Protests Won’t Be Enough To Stop A Coup

Source: “Protests Won’t Be Enough To Stop A Coup” by Judith Shulevitz in The Atlantic.

Below are a few of the key takeaways.

Three lines should not be crossed:

1. Trump declares himself the winner while the results remain unclear.
2. Election officials find unexplained irregularities or signs of tampering.
3. Trump loses but won’t leave office.

Nonviolent protests were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones

• 53 percent of the nonviolent demonstrations achieved their goal, as opposed to 26 percent of violent ones.
• Practicing nonviolence doesn’t come naturally. It’s “a hard lesson” that every generation has to learn anew
• Preferably, it’s reinforced by a corps of designated monitors and marshals who can identify and neutralize hot-headed protesters and maybe even agents provocateurs.
• If property destruction is perceived as violence, it’s functionally violence.

A robust movement will be “diverse and multigenerational

• A prodemocracy movement’s most important constituencies are the institutions that keep society running: banks, businesses, the military, schools, the media, government bureaucracies, police, the judiciary.

Whatever the movement looks like, it will have to cause economic pain. 

• That requires organized consumer boycotts and strikes
• On October 14, more than 50 business leaders issued a statement demanding that every vote be counted, no matter how long that takes.