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Notes -
Last Friday, Bret Deveraux of ACOUP waded deeper into the Culture War than usual by writing about the anti-ICE protests, and insurgencies and non-violent resistance in general.
What unites both strategies is that the difference in power between the state and the dissidents is very large, so large that both conventional military operations and even a protracted war are not an option for the weaker party.
If you can not face your enemy in the field, and can not even hope to sap his strength through a thousand papercuts until you can face him, what can you do?
As a military theorist, Deveraux naturally uses Clausewitz to identify three factors which can limit the escalation of force and thus be employed by the weaker side to hamper the stronger side.
Friction (the natural tendency of stuff to break, things not going according to plan, your forces not being where you would want them to be) is a bit of a sideshow. If you are able to weaken your enemy sufficiently through friction, you are fighting a protracted war, not a terrorist insurgency.
Will means the emotional backing of the conflict by the politically relevant part of the population, which might be the body of citizens or some elites, depending on the system. This is a prime target in these highly asymetrical conflicts.
The third limiting factor is the political object of the enemy leadership. Unlike the population, which is modelled as being emotional, the leadership is modelled as rational. The idea here is that if you can inflict sufficient costs on the enemy, they might decide that it is no longer worth it to enforce their goal.
Will is the central point to attack for the weaker party:
For terrorist insurgencies, this means that the main goal of their attacks is actually sending signals. So the point is not to weaken the enemy's military by blowing up their troops and materiel, but rather to message audiences on both sides of the conflict (as well as these in between) that their cause is viable. If you could convince everyone that your victory is inevitable, that would be a great boon to your side. In practice, this means that terrorists favor flashy targets to military relevant ones. 9/11 is a prime example.
A key strategy is to bait your enemy into striking against you while you are hiding among the civilian population, thereby causing civilian deaths which result both in local dissatisfaction as well as in winning a propaganda victory -- which is the kind of victory which brings you closer to your objective. The main dilemma for the insurgent is that they need gruesome violence to further their cause, but that such violence may also serve to alienate the local population and strengthen the resolve of the enemy. While 9/11 was great for making Al Qaeda a household name, it was ultimately bad for the Jihadist cause.
Deveraux then contrasts this with a deliberate strategy of nonviolence, which does not have that dilemma. He is actually rather realist about why movements employ non-violence:
Of course, non-violent protest does not mean staying on the sidewalks:
If your protest can be simply ignored, it is likely that it will be ignored, so you do not get the desired escalation and attention. This means that you will have to commit transgressions to goad the enemy into strikes against you which will be terrible PR for them.
Bret talks about the Nashville campaign during the Civil Rights Movement, where Blacks would organize sit-ins on segregated lunch counters. This caused violent repercussions, which eventually eroded popular support of the segregationist side.
He also concedes that there are regimes which are impervious to non-violent protests, where the political relevant parts of the population are very willing to employ and support violence, but argues that societies which are running on violence are very inefficient.
Finally, he talks about the anti-ICE movement, of which he seems sympathetic.
He continues:
He points out that mass media help the protests a lot, as their position has gained massively in popularity over a relatively short time span (compared to the Civil Rights Movement).
I think that the gist is that the median American voter -- like the median Motte poster -- is very willing to vote for Trump's anti-immigrant platform, but unlike the median Motte poster they are totally unwilling to tolerate the Pretti shooting as a natural consequence of enforcement actions. Of course, the Trump administration did not help itself by reflexively claiming that the shooting was justified instead of spinning it as a sad mistake.
Deveraux:
When he was posting this, the decision to pull the DHS forces out of Minneapolis was already made, but it would hardly have been surprising from his point of view. At the end of the day, the only political idea Trump truly believes from the bottom of his heart is that he should be president. Toughness on immigration (spouses excluded) so far was of instrumental value for him because it gained him a lot of support, but if it no longer delivers the votes for him, I expect him to change policy.
Deveraux is basically right about the object level, but his severe case of TDS blinds him to quite a lot- notably the protestors have done quite a bit that a more competent regime could spin as they had it coming, for one. For another, a lot of what the protestors are doing is actually illegal. De-arrests, interfering in lawful police operations, resisting arrest, etc is all very illegal and these people have open-shut cases. It’s also a ‘page five story’ strategy that won’t generate immense amounts of controversy- he can issue warrants for US Marshall’s to go after these people once they’re identified. This is probably what the databases of protestor license plates and subpoenaing data from social media sites is all about.
He covers it in the article. Peaceful protest is not about doing legal things, it's about driving the wedge between legal and moral actions. The protesters do things that are illegal, but moral, baiting the state into meting out legal, but immoral punishment.
To give a red-colored example, only obscenely large magazines in California or publicly announcing every time you fill in a ditch on your own property that you won't even ask for EPA approval and then getting arrested for it are forms of peaceful protest, even if you the police have to taze you until you soil your pants to get you into the cruiser or if your friends block them from leaving the scene by handcuffing themselves to their bumper.
