Protest as it was known in the '60s died in a hail of gunfire at Kent State.

Brawn will no longer do it as "The Establishment" is quite ready and willing to respond with even greater brawn -- and "God is on the side of the big battalions."

The problem with protest is that it quickly loses its focus. The Civil Right Movement in the US was successful because it kept its eyes on the prize. The women's suffrage movement of the mid-19th century, the ERA movement of the 20th, and manifold others failed because they became too diverse, their energies too diffused.

For example, the women's suffrage movement was intended to obtain votes for women. It embraced an end to slavery and temperance and birth control and other issues, diluting its original purpose. As a result, women in the US did not get the right to vote until the 1920s.
Likewise the ERA movement embraced gay and other rights instead of focusing on getting one thing done, then getting the next done, and so forth.

Yes, gay rights, the abilition of slavery, and the rest of the agenda were and are extremely important. But everything isn't going to happen at once -- society is, at root, not just conservative but reactionary. Do one thing, then do the next.

To people who are hungry or suffering injustice or ill "animal rights" becomes the toy issue of the privileged classes, of those who who have full bellies and adequate health care, a red herring of little or no importance to the downtrodden. And no, this perception is NOT helped by a bunch of movie and TV stars and starlets stating how awful it is to wear fur.