Have you heard of the 3.5% Rule? I had not. But one thing leads to another. There is a paperchase, or a clickchase. Behind every protest is a plan, and behind every plan is a political scientist.
The most recent protest was the ‘No Kings’ protest in the United States.
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It’s a snappy slogan (“No kings”) but I would love to hear all about all these Kinglike things that Trump is doing because I am not aware of any. His rhetoric may be a little in that direction, but his administration’s actions look to me to have been pretty much in keeping with every other US President’s of the recent past, and arguably more moderate than the “Democrats” who tried to prevent Trump getting elected by arresting him on trumped up charges or trying to keep him off the ballot. The most Kinglike action I can observe in recent US political history has been the abuse of various constitutional amendments and the invention of the nonsensical “substantive due process” idea by liberal Supreme Courts since the 60s, to remove powers from the People and invent “rights” that the Framers never thought existed.
Of course it very much suits Trump’s opponents to frame him as a King.
‘We despise democracy’ isn’t quite as euphonious a slogan, is it?
Correction James: you should have written – “they uses large date sets” and “they uses they/them pronouns”.
To plagiarise Braveheart:
”They may take our pronouns,
but they can’t take our VERBS!”
I’m not a political scientist (thank God) but I certainly think there is an element of truth in the 3.5% rule.
During the Covid crisis we were only an inch from vaccine mandates. But there were a few people, not a huge percentage, who publicly said no. I remember a surgeon on BBC who said “no, I’m not having it, even if you sack me”. I think that guy made a difference.
Likewise, looking at totalitarian regimes, one thing that characterizes them is that there is no opposition – at some point during the development of the regime, opposition fell below a certain critical mass and that created a clear path to totalitarianism.
Having been born in Eastern Europe, I can say with absolute certainty that the very few refusniks made a difference. Even though the situation seemed hopeless and the power of the regime unshakable, they still made a few cracks in the system.
One of the things our rulers want us to believe is that we can make no difference. They want a sense of hopelessness, unquestioning compliance, obedience. But looking at history what I see is that despite all the power, the immense human, economic and military sacrifices, the Soviet Union lasted about 70 years. In contrast, some penniless beggar can establish a religious order that survives for centuries.
Thank you. No diapers, no stabs – none in my family followed the fascist rules. I was and I am, a refusenik. I marched. I fliered. I confronted. I held a yellow sign. I was at times violent. In my window facing the street I had a sheep head wearing a diaper, above a sign, ‘Comply & die’.
We did make a difference. Medical Nazism. Plandemic. There was and there is never a ‘virus’.
Same. Cheers.
Thanks.
Our elite only have the power that we are prepared to give up.
Sadly, as Aristotle noted, some people prefer to be slaves.
But every little act of defiance diminishes their power.
I remember walking around in Wilko during the pandemic. To start with it looked like all people were masked up. Me and my wife were not. It felt a bit uncomfortable. But then I saw a big guy with a correspondingly large ginger beard and he wasn’t wearing a mask either. We looked at each other knowingly. It was a nice moment.
All good, but there are viruses and there was a Coronavirus. It was the reaction to a common respiratory virus that was very very wrong. Last week my local paper ran a full page advert warning about a new strain of Covid and to make sure you get tested. This is insane as ALL respiratory viruses keep mutating and we even have the descendent of the Spanish Flu still in circulation. We have an immune system that we have inherited from all of our ancestors and this system will have been fighting off or adapting to viruses for at least 4 billion years, because that is the estimated age of viruses. One of the worst aspects of the Wuhan Flu debacle was the denial that our 4 billion year old immune systems will do anything (see image below that shows the WHO removing reference to natural immunity). In addition Fauci shared a platform with a Chinese Professor in China, where the Professor said the whole world needed to carry on with all the restrictions until everyone was vaccinated and “Natural Immunity will not work because it is unscientific and inhuman,” or words to that effect. What was that unholy alliance between the CCP and the various tech and pharmaceutical oligarchs? It is a brand new phenomena and with strong hints of malevolence.
He said no to Savage Jabbit ! Where is he now !
“We’re inspired by the 3.5% principle: it only takes 3.5% of the population engaging in sustained, strategic protest against authoritarianism to achieve significant political change.”
Well my browser’s AI says this about “authoritarianism”:
“Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by strong central power, limited political pluralism, and the suppression of dissent. It often involves the concentration of power in the hands of a few, a lack of accountability, and restrictions on individual liberties. Authoritarian regimes may use various methods to maintain control, including propaganda, censorship, and repression of opposition. “
So when people characterise Trump as “authoritarian” what they want to suggest is that he’s Literally Hitler but the reality is that they are saying “I don’t like Trump’s policies”. He is as far as I know either delivering or failing to deliver on his promises, rather than exceeding them (at least domestically). Democracy can be a bitch.
What is plain to see is that those tiny minorities wishing to bring about regime change want themselves to be in charge and history has shown they behave like the worst despotic King. In fact much of the destruction of Western culture has been at the hands of very vocal, opinionated tiny minorities. And then there is the matter of what is meant by King. If we judge by actions then there isn’t much difference between a King and any other ruler except for the terms of employment. Putin has made himself leader for life so he must be a King (I’m hoping the activist ‘community’ will demonstrate in Red Square). As he’s Russian that would make him a Tsar. The noun Tsar is derived from Caesar.
He would only truly be a King if he were to be succeeded by his son or daughter.
Sparta had two kings who served who were ceremonial/ religious figureheads of the state and also, supreme war leaders.
Interesting article by Professor Alexander. May I just say a couple of things:
1) The word “king” comes from “kin”, Old English “cynn”, meaning “family, race”, so a person can really only be King of their Own People, their own Tribe or Race. That’s the Commonwealth out, for a start! And Ethnic Africans descended from kings, like the royal Adegoke clan of Nigeria, for example, can only be kings over their own people, not everybody else, no matter how much they long to “rule” over the Brits.
2) Many years ago, it was said that the aim of the Illuminati Globalists was to get rid of all the monarchies on the planet, in order to return to the time “when Israel had no king”, as in the Old Testament Book of Judges, which contains horrific things, proving that judges were useless and evil even thousands of years ago. Hence the attempt to forcibly install a Global Kritocracy = Rule by Judges.
Unfortunately, we seem to have descended into a kakistocracy.
Not sure about the 3.5% bit but once those of the Far Left that have funded all the riots are rounded up they will stop.
“Chenoweth’s research is about regime change, i.e., in authoritarian regimes, not about social movements in liberal regimes”
True. More fundamentally, whether the 3.5% will achieve regime change surely depends on the attitude of the other 96.5%.
And then there is this: regime change rarely or never achieves what the protesters actually want. The new regime is often worse than the outgoing one, and it will not be constrained by the conventions that constrained the old one.
Oh, how funny this is!
To think that a sad clown such as Chenoweth holds these bizarre views when it’s a cent to a dollar that she is what is popularly known as a ‘Democrat’ and would almost certainly have voted for Harrison.
Yet, despite this, she (who gives a damn about her choice of pronouns? I certainly don’t!) certainly doesn’t have a democratic bone in her body, rather like so many of her kind.
In other words, she’s a joke, her crazy views are simply comical and she should be regarded as an excellent subject for entertainment and laughter.