Political Memes

Violence when you're outnumbered and outgunned doesn't accomplish much and is a good way to end up dead.

Violence when organized in numbers can make a big difference. But then nonviolence in organized numbers can also make a big difference, and according to some historians and revolutionaries is statistically more effective.

But I get it that it's difficult to stay idly by when our fellow civilians are gunned down by regime paramilitary agents. So think of it this way:

COIN models are pretty consistent about winning hearts and minds, and everything ICE is doing is costing them exactly that: hearts and minds. It's why they've had to shift strategies from regional raids to scattershot surprise attacks. No matter how much it's spun by the social media propaganda machine, every death, every act of brutality (and for that matter, every release of how detainees are being abused and tortured) is losing them the war, the same way the Coalition of the Willing lost the International War on Terror.

For every Alex Pretti, dozens of bystanders become sympathists. For every Renée Good, dozens of sympathists become activists. For every Lorenzo Araujo or Joan Guerrero, dozens of activists become militants.

And that is according to pre-internet COIN theory, what we might expect in the 20th century. Nowadays, phone camera footage hits the internet in minutes, and spreads across the globe in hours, a phenomenon that informed how the Ferguson Unrest was received, or the 2020 George Floyd protests, or the 2021+ crisis in Palestine.

So it may not be merely dozens anymore. It may be hundreds.

During the German occupation of Paris in 1940, Germany required France to pay for the privilege of an occupying force, featuring financial shenanigans (sound familiar?) that depleted French resources, leading to food shortages and scarcity.

And then the garrison forces could not help but indulge in brutality. It quickly became too much for the common civilian to bear.

The early Résistants started small and scattered: Independent Parisians slashing tires, defacing propaganda posters, cutting phone lines. Service staff routinely spat in the food and drink served to occupying Germans. It would only take a couple of years before La Résistance formed into a formidable fighting force, and every French household was ready and willing to hide them away.

The resistance works the way that recycling aluminum does. One person doing their tiny part doesn't do much, but there are millions of us who are active, and plenty more who sympathize, and more still who are just pissed off at the bullshit. (Affordability, inflation, blatant corruption, the fucked up pointless elective war in Iran, election meddling, etc. It adds up.)

The big demonstrations are about visibility, it lets the resistance represent and do a headcount and remind ourselves we're not alone. But the real work is in crabbing at representatives, sabotaging Flock cameras, responding to ICE attacks, calling out MAGA misinformation, making sure neighbors are cool and fed, and so on.

Wash your hands regularly. Avoid shopping at Amazon. If your household gets a case of cyclosporiasis, report it.

It adds up.

And yeah, it's okay if it takes a while to find your place in the organized resistance. The Trump regime operated quickly so we haven't yet had time to fully shift gears. (The blitz has also made it impossible to adapt to the new norms, hence for some of us the Overton window is now offensive. Stephen Miller's they’re all deformed speech is channeling Joseph Goebbels directly)

For most of us, the effort might be very quotidian. A classic WWII era move was simply to hat-tip to the Jewish neighbors, which pissed off the Nazis.

If you're lucky (or unlucky) you find yourself in a position of opportunity, to take subversive action, and risk your liberty, possibly your life. In that case, bloc up, be safe, and don't get caught.