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(2019) Chenoweth has backed off her previous conclusions in recent years, observing that nonviolent protest strategies have dramatically declined in effectiven

(2019) Chenoweth has backed off her previous conclusions in recent years, observing that nonviolent protest strategies have dramatically declined in effectiveness as governments have adjusted their tactics of repression and messaging. See eg https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/07/erica-chenoweth-democracy-data-harvard https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/07/erica-chenoweth-demo... One current example of messaging can be seen in the reflexive dismissal by the current US government and its propagandists of any popular opposition as 'paid protesters'. Large attendance at Democratic political rallies during the 2024 election was dismissed as being paid for by the campaign, any crowd protesting government policy is described as either a rioting or alleged to be financed by George Soros or some other boogeyman of the right. This has been going on for years; the right simply refuses to countenance the possibility of legitimate organic opposition, while also being chronically unable to provide any evidence for their claims.

yesco 9mo ago
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- deleted 9mo ago
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- EGreg 9mo ago
  I'm not sure it's an anomaly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM
- bad_haircut72 9mo ago
  They didnt have to "force them to do what they want" just tip the balance of votes at the ballot box. For that aim protest seems like it could be quite effective.
- goatlover 9mo ago
  I don't understand this comment. What protesting does is let other people know there is dissent, and some people are willing to take to the streets. Enough people do that and you have networking effects as other people are motivated to take a stand. It makes the mainstream media, and representatives feel pressure to address the issue. I've been to a number of protests over the last year, and I can tell you there are even more people honking in support who drive by.
  - ptero 9mo ago
    The counter argument to that is in the age of the social media there is no need to take to the streets to show that there is dissent. Everyone the folks on the street could reach will know about the dissent anyway. Motivating other people to take a stand -- I do not think this is true either. A fraction of the folks who would support the issue regardless may join the protest on the street. But that would be those who support the issue already. Change comes from the ballot box. Enough people in the street might influence the next election (sometimes for the issue they are advocating; sometimes in the opposite direction). But 6+ months from the next election the effect I suspect is small. My 2c.
    - lostlogin 9mo ago
      A reply on social media is taking a stand? It seems more of a fetid cesspit. It promotes anger, division and controversy rather than shared ideas, cohesive action and positive social change. I think I need an example of the good social media can do for society and collective action.
      - ptero 9mo ago
        > A reply on social media is taking a stand? No. I only said that spreading information that there is dissent does not require taking to the street.
        edot 9mo ago
        How much time and energy does it take to hit the like button on a post? How much time and energy does it take to physically protest? The magnitude of dissent is legible in the mode of dissent. How ticked off must a guy be to go protest in negative 20 degree weather?
        tbossanova 9mo ago
        Interacting on social media is sometimes like shouting into the void. Taking it to the street has a certain visceral nature to it.
- ajjahs 9mo ago
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- qdog 9mo ago
  IMHO, the value of the protest is to demonstrate a portion of the electorate does not agree with whatever they are protesting. There are a lot of people in a bubble that seem to think the majority always views things exactly the same as they do. Maybe you will always default do doubling down on the status quo, but some people will eventually inquire as to why someone is willing to inconvenience themselves to protest. Once someone starts to be curious about other people's motivations and reasoning, it often does impact their own opinions, for good or bad.
  - yesco 9mo ago
    Assuming critics are just reflexively resistant is a convenient way to avoid asking whether the criticism has merit. "They'd get it if they were more curious" is unfalsifiable. Everyone already knows dissent exists. Polls, social media, elections make that clear. The question is whether street protests add anything to that awareness, and whether the way they're conducted generates curiosity or just irritation. For a lot of people it's the latter, and waving that off doesn't make the problem disappear.
    - johnny22 9mo ago
      > Assuming critics are just reflexively resistant is a convenient way to avoid asking whether the criticism has merit. "They'd get it if they were more curious" is unfalsifiable. I don't know if it can be proven or whatever, but I do know it has changed me. There have been many events where I thought "hey, why is everybody whining about X thing?". "things are fine the way they are". Until I read more about it and changed my mind. If it was purely online, I wouldn't take it so seriously. So whether it can proven empirically or not, I know it changed me.
    - TheAceOfHearts 9mo ago
      I think protests are good since it requires you to go outside and interact with other people, it requires a higher level of commitment than the slacktivism of the 2010s that was so prominent in online spaces. Polls are gamed all the time and social media is dominated by bots, but you cannot fake a large crowd in a protest. If a protest is large enough it creates a force that cannot be easily ignored.
