Your group carries on its work. It adds more people day by day. But it’s hard to maintain a tax resistance campaign that generates new press, especially after April 15th. You still have a big list — hundreds of thousands who have resisted paying taxes — but you have few allies and no clear way to grow.
You try to persuade people to get more strategic and look for opportunities to connect with other groups. But you feel like a window of opportunity was missed. In the fight against an authoritarian regime, at some point the movement needs to “call the question” — to unite all the forces in a single push. The movement never finds the right moment.
Trump moves quickly and quietly to dismantle the movement, directing the IRS to investigate many of its top leaders. Some are quietly arrested as others are hit with gigantic tax charges. With very little political backing and media calling the movement weak, the movement isn’t able to weather the attack this time.
You feel this was preventable. The tactic was right, but the timing was off. Tax resistance can work, but pulling it off requires adjusting tactics over time and getting buy-in from a wider segment of society. But this time, it’s too late. Trump maintains his grip on power. His family remains in power for decades.
THE END.
You didn’t win this time. Luckily, this is just a game. Unfortunately, it is true that movements can get stuck in one tactic or a single approach. To speak to new people, however, they often have to switch it up — and knowing when to do that isn’t always obvious.
Read Closing Thoughts from the author.