Comment by intalentive

Successful protest movements are typically successful because they are organized and/or leveraged by a counter elite or foreign actor. One example is the CIA orchestrating protests to topple the PM of Iran in 1953.

Protest movements lacking elite or foreign state sponsorship (like the yellow vests in France, Occupy Wall St, or the Canada truckers) tend to wither away by attrition, get infiltrated and redirected, or else are dispersed by force.