- techcode 9mo ago
  In the age of centralized broadcasting where everyone watched the same TV channels ... Those TV channels were virtually always (and to this day still are) controlled by "the government". Meanwhile other TV channels, if there even were any, and if enough people even had chance to watch them (because limited frequency/transmission allocations, artificial limits on cable distribution ..etc) - were and still are labeled as "funded by foreign (state) actors that are trying to destabilize our independance/values/etc". And it's more of the same online. --- This reminds me of an old website that's an absolute gold mine. Knock yourself out https://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/minority_influence.htm https://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/minority_inf...
- ianmcgowan 9mo ago
  A protest demonstrates a level of unhappiness with a group or policy. People may not believe what they see on the news, facebook, or youtube, but hopefully we have not reached a point where they refuse to believe what they see with their own eyes. The point is to demonstrate "we are not alone in this feeling", that's it...
- aprilfoo 9mo ago
  > It was always naive to think 3.5% of the population could force the other 96.5% This makes 100%, right. But how many actually care and act, what are the dynamics? Regarding the end of centralized broadcasting, one could argue that social networks might actually act as amplifiers of "small" events.
alephnerd 9mo ago
That's a misreading of Chenowith's argument which itself is heavily based on Timur Kuran's Revolutionary Thresholds concept. The thesis is once mass mobilization of non-violent protesters occurs, it reduces the threshold for elite defection because there are multiple different veto groups within a selectorate, and some may choose to defect because they either view the incumbent as unstable or they disagree with the incumbent's policies. I also recommend reading Chennowith's discussion paper clearing up the "3.5%" argument [0]. A lot of mass reporting was just sloppy. Tl;Dr - "The 3.5% figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements. It is not necessarily a prescriptive one, and no one can see the future. Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future" [0] - https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Erica%20Chenoweth_2020-005.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Eric...
- pinnochio 9mo ago
  > Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future Goodhart's law
- throwaway17_17 9mo ago
  Are you aware of whether Chennowith ever discussed the presence, implied or actual, of more extreme resistance groups/factions operating in the same locations and time periods? I’ve seen some informal work discussing the ‘pressure’ on the incumbent power being supported and made more tenable in comparison to the potential for a more radical approach. I have seen anything widely popularized discussing this outside of ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ which does have some good references and particular examples.
  - alephnerd 9mo ago
    Yes, and the result is negative. Violent Action only incentivizes the selectorate to not defect. This is something Kuran pointed out decades ago as did Chennowith. The reality is the only way to affect change is to incentivize elite defection, and that requires organized nonviolent action along with exogenous variables.
monero-xmr 9mo ago
It’s true that large leftist groups fund protests. 100% true. Here’s a recent ABC News report on the No Kings protests https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protests-being-funded-by-foundations-run-by-george-soros-report-chuck-schumer-aclu https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protes... Also they completely stopped once the new anti-ICE thing became popular. Where are all the new organic No Kings protests? Everyone wrote about it in all the major publications and now we forgot(?) and the Tesla dealership protests? No normal person engages in this stuff, it’s hyper activists part of organized groups with real financing
- estebank 9mo ago
  > No normal person engages in this stuff, it’s hyper activists part of organized groups with real financing I guess I'm not a normal person then. I didn't realize that I was a hyper activist because I drew on some cardboard and that my group of friends was being financed. I better go demand for my Soros-check from them.
  - monero-xmr 9mo ago
    Are you planning on going to a Tesla dealership again to protest? This was top of my Reddit algorithm for several months, no one even mentions it anymore
    - coryrc 9mo ago
      Because they won? Have you seen Tesla's sales numbers and market share?
      - noxer 9mo ago
        They didn't care about Tesla they wanted to "hurt" Musk Musks net worth is about $270 billion more today compared to when the protests began. Does this look like winning?
        9mo ago
awesome_dude 9mo ago
"Paid" demonstrators has been an accusation used by governments for several decades. Edit: https://www.yourdictionary.com/rent-a-crowd https://www.yourdictionary.com/rent-a-crowd (Rent a crowd/mob is often used to claim the protest is attended by people paid to be there, and was first coined in the mid 20th century, but apparently the actual accusation (though) is as old as demonstrations)
- lostlogin 9mo ago
  The usual boogie man. Did you read that link? It’s hardly damming. “Through a fund, the foundation issued a $3 million grant to the Indivisible Organization that was good for two years "to support the grantee's social welfare activities.” The grants were not specifically for the No Kings protests, the foundation said.” If 7 million people protested, that 3 million over 2 years sure went a long way. They work for pennies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2025_No_Kings_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2025_No_Kings_protests
  - awesome_dude 9mo ago
    I'm not sure why you are attacking me, I am clearly replying to someone who is claiming that recent times the retort of "paid demonstrators" is effective, and I have pointed out that the claim of people being paid to demonstrate has been made for decades, if not centuries. Thank you for articulating the accusation, giving me the opportunity to respond, but try to take your own advice and read what's actually being said.
