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When We Aren’t Afraid, Dictators Are.
Today’s protest are the beginning of a growing attitude that disempowers tyrants.
We are on our 2nd set of nationwide protests against the current King, one that we will kick to the curb just as we did King George III in the 18th century.
Some people won’t be there because they are in high risk groups. Immigrants, especially those without papers, might stay away. Foreign nationals, of course, generally won’t feel comfortable.
But really, NOBODY is safe and the safety comes in numbers so we’ll ultimately need to get tens or even hundreds of millions into the streets. The target is 11 million Americans because that’s the number needed for a movement to be virtually undefeatable. 3.5% of the population. That’s what the research says. And I agree that it’s a good rule of thumb. But we might succeed with less or fail with more. Good execution of a plan counts. That said, we can afford to make some mistakes and, sadly, perfection is very, very unlikely.
Even Gandhi and King’s movements made mistakes, and still succeeded.
So here we are, with big coalitions that are bringing out a few million into the streets. The numbers should grow over time, as people get more comfortable with the idea of protest and less comfortable with what the regime is doing to their lives.