Photo by Priscilla Gyamfi on Unsplash

What is it that we hope or expect to accomplish? And how?

We protest because we have passion and we care. I believe that is a good reason. A very good reason.

But does it do any good? Yes, it does — however, not by itself. It’s an essential part of a process, a very powerful process, that empowers people with no formal authority to force significant societal change.

How People Without Formal Authority Change the World

People at protests usually offer a list of grievances and demands. The targets of protests may be government, businesses, or even individuals who have committed some sort of offense or misbehavior.

And the grievance is usually a serious one. It takes a strong motivation to move people to act.
But just being out in the streets, airing grievances, rarely gets the offending party to change behavior. People are protesting because getting satisfaction for their grievances using the accepted official channels has failed.

So, protest is a product of frustration, of weakness, of inability to get satisfaction or a reversal of an unacceptable situation or action.

And yet protest is useful and, I would argue, critically important.

Because the process for a successful movement generating significant change looks like this:

1. People are dissatisfied and are so passionate that they go out into the streets with others, and visibly share those grievances in public.
2. The protests make others who share these feelings but stayed home realize that more people feel the same way than might have been known.
3. Protests grow larger and more visible and the inability of these protests to change the behavior of the target frustrates them.
4. This now larger and still growing body of dissidents begin withdrawing support from the target, and from those who form a significant part of the target’s power base.
5. This tactic, nonviolent noncooperation, weakens the offender(s). The “powerful” authority lashes out — with the result that people become angrier and smell fear.
6. Noncooperation accelerates with former supporters — including some critically important ones — either joining the dissidents or simply ending support of the now losing side.
7. The target — who’s power was always illusory — is defeated and flees.

As it turns out, no dictator, bully or brutal “authority” has any power whatsoever. All power comes from those who DO THINGS — which is, of course, The People. “Strongmen” just issue orders and use their authority to get The People to carry them out. But once The People reject his authority, they stop doing his bidding and he’s exposed as an impotent fraud.

What’s Our Situation Now?

Our movement is nationwide, and includes a broad coalition of people who agree that the current regime — the Trump administration and its allies — are cruel, brutal and must be removed. The people of the movement have many differences, but these are not relevant to the immediate challenge.

We can and must deal with those differences later. The fact that we have a coalition that’s holding together suggests that we won’t defeat ourselves — like the disparate factions that fought against Franco in Spain did.

If we divide over our genuine differences, we lose to Trump. That would be a big mistake, all for performative ideological purity.

But let’s look ahead. Suppose our coalition holds, our numbers grow and we begin withdrawing our cooperation with and support from the regime. How would that work? What would it look like?

The Power Of Redirecting Our Actions

Nonviolent noncooperation is an incredibly powerful force for positive change. It is a moral force and is often under-estimated. People don’t understand how it works and often believe that victory comes either through winning elections or using violence.

But both of those approaches: (elections) and the power of violence favor the existing authorities.

They make the rules for elections, and if it comes down to violence, they win.

When we withdraw our cooperation and our active support, this administration, just like dictators everywhere, simply lose. This happened to Ferdinand Marcos in The Philippines, to Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, to Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania and so many others.

All we need to do is NOT serve in ICE, or the military, or National Guards or any other department used as a tool of abuse. We need to persuade our loved ones, friends and relatives to NOT help the fascists.

Instead of actively supporting the fascists, we will take care of ourselves and each other.

I would propose that we don’t waste our time or lives producing crap so that undeserving elites can maximize their profits. We should reclaim our lives and our time. We should choose to produce much, much less — NO crap for profit — which means we will have more time and MORE LIFE. We should only produce what’s needed — healthy food, medicine, etc.

This is just my view, my ideal outcome. I suspect many would be too timid for such a dramatic change. But as long as we withdraw support from the regime, it will fall.

Not everyone will join us. Many will stay loyal to the bullies. But it won’t be enough. Unless we make major mistakes or abandon the fight prematurely, we will very likely win.

There is danger. After the regime falls, we could let someone really bad take control — in our case, the likely candidates would be either other MAGA fascists or plutocrats. If we avoid that, we will be better off. How much better off? It depends on which members of the coalition wins hearts and minds.

Here is when we work out our differences. We should each passionately promote our views — but we must NOT fall into civil war.

Today, I think we need to concentrate on defeating the fascists, but we must also be careful not to cede our victory to new villains. Almost every member of the coalition favors something better than the Trump regime. So, our chances of becoming better off are very, very good.

Let’s just do our best to make the victory a real victory, even if the outcome doesn’t fulfill all of our dreams.

By the way, many of you may assume that I’m a moderate, that I want modest reforms and that I only want a modest change to the status quo. In fact, my views are extreme — albeit benevolent. I want a civilization rebuilt from scratch, built on better values and principles than what we have today. That said, I’m not willing to foment a violent civil war to achieve my ideal outcome.

We must live together with respect and continue to seek improvements. As long as we go forward, not in reverse, we can get there.