Given all the events happening, this is a reminder that peaceful protests are the key to change. We are all angry, we are all sad for the people and families being violently attacked, and it is hard to stay cool and calm, but violence reciprocity is not the answer. Channeling Gandhi, and MLK, both who change nations by absorbing violence and standing in their way. Show how they lost the moral high ground, and DO NOT RECIPROCATE!
Also it works:
There are key parameters to the 3.5 percent rule according to Chenoweth. The “figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements.” Thus, it is not necessarily a hard-and-fast law, but rather a solid predictor. Remarkably, most mass nonviolent movements that succeeded did so even without reaching the 3.5 percent threshold. Moreover, durable nonviolent movements are twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns because people generally reject violence. The 3.5 percent rule does not rely on cumulative participation, but rather participation at a peak event, which usually means a mass nonviolent demonstration. And the demands for change must achieve success within one year as a result of the mobilization.
...
For everyday Americans wishing to actively object to the government’s slide toward authoritarian policies, the 3.5 percent rule is a motivational yardstick to measure the likely result of peaceful mobilization.
People-powered movements can increase the chances of pressuring the government to meet their demands, including by building broad, sustained public participation across diverse groups. This is especially true because authoritarian-minded governments try to divide the population and keep them afraid of defiance. When 3.5 percent of a population goes beyond protest to engage in peaceful civil disobedience and noncooperation, these actions disrupt the system and force governmental change. For example, general strikes that affect the economy, boycotts, sit-ins, walkouts, or shutdowns of parts of cities can put unavoidable pressure on political leaders to hear their constituents and resolve the matter.
Chenoweth also states that 3.5 percent participation strongly indicates that there is much deeper support of the movement across society and a sense of inevitability, which can translate into defections from key pillars on the government’s side. For example, leaders from the economic, business, political, cultural, and media sectors become more likely to shift their allegiance to the side of a broad nonviolent mobilization. Perhaps most importantly, effective mobilizations can cause vital defections from police and military forces as well as the members of the political party in power.
So to reiterate:
...People-powered movements are more successful when they can strategically build a broad tent across the political spectrum, avoid violence, and remain relentlessly disciplined. Sharing the risks of defiance, Americans committed to pro-democracy principles can shift the current balance of power and change the trajectory of the nation.
Please actually read Chenoweth's papers, especially the recent ones. Important points as I recall them from last year when this factoid first popped up:
From the paper quoted by the linked article: "The rule is derived from—and therefore applies to—
only a specific kind of campaign. The movements
on which it was based were maximalist ones, i.e.
overthrowing a government or achieving territorial
independence.They were not reformist in nature, and
they had discrete political outcomes they were trying
to achieve that culminated in the peak mobilization
that I counted. Because of this, we cannot necessarily extrapolate these findings to other kinds of reform or
resistance movements that don’t have the same kinds of goals as those in the NAVCO dataset.." (emphasis mine).
Yes, we need a mass mobilization to resist these fascist fuckheads. But please take on a real understanding of what this research does and doesn't indicate. More importantly, don't use this as an excuse or justification to police the behavior of others.
For our movement to succeed, we need solidarity between all people who oppose this regime and a diversity of tactics is a strength rather than a weakness.
If I remember correctly (provided it is the same paper we are talking about) there was another condition: that a regime change happens within 2 years of 3.5% population protest, which many news articles also fail to mention.
You Are Not So Smart did a podcast where they talk about the rule and interview her, and she makes some of these additional points.
Also this is the update in 2020 for direct download from the Carr center. "Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule" which has a summary describing some of what you said.
For me, one of the salient points is that a nonviolent movement has much more "power" than does a violent movement, not that ones don't work without violence, but in the land of guns we need less violence not more. I am not saying that the 3.5 percent is a rule, as I care less about the rule than the change we need from a mass movement. And more than any of this, is that we can disrupt our Nation's slide into authoritarianism if we take civil disobedience and noncooperation to heart in our actions, it should not take a civil war or a violent revolution, but we MUST ACT.
And yes I would agree that this movement is potentially lacking a specific outcome right now, beyond disbanding ICE which is discreet, but not systemic. The US system is fundamentally a gerontocracy which is in need of reform, but we live in an age of ignorance and distraction where it is hard to remake a vision of a new form of liberal democracy free from the corrupting powers of money. In this we must accept what good outcomes we can get.