First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Dr. Martin Luther King
The Trump regime is still pursuing a coup via the Supreme Court and Trump has recently surrounded himself with psychotic clowns who are encouraging him to declare martial law. Members of Mid-Missouri JBGC still think the half-assed coup will fail, but the fact that they’re still at it requires us to revisit what is required to stop a fascist movement.
There are only 2 ways to stop a fascist movement:
1. Violence
2. A threat of violence that they (the fascists) perceive as sincere and substantial
There is a popular idea in US culture that says fascism can be stopped with nonviolent resistance, and one of the most influential sources for this idea is the book “Why Civil Resistance Works” by Chenoweth and Stephan (previous related post). I’ve read the book, and I can tell you that in 100% of cases in the book where civil resistance worked, the actual factor that resulted in success was either 1) violence or 2) a threat of violence that was perceived as sincere and substantial.
Nonviolent resistance can be a complete solution if the enemy you are dealing with has a conscience. An enemy like that isn’t so much an “enemy” as a group of people who just didn’t understand the impact of their actions. When you apply nonviolence resistance to a situation where this kind of adversary has power, that adversary considers the resistance, and then meets with you to work out a reasonable compromise.
In order for non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience.
Stokely Carmichael
Fascists don’t have a conscience.
If your adversaries are fascists, then how might nonviolent resistance result in success? In this case, the goal of your nonviolent action is to gain the favor of either 1) agents of violence or 2) people who control agents of violence. Typically, we see this framed as “gaining the support of the majority” or something like that, which means that you’re trying to get the majority of people in society (and voters, in particular) to support your cause. When that happens, the majority will either send in agents of violence (typically police or military) or threaten to do so if the fascists do not cease their activities.
Some nonviolent resistance movements facing fascists are able to succeed not by appealing to the majority of people but rather by appealing directly to the military or police. Others succeed by appealing to an overwhelming external force, like the US government, which then threatens violence or carries it out directly. If you look at a nominally peaceful organization like Amnesty International, for example, the punchline is that all those letters work because they are accompanied by an implied threat of force from the US military; it becomes much easier for the fascist government targeted by the letter-writing campaign to release a single prisoner than to risk becoming a target of US military or economic might.
Economic embargoes are a kind of violence. Economic power is a type of power, and slow starvation might just be more cruel than bombs. We could ask a number of nations that have experienced both which one they prefer.
If you are using nonviolent resistance against fascists, are you truly nonviolent? Or are you just outsourcing your violence to someone else? Since the violence has to happen for your action to succeed, aren’t you in a less morally-defensible place than you would have been if you’d just taken personal responsibility for the violence? Are you creating a performance of morality to absolve yourself of guilt?
If there are no agents of violence that can come to your rescue, though, nonviolent resistance becomes ineffective against fascists. Fascists enjoy punishing people for being weak, so if you won’t fight back, they interpret that as weakness and enjoy hurting or killing you even more. Your refusal to fight makes them feel more powerful, convinces them that you are getting what you deserve, and eliminates the risk that they themselves might be injured.
The big question, then, is whether or not the majority of Americans have a conscience. I don’t think anyone knows the answer for sure. However, it seems clear that the majority of US voters either are fascists (based on Trump’s approval ratings, this is close to 40%) or basically don’t care if fascists kill resisters. That second group (people who don’t care if the state uses violence against protesters) is harder to quantify, but I’m putting that number at over 25%. I’m assuming that people who self-identify as Democratic party voters and voted for Biden in the primary are the same as the Democrats who are scared of socialism and wish that antifa and BLM would stop being so gosh darn disruptive; they want to get back to brunch and for dissenters to work within a system specifically designed to resist change. They think Ocasio is an extremist.
I don’t know about that AOC. She makes me nervous. Something in her eyes.
my mother, a Bidenist
This is the group that agrees that it is sad so many Americans are suffering from having inadequate or expensive health insurance, but still insist that there is nothing that can be done. They agree that poverty is sad, too, but insist that there just isn’t anything that can be done. Police violence is very sad; nothing can be done, they say. Life is hard. Pass the strawberry jam.
Basically, in the US, fascists just have to associate you with socialism and point out how disruptive you are, and near-right Democrats might claim to be sad that you died, but they won’t do anything to stop it, and they’ll probably say that you share some of the blame for your untimely demise. You could have worked within the system, you could have been less disruptive — but cooperating within the system doesn’t create change. They are politely asking that you give up. It comes down to the fact that the world as it is works very well for them — they don’t want change.
Will this supposed revolution of yours affect my 401K?
a worried Bidenist
So, here you are. In America. Where perhaps two-thirds of the people would either enjoy watching you die or passively let you die. Of the remaining third, most don’t pay enough attention to the news to even know that anything happened to you. The agents of violence that might respond to your injury or death with decisive action (i.e., violence or the threat of it) to end the reign of fascism are they, themselves fascists.
I don’t have a solution. This is a predicament, so it has no solution. I just want to make sure everyone understands how nonviolence works — or doesn’t.