You collapse in jail and feel the futility of changing such big systems. You eat very little. You grow pretty numb. You barely feel anything when the Trump-appointed judge finds you guilty on terrorism charges and sentences you to 15 years in prison. The first year of prison is tough. Your friends’ visits do nothing to cheer you up.
You spend the quiet hours in prison discussing and reading about how you got here. You learn about movements to fight dictatorships like those in Serbia. Dictator Slobodan Milošević incited his opposition into violence, knowing it would legitimize his crackdown. Once, he organized his supporters to protest on the same day and at the same location as opposition protests — with 20,000 police surrounding them. He understood that the more he could be seen as the force of “stability” against the violent hordes, the more stable his position would be. And it worked — until the opposition movement decisively chose a strategy that used internal discipline to refuse him those kinds of opportunities. They used humor, a decentralized structure, and poking fun at the dictator — not street confrontations — to gain widespread credibility and eventually remove him from power.
You realize a fight against a dictator is a fight for the broadest legitimacy. You realize Donald Trump was able to use a prolonged “state of emergency” to stay in power — despite the Supreme Court ruling against him — because he had gained too much legitimacy. You hope when you get released from prison you’ll be able to teach the movement to be more strategic and able to sense which tactics will win over a wider audience.
THE END.
You didn’t win this time. Luckily, this is just a game. An autocrat thrives in the domain of violence — because it gives them an excuse to stay in power. Their strongman image is often bolstered by chaos on the streets, which is why they work so hard to foment it.
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