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this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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politics
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When are we going to learn that strongly worded letters and protests that turn us into a shooting gallery are not a winning strategy? How many good men and women need to get assassinated before we try something different, anything different?
The 3.5% rule.
Nonviolent resistance has a higher success rate when compared to violent resistance. But non violent resistance does not mean the resistance movement will be bloodless. Authoritarians will respond to both a violent and nonviolent movement with aggression.
Yeah, that "rule" is bullshit. It's cherry picked at best.
Edit: for those downvoting, even the wiki page says as much right at the top.
You're probably right, but i think the point is worth making - a surprisingly small number of people acting in concert can make topple an authoritarian regime.
The thing is, grumbling on Facebook isn't enough. If 5% of people could boycott oligarchs indefinitely, that might undermine Trump's support. That's actually quite hard to achieve though.
The problem with that rule is that it says you have to be perfectly peaceful and roll over. For example, though it's categorized as a non-violent movement, the civil rights movement in the US had a fairly large violent wing as well. Also, the non-violent wing was said to be violent by the media of the time.
Personally, I don't think non-violence alone can accomplish the goals. I think it's useful to show the regime how much support there is, and how much force is available if it's actually needed. The violent wing also needs to be there though causing actual damage that they can witness. They need to see what will happen if they don't listen. The non-violent group will begin increasingly supporting the violent group.
In order to cause real change, there needs to be a credible threat. They don't care if you politely ask for change. They care if they're in danger. That's all authoritarian regimes ever care about. Not the will of the people.
Ok but money is a credible threat.
Dr Jack Goldstone was talking about this on ologies podcast episode about revolutions.
The autocrat supports oligarchs, who use their influence to keep the autocrat in power.
For example, Musk, Bezos, Zucc, contributing many millions in campaign donations to support republicans.
My point is, if public sentiment turns against these oligarchs and is expressed through boycotts, they may withdraw their support for the autocrat. The problem of course is the amount of money Trump is funneling to them in the form of grants and tax cuts. It will be difficult to exceed that.
But not impossible. Boycott big companies is as good a start as any and beats doing nothing.
Criticism is easy. Why don't you suggest a better strategy so we can criticize it?
Naturally, the solution is to interrogate the critique rather than the problem. That approach has an impressive record of success.
If the oligarchs start losing money Trump will be finished in a week.
That said, I dont think Americans have the commitment to sustain a boycott.
Many people, likely a majority, are not in a financial or practical position to participate in a boycott or general strike. That constraint is not accidental. Considerable effort goes into structuring economic life so that such actions are difficult to sustain, and additional effort goes into convincing people they are even more powerless than they actually are.
Even within this comment thread, some seem to overlook the range of options that exist between blowing whistles on one extreme and violent confrontation with the red hats on the other.
I don't really understand if I'm honest.
You don't need to have a general strike as in not going to work or whatever.
If you buy things from Amazon, stop doing that. If you visit facebook, stop doing that. If you use google or chatGPT, make better choices.
Apparently, as few as 5% of a population can cause a revolution.
You're not suggesting a general strike then, you're suggesting something more like a general boycott.
Correct. Boycott oligarchs. @sciaphobia@sh.itjust.works mentioned a general strike, not me.
There is that artificial homelessnes they implemented just so they can replace everyone in the case of a general strike.
But in truth most workers can't be substituted for overnight, and if we also started boycotting so nobody buys stuff anyways; it would work insantly.
Europe is prepping to do it for us. They're rolling out EU-based payment processors and switching to Open Source and EU-based tech. Right now, they're too dependent on American companies, so they're divesting from that dependence.
Once they move away from US tech dependency, they can start sanctioning the US and hurting Trump's financial backers. 20 million bubbas with red hats won't matter when a few billionaires start losing money.