Over these last few weeks, I've heard of at least one protest that took place to oppose the new policies of the Trump administration, and there is a call for at least one more protest to take place sometime in the next few weeks. I can definitely understand the anger and distress many people are feeling because of the revived Presidency of Donald Trump. (Ah, Trump! To what may I compare him? Perhaps to a vampire that wasn't effectively dispatched - maybe the people who drove a stake into his last Presidency did not use a stake made of the right kind of wood. He certainly seems to be a zombie revenant from a horror movie...) However, hearing of the revival of mass protest in response to the revival of Trump, I feel the need to repeat myself.
So once again, let me say this: the use of mass protest in these days as a tactic or strategy of resistance is a very bad idea. I say this for the same reasons I mentioned in previous posts on strategic nonviolent resistance. First, mass protest is actually one of the weakest of the methods of strategic nonviolent resistance. Protest merely registers an opinion - it does not have the power to coerce power-holders into taking the protestors' opinion seriously. Second, autocrats and tyrants have by now figured out very effective ways of destroying the effectiveness of mass protest rallies and marches. All these tyrants have to do is hire thugs and goons as agents provocateurs to infiltrate the protest marches in order to commit violence. Then the tyrants have a ready-made justification to violently crack down on the protests and to move closer to martial law. Third, it seems that too many people who have organized protests in the United States over the last several years have treated mass protests as their sole go-to tactic of strategic nonviolent resistance. Thus the tyrants whom these protesters oppose are easily able to skirt around this one tactic. Remember from my previous posts on this subject the lesson of the British strategic failure in World War 1 in the 20th Century - a failure that consisted of Sir Douglas Haig's insistence on daily frontal assaults for months on end in a war of attrition that Britain would have lost had it not been for the entry of the United States into the war in 1918. Or, to quote Theodore Sturgeon, "...and when you see them do that twice in a row you know you got a one-trick fighter, which makes it easy for anyone who knows two, and I know half a hundred."
The most effective methods of strategic nonviolent resistance remain those which have the following characteristics:
- They reject all forms of violence. This includes sabotage and property destruction!
- They are able to motivate large numbers of the oppressed to withdraw as much as possible from providing any economic or political support to an oppressive regime.
- They are thus able to impose serious, sustained, long-term economic and political costs on the oppressive regime.
The most damaging costs that the oppressed can impose on the tyrant and his pillars of support consist of economic costs. To impose these costs, the oppressed must create alternative ways of getting their needs met, both individually and collectively. They also need to understand what constitutes true "needs." We need food, clothing, and shelter. We do not need to watch the Superbowl or drink beer or go to Disneyland or buy a Tesla or become addicted to consumerism or attend churches that preach American patriotic fascism. Individual and collective self-reliance and frugality remain potent weapons. These weapons must be deployed as a lifestyle of resistance by which the oppressed withdraw from a corrupt prevailing order so that they can build a righteous alternative order. This withdrawal is what weakens the corrupt prevailing order to the point that it collapses. This can work even against a chump like Trump. Imagine, for instance, the impact of a sustained, long-term stay-at-home strike or a sustained, long-term mass boycott of certain consumer goods sold by businesses that support Trump or that benefit from his policies!
So if you are a reader of my blog, and you want to join a righteous resistance, and you think I may have something good to say, please read my previous posts on strategic nonviolent resistance. You can find links to them in the sidebar. Thank you!
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