excuse to ram through what they want to, against a small obstacle that isn't with the program: popular opinion (seemingly most common), an institution, or a branch of government.

Actual grassroots protests, often representing true popular opinion, get demonized and buried by the press. Participants are prosecuted as far as they can be. Any protests that bring "change" get the opposite treatment, and coincidentally commonly take on a severely antidemocratic tone rooted in the threat of violence against innocents.