Where the current decade of mostly-peaceful-protesting misses, though, is the fact that activists are demonstrably not engaging in "illegal but moral" behavior. It's actually not okay to loot businesses. It's not okay to block a roadway. It's not okay to deface works of art. It's not okay to hit a police officer with your car. It's not okay to de-arrest people. There is no behavior being engaged in here that a typical uninvolved normie is going to look at and say "actually, I think these are perfectly fine behaviors for people to do outside of the context of a protest." And the fact that they are conducted as part of a protest doesn't legitimize them to anybody except people already on board with the movement.
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And the thing to note about these red-colored examples is they don't work. If you're arrested and put in prison for a long time for having an "obscenely large magazine", you will simply disappear and be completely forgotten except as a cautionary tale on ar15.com. Same for the ditch example except no ar15.com fame.
People are posting videos of perfectly normal looking, no brutality, ICE arrests and having them treated as atrocities by all who matter. And the protestors are doing things that are neither legal nor moral (e.g. smashing the taillight of an ICE truck) and this is accepted. People actually shooting at ICE are downplayed. It's all about control of the media, not the actual actions taken.
It's about control of the media, but also, having a mass movement of people willing to coordinate resistance. The right is bad at this because they believe in the legitimacy of the system, and in working toward the changes they want via the legitimate means provided by the system. The left basically believes that any system that does not result in their desired outcome is not legitimate, and are therefore a lot more willing to resort to extralegal means when they don't get their way.
What this means in practice is that the right will sit by and think "aww shucks it's a shame that guy got arrested for violating that magazine ban" and hope that maybe one of these days the 9th circuit will stop ignoring clear SCOTUS directives (spoiler: they won't). The left, meanwhile, will organize illegal street blockades where armed activists illegally detain motorists in order to check if they're feds, and face zero legal consequences because they elected an attorney general who self-identifies as antifa.
I think it'd make sense here for you to explain in a bit more detail what the word "system" exactly entails here.
Essentially, the entire apparatus that produces and legitimizes political power and authority in the US. The constitution plus the processes and institutions that have grown around it, such as the parties and everything they get up to.
So I guess the Left largely believes that the legislative branch is somehow beyond their influence?
I would say it's more like, the left does not limit themselves to acting through the legislature, because they don't care about whether their methods are legitimized by the system or not. They care about getting their way.
The right cares a lot more about rules and principles and is a lot more willing to accept defeat on individual issues because they think that a stable order which obeys predictable rules is more important than any particular issue.
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You confuse the government and the system. It's a common mistake, and the whole effort of having The Constitution and writing a lot of paperwork before, during, and after it was to avoid it. You see, the government is only part of the system, and is designed to be a limited and constrained part. A very important one, but still one of the parts, not the goal, but the means to the goal. And that's exactly what a lot of conservatives (and many non-conservatives) believe in - the government has its legitimate function, as as long as it is performing it, it has its place and should be supported. As soon as it departs from this function, it ceases to be legitimate and becomes evil. The system is where The People can prevent the government from becoming evil (or at least minimize it) and that's what was the goal built specifically into the American system, and yes, the right, largely, believes in it's legitimacy - at least while it is working at its purpose, stopping the government from descending into evil.
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have you ever met conservatives? conservatives believe in the legitimacy of the system and its institutions even as they're weaponized against them for decades
they may complain about it, they may object to it, they may distrust it, but the moment you want them to do something outside or against the system you will have pretty much all mouths shut and heavy and immediate condemnation of others who don't
because they will always abide, they will always accept the idiotic machinations and process manipulations, however illegal, of their political opposition who do not believe in the legitimacy of the government whenever it suits them and actually behave in ways which show that
conservatives are the true believers in the system, they're the last actual liberals, and it's why they have been losing for 80 years even as the system has been turned against them time and time again and it's taken absurd lies and manipulations and harm against them to reach the point at which they have lost this constitutionally prevalent institutional trust which they still default to in most situations
low-effort snarkposts is low effort and wrong to boot
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Sure, the typical conservative does not agree with a lot of government policy or expect the government to behave in ways they approve of
So tell me, what has the right done to change this state of affairs?
Exactly zero right wing people are out in the streets getting themselves shot by cops for interfering with the enforcement of government policies they disapprove of.
The right is voting, and accepting the results when they don't win the vote.
The right accepts the legitimacy of the system even when it produces results they don't approve of.
The left believes that if the system produces results they don't approve of, this is evidence of the illegitimacy of the system, and they engage in extralegal shenanigans to nullify the results of elections that don't go their way.