    - deleted 9mo ago
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    - lostlogin 9mo ago
      You appear to have edited your comment after I replied. When I replied to you, the link in your comment was the below one. https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protests-being-funded-by-foundations-run-by-george-soros-report-chuck-schumer-aclu https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protes...
EGreg 9mo ago
In many countries, it does work, and continues with some regularity: 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity 2018: https://www.occrp.org/en/project/a-murdered-journalists-last-investigation/slovak-interior-minister-resigns-following-massive-protests https://www.occrp.org/en/project/a-murdered-journalists-last... 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM 2026: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorities-unleash-heavily-militarized-clampdown-to-hide-protest-massacres/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorit... -- outcome TBD ?
- lostlogin 9mo ago
  The example of Ukraine is complicated, and that situation has become a nightmare With what followed - though in fairness to the Ukrainians, the west could have done a hell of a lot more, and still could. The Arab Spring turned into The Arab Winter in a wave of repression. Some good has come out of it but the link you have provided says this: Although the long-term effects of the Arab Spring have yet to be shown, its short-term consequences varied greatly across the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia and Egypt, where the existing regimes were ousted and replaced through a process of free and fair election, the revolutions were considered short-term successes.[337][338][339] This interpretation is, however, problematized by the subsequent political turmoil that emerged in Egypt and the autocracy that has formed in Tunisia. Elsewhere, most notably in the monarchies of Morocco and the Persian Gulf, existing regimes co-opted the Arab Spring movement and managed to maintain order without significant social change.[340][341] In other countries, particularly Syria and Libya, the apparent result of Arab Spring protests was a complete societal collapse.[337]
  - EGreg 9mo ago
    Yes. I am definitely no fan of regime change through revolution. It has an extremely bloody track record. I am just pointing out that nonviolent protests usually get it done, especially after crackdowns.
  - 9mo ago
buckle8017 9mo ago
> Large attendance at Democratic political rallies during the 2024 election was dismissed as being paid for by the campaign And then they lost and the odds of those people being paid actors seems less ridiculous.
- caminante 9mo ago
  I'd separate protestors from supporters. It's a fact that Kamala burned through $1 billion in four months, including paying tens of millions on performances (Beyonce, Lady Gaga,...) and $1 million to Oprah to host an event. That attracted supporters indirectly even though they didn't get "paid". "Incentivized" is better?
TacticalCoder 9mo ago
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- TacticalCoder 9mo ago
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PunchyHamster 9mo ago
well, aside from alleged riots there have been actual ones and those have unfortunate effect of making it easier to dismiss the cause
- komali2 9mo ago
  Am American "riot" is a European city after a football game. Would that Americans use the term more accurately.
  - throwawayq3423 9mo ago
    Considering Americans get shot during riots, I would say you're wrong.
    - hansvm 9mo ago
      Even the Rodney King riots didn't have as many deaths (gunshots or otherwise) as the worst EU football events. Guns are scary or whatever, and the US should definitely handle them better or ban them or something, but I still think I'd rather take my chances in an average US riot (give or take recent ICE murders) than something heated in the EU.
      - throwawayq3423 9mo ago
        > Even the Rodney King riots didn't have as many deaths (gunshots or otherwise) as the worst EU football events. I honestly don't even know what you're referring to. There have been tragedies related collapses of stadiums and trampling due to poor crowd control. But that is not even remotely similar to what we're talking about.
  - anamax 9mo ago
    How often do people die during football riots? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests says $1-2B in damage and more than 19 deaths. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-kill... says 25 deaths.
