What history tells us about fighting repression

The US government is using unaccountable federal forces to violently suppress dissent and reinforce its power through force and fear. This behavior is designed to make the people feel powerless and the governing authority impenetrable. It may feel shocking in America today, but it’s a common approach used by repressive regimes around the world. Pushing back on this is difficult and scary, but history has shown us how and under what circumstances citizens have built effective resistance. The good news is that the people across targeted US cities have been doing just that.

When and how do social movements succeed against abusive governments? We have many historic examples to draw on. Poland’s communist government brutally suppressed the Solidarity Movement during the 1980s as the country’s workers used protests, labor organising and labor strikes to fight for rights and freedoms. The 1980s saw a similar popular movement in Chile against Augusto Pinochet who had seized power in a military coup in 1973. Organised civil resistance grew, with regular protests involving widespread evening noise, honking horns and banging pots and pans in solidarity, and “lightning” protests that organised and dispersed quickly.

Students founded the Otpor movement in Serbia in 1998 to resist the regime’s repression of universities. Its focus soon shifted to ousting dictator Slobodan Milosevic, using mass demonstrations and a general strike across the provinces to make its point. Each of these movements were met with violence and repression, with activists arrested in the thousands, beaten and harassed, but they continued resisting with nonviolence. Gradually, concessions were secured, culminating in elections that the violent regimes lost and ultimately conceded. America’s own Civil Rights Movement tells the story and success of generations of resistance in the face of violent repression, but its leaders’ deep commitment to nonviolence and persistence won the support of the American public and political leadership and ultimately dismantled legal segregation and disenfranchisement.

None were quick successes, but all achieved remarkable outcomes. In recent years, experts have built databases to study hundreds of examples of civil resistance movements, and the outcomes reveal some lessons and trends. Social mobilisation against governments tend to be most effective when they are nonviolent, align with public opinion, have media coverage and are ultimately supported by elite actors (business or political figures with influence on public opinion or government actors). These elements all help grow public support and pressure. Nonviolent movements are about twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.

Social media have enhanced the power of another useful tool: real-time video. Exposing government violence before the government sells a different story undermines support for and trust in the government, which in turn reinforces support for the social movement against it. All of this plays into what Erica Chenoweth, an expert on political violence, calls the “ 3.5% rule,” which asserts that “no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of the population mobilised against it” at one time. This conclusion was based on analysis of over 300 movements since 1900. The study focuses on efforts to oust incumbent leaders and has exceptions, but the conclusion is broadly applicable: a movement that can generate this much active public support has a high chance of success.

For context, the most recent nationwide mobilisation was the No Kings protest in October, with about 7 million participants, or about 2% of the U.S. population, and this happened well before federal forces killed two US citizens in the streets. The response so far in targeted cities seems beyond the 3.5% threshold already. Residents of Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, which have each faced heavy-handed federal crackdowns, are showing us how this is done. They have deployed rapid-response networks of community groups and volunteers to witness, document and track aggressive federal officer activity in their cities. Their videos have turned American public opinion squarely against these operations and undercut the administration’s justifications for use of force. They have secured the support of big and small businesses.

The effort to do so continues. Just last week, protesters were arrested demonstrating at a Target in Chicago’s West Loop as they pressed Target stores to deny entry to immigration agents and call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave Illinois and Minnesota. Activist groups such as Indivisible have trained tens of thousands of people in nonviolent tactics. As federal agents try to scare and provoke, in a way that could easily undermine the cause, such training is essential to ensure peaceful protesters do not take the bait.