Maybe the protests you were at were more compelling, but the ones I’ve known about were pep rallies that absolutely do not “move a segment of the population to act contrary to all of their conditioning.” It’s like a little music festival except most of the music is replaced by vacuous speeches by vote blue types (though there’s still some music), and the agitating done by leftists at these rallies is not the core of what they are nor do most of the people there engage with it.