No they aren't. Not all protests are good. It is essential that political disagreements don't capsize the society we live in. Any protests that can't be ignored is essentially mob rule
Democracy is mob rule (and therefore authoritarian) where the mob is organized by vote. Democracy is just an relatively egalitarian way to create a mob.
i think this is true for a direct but centralised democracy.
in parliamentary democracies it's different, with rulers being chosen through popularity contests. the majority of the people usually doesnt have actual controll over individual political decisions.
A protest that can be safely ignored isn’t a protest, it’s just a circlejerk where slacktivists gather to congratulate themselves about how virtuous they are.