Actually, yes, absolutely unironically. Despite all the stink raised by Trump, pretty much no consequence happened to it, despite massive evidence of irregularities, and a lot of the dissent suppression effort had been by Republicans themselves. If you want to see how "not accepting" looks like, look at Portland. Or LA or Seattle riots. The right did nothing even close. The only serious protest was Jan 6, which was immediately squashed with unprecedented force and cruelty (that was the point, of course) - and the Republican establishment did absolutely nothing to stop it, until Trump came in with pardons. So yes, despite grumbling and whining and grandstanding, which happens after every single election in the history of all elections, the right absolutely accepted 2020 election results as fait accompli. That doesn't mean they didn't think there was cheating, but they largely accepted that they can't do anything about it and moved on. They didn't refuse to pay taxes, didn't refuse to follow the laws, did not set federal buildings on fire, did not attack federal officers (obvious exceptions excepted), did not form domestic terrorist movements, the governors did not declare war on the Federal government, they did not shoot prominent leftists, did not declare courts illegitimate, did not assassinate the President, etc. That's how accepting looks like.
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what did conservatives do as a result of the election being stolen?
after 9 months of idiotic covid hysteria shutdowns and a summer of race riots across the country which the police sat on the sidelines and allowed, the conservatives did what?
they protested in Washington DC in support of a constitutional process in an effort to have their complaints addressed? the capitol police attacked and provoked those at the capitol and the federal government had many embedded informants/agents provocateurs which manipulated the crowd and 1500 people calmly walked through the capitol building
they received zero institutional support whatsoever, the entire government weaponized itself to attack them, and their representatives and near all conservative leaders tripped over themselves throwing them under the bus and cheering some incompetent black cop murdering an unarmed woman with another cop standing directly behind her to the left
your low-effort snarkpost implies this is an example of conservatives not accepting the results but that's exactly what they did
it was a small number MAGA people who rarely identify as conservatives who, at most, went to protest at the capitol and it turned into a riot which was then near-universally condemned by every conservative and used by the state to persecute the right nationwide
the right generally and especially conservatives did accept the stolen election
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Umm... where to start. The numbers are not large, but definitely not zero.
Bundy standoff
Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
This sort of makes my point. Your best examples are two incidents from a decade ago that received exactly zero institutional support or even particularly much sympathy. These incidents had zero influence on any law or policy.
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It's not a matter of a "competent regime", it's a matter of having the media entirely on the protestor's side.
Fox News has always been broadly sympathetic to the MAGA regime, the Wapo has bent the knee in exchange for Trump going soft on Bezos' other business interests, CBS has been bought by an ally. The WSJ is also owned by an ally - that the WSJ is now mostly hostile to Trump is an unforced error on his part. And of course politically engaged Americans no longer rely entirely on the MSM - they get some or all of their news from algorithmically-curated social media feeds whose algorithms are controlled by pro-regime oligarchs (Twitter, new TikTok) or billionaires going along to get along (Facebook). The idea that MAGA faces a uniformly hostile media environment is cope.
The Trump administration is losing the propaganda war over immigration enforcement because "deport them all" was never particular popular with the median voter. There is a reason why the campaign messaging focussed on mythical pet-eating immigrants and not nannies, day labourers, military spouses with paperwork issues etc. Sending federal law enforcement into a community where they are not welcome is going to look ugly - there is a reason why it almost never happens. And "Deport otherwise law-abiding illegals, plus legal migrants whose status can be revoked on a technicality, and don't go easy on any US citizens who happen to be in the way" is at best a 50-50 proposition before it turns out to be ugly in practice.
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I dunno, RFK seems like perhaps the worst possible choice for his job. Why should we believe Noem is highly competent but merely plagued by an antagonistic media? I have a hard time believing that a traditionally competent person in charge (eg Homan) would have led to the protestor deaths and public opinion shift, or at least not nearly as much.
Worst possible choice by what metric?
More stupid and incorrect than the idea that biological males can get pregnant and require menstrual support? Or pushing puberty blockers and other forms of "gender-affirming care" for minors over the parental objections?
I find it interesting that nobody on the blue team seemed to have any problems with his vaccine skepticism until 2020.
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My sense of snark obliges me to note that transgender affirmation surgery of minors was the policy of the government medical establishment barely more than a year ago, and the administration before that had to knowingly lie about its own healthcare proposals to get them past the public at which point many of the promised benefits that weren't deliberate lies still failed.
'Incredibly stupid and incorrect beliefs on medical care' has been more or less the public health policy of the United States for longer than many Mottizans have been cognizant of US politics.
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Getting the media on your side is part of competence. Given the existing environment, I get the appeal of throwing your hands up and saying it's impossible. But the Trump administration doesn't put in even a minimal attempt to work the mainstream media, seeing no value in it compared to building a parallel system.
Like you say though they have not tried that route. It’s by design they’ve chosen war with legacy media and to build in parallel. There are significant benefits to building alternative since MSM at best will give any tie to your opponent. Trump has successfully gotten completely loss of credibility from the msm by half the population. The weakness is this leads to a Cold War of dueling narratives and makes it nearly impossible for a Reagan Revolution style victory.
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The media is not an independent actor at this point; it is part of the other side.
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