- They help individuals channel their frustration, isolation and desperation
- They are a show of strength
- They typically lead to more political involvement
- They have already produced wins
- They must remain nonviolent to be effective
- They must be in small towns in the heartland, not just big coastal cities
Find one near you at nokings.org
This post uses a gift link, but some people do seem to be prompted to register. I can’t change SF Chronicle policy about that. They also have a history of sending lawyers after people who post archive.today links to their articles, so whatever you do, don’t plug the URL into that site.
Abolitionist movements, women’s suffrage movements, and civil rights movements were all successful non-violent resistance movements.
What did violent resistance movements achieve other than getting a bunch of people killed? Oh right sometimes the leaders of violent resistance movements get power and there is the 100% predictable result of putting violent people into power.
On the internet there’s always some foreign troll farm whispering “burn down your own capital” in everyone’s ears all of the time in every country they don’t like. But it’s stupid to listen to them, their motives aren’t to improve anything for you, they just want to create chaos.
Violent resistances don’t accomplish anything. Non-violent resistances have accomplished a lot if you actually study history instead of listening to the troll farms.
What do the studies say on countries free falling into a dictatorship?
Most fascist movements actually fade away. We tend not to focus on those too much since it’s not as interesting as the fascist movements that started WWII.
It’s not as exciting to do non-violent resistance, but it makes it difficult for authoritarians to accomplish anything and failed authoritarians don’t have a very long lifespan. There are those that respect authoritarians because “they get things done” but when the opposite happens and nothing works as good as it used to they aren’t respected by anyone. Even an authoritarian needs a base of support to have power and through non-violent resistance this can be accomplished.
Violent resistance actually helps a fascist movement in the early stages. See the assassination of Charlie Kirk… it didn’t weaken them in any way, it actually made them stronger. A loner with a gun isn’t going to change anything, even a small armed group can’t change anything. You need to build a significant base of support to accomplish anything and that’s what the No Kings group is doing. Most likely the non-violent resistance will succeed, and even in the case where the fascists use violence against a non-violent movement, there’s actually a framework for a resistance movement to succeed by other means.
You gotta have numbers to accomplish anything and No Kings is building up their numbers. That’s a real movement that can do something more than just whining on the internet.