Alexander Karn
Courts have slowed and gummed up certain prongs of the MAGA coup, but at the top of the chain #SCOTUS inspires little confidence.
Meanwhile, DOGE runs amok and the attacks are coming faster than civil society is able to respond.
I am more and more persuaded that protest and mass mobilization will be the decisive factors in whether or not we can keep our democracy.
So this will be my civil resistance thread.
🧵
Alexander Karn
Some doubt that mass demonstrations can achieve anything. It's true they are far from magic.
But on the way to political change, they can already accomplish a great deal.
1. Cultivate active, engaged citizenship.
2. Build and foster broad solidarity.
3. Incentivize political leadership.
4. Take control of the narrative.
5. Signal to non-Americans that we are not done yet.
5. Take the temperature of police and security forces.
6. Enact a culture of non-violence.
Alexander Karn
I am re-posting a couple books written by recognized scholars for anyone who wants to do some reading.
Gene Sharp: From Dictatorship to Democracy
https://thenewpress.com/books/from-dictatorship-democracy
Erica Chenoweth, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-9780190244408?cc=us&lang=en&
These are both excellent books, though I understand that some may not want to spend the time poring over hundreds of pages right now.
Alexander Karn
For Chenoweth, some might prefer this video explainer (2020) on "When do mass mobilizations work?" (7 mins 48 sec)
Alexander Karn
Some of the key factors can be summed up with an acronym devised by Charles Tilly:
W.U.N.C.
Worthiness
Unity
Numbers
Commitment
I take #1 for granted, so I'll focus on 2-4.
Small, fragmented mobilizations are rarely transformative. Large movements with a diverse range of participants can be.
#5050protest on Feb 5 was a good starting point, but more is required.
This will need to move from a one-off venting of despair to a regular exercise of social power.
Monthly.
Weekly.
Daily.
Alexander Karn
Beyond this, there is another important but also frightening question to confront.
There are, by most reliable estimates, more firearms in the US than people.
What militias and other domestic terrorists might do in the face of a mass mobilization in defense of democracy is hard to predict.
I don't know enough abt these groups to assess their current thinking and capabilities.
But others do.
The folks getting purged from the FBI/DOJ will know. Scholars who study rt-wing extremism will too.
Alexander Karn
The main thing I want to say, and then I'll come back to this thread later, is DO NOT QUIT.
We can't fix this in one day or in one fell swoop, so measure your efforts and look after your health. But don't be paralyzed by despair.
It IS disturbing and disorienting to see things spiraling so quickly, but demoralization is fascist gold.
So, I'll keep saying, and maybe you will too...
Alexander Karn
One thing we know is that large demonstrations will elicit a response from police and other security forces, incl., potentially, military.
How a movement conducts itself vIs-a-vis these forces is CRUCIAL beyond words.
We know that these groups reflect society. Some members are sympathetic to MAGA; some are not; some are indifferent.
At some point, everything may hinge on the leadership and diffused decisions making of these group.
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