beloch 9mo ago
There appears to be a few factors combining in the U.S. right now that make protests less effective than they once were. 1. Politics are religion more than ever before. There is a solid MAGA core that will not turn on Trump for any reason. When confronted by uncomfortable truth, they dismiss it as lies. When they can't dismiss it as a lie, they choose not to care. The Democrats have people like this too, but they haven't been hired and turned into a paramilitary goon squad the way ICE has. Yet. The "unreasonables" on both sides of the spectrum are not going anywhere. After Trump dies they could easily be harnessed by someone else. When so many people cannot be swayed, the impact of protests are dulled. The "unreasonables" aren't swayed when the other side protests, and the mushy middle will tend to dismiss many protests as products of people they view as extremists. 2. There is a ruling class (i.e. Billionaires) with a firm grip on power (through both parties) and complete insulation from the public. In his discourses on Livy, Machiavelli observed that Roman officials who protected themselves from those they ruled with forts or castles tended to rule in a more brutal and less productive manner than those who lived among the governed. If you want good government, those governing should feel vulnerable enough to behave reasonably. U.S. billionaires, and the politicians they own, are completely sealed off from public wrath. Minnesota could burn and none of them would get more than a warm fuzzy watching it on the news. If a protest doesn't scare billionaires it will have no impact on how the U.S. is governed. 3. "Flood the zone" is just one of the tactics being used to numb people and encourage them to switch off from politics. The nastiness of hyper-partisan politics is, at times, a distracting entertainment, but it's fatiguing the rest of the time. People rightly observe that both of the U.S.'s diametrically opposed parties tend to do similar things (e.g. tax breaks for the rich) and are funded by the same billionaires every election. If people will scream at you for picking a side in what looks like a sham of false choice, why not just stay home, plug in, and tune out? When a big protest happens, people who are numb and tuned out are just going to change the channel and consume some more billionaire-produced pap. As a Canadian, what's going on in the U.S. has been terrifying to watch. We're so culturally similar that what happens in the U.S. could easily happen here. Even if it doesn't, we're still subject to the fallout. A classic pattern of authoritarian regimes is to lash out at allies and neighbours in order to give their people threats to fear more than their own government. Well, that's us. If MAGA isn't checked, Canada will likely be subjected to far more than tariff's and threats. It's hard for Canadians to appreciate how nations elsewhere in the world can harbour such bitter and long-lived enmities against one another. We're now experiencing how they're created. It's not hatred yet, but the trust we once had for Americans is gone and won't return for generations. For the rest of my life, we'll always be four years or less away from what could be the next round of American insanity.
sersi 9mo ago
> This has been going on for years; the right simply refuses to countenance the possibility of legitimate organic opposition, while also being chronically unable to provide any evidence for their claims. That strategy is also typical of China. Whenever there's a protest (for example the HK protests), it's always financed by western interests. Even volunteers organically organising themselves to help victims of the Tai Po fire were deemed to be western interests trying to discredit China. It's a surprisingly effective tactic. I just always wonder how we have so many people eating this up when the strategy is so blindingly obvious.
- throwaway17_17 9mo ago
  I can’t help but be a little depressed by this realization. But to take it a step further, while I think there are some people who are genuinely buying this propaganda, I expect that a chunk of the propaganda aligned side also don’t think there is any point correcting the misleading statements. They benefit from the overall control of their ‘side’ and so just go right along sliding toward the fanatical fringe extreme of their side. On the other ‘side’, many people seem to have decided there is no use attempting to counter message after seeing the failure to move any extremists from their positions (and a failure to get even a milk toast correction from the non fanatics who are aligned). I think that the end result of this pattern is a gradually accelerating move towards the far ends, leaving no one to have any reasonable discourse in the center. I’m not saying I support the center positions, nor that I don’t support what is often called an extreme position, just that this seems to be a watershed moment globally.
  - notarobot123 9mo ago
    Polarization leaves very little room for reasonable discourse at the poles too. Pure tribalism doesn't care about reason unless that reason is in service of the identity and ideology of the tribe. What if political discourse was focused on policy not identity and couched in terms of mutual interest instead of party affiliation? There would still be tensions, trade-offs, conflicts and political strategy at play but the discourse would be infinitely more reasonable. I think this is what we mean when we talk about "center positions": a "value-based realism" that recognizes that society is nothing but the mutual alignment of values and interests. I don't understand why "common sense" has become so unpopular.
somenameforme 9mo ago
I think it's more of just Goodhart’s Law in play: 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.' In a case of relatively organic or somewhat spontaneous action, 3.5% of people doing something is huge. The reason is because in organic or spontaneous action, those 3.5% probably represent the views of vastly more than 3.5% of people. But as actions become more organized and less spontaneous, you reach a scenario where those 3.5% may represent fewer and fewer people other than themselves. At the extreme example of effective organization (where you get 100% participation rate), those 3.5% of people may represent nobody beside themselves. I was perusing the dataset they used [1] for the '3.5% rule' and it seems that a more unifying theme is leaders losing the support of their own base. And it's easy to how that could strongly correlate with large organic protest since you've done things to the point of not only pissing off 'the other side' but also your own side. I think Nixon is a good example of this. There were vastly larger protests against Nixon's involvement in Vietnam than there were for Watergate. Yet the Vietnam protests had no effect whatsoever, while he left office over Watergate. The difference is that he lost the confidence of his own party over Watergate. Had he not resigned, he would likely have been impeached and convicted. Had 3.5% of people protested Watergate, he would even be included on this list, which I think emphasizes that protests (or lack thereof) are mostly a tangential factor. [1] - https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ON9XND https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi...
- saghm 9mo ago
  I'm not sure this is Goodhart's law, but I think you're right that the data doesn't really seem to support the claim, as well as with Nixon. My understanding is that the reason Nixon ended up resigning is that the Republicans in Congress told him that there would be enough votes to convict him after being impeached, so it didn't make much sense to stick around and get permanently stained as the only president ever to be forcibly removed from office after being impeached rather than leaving on his own terms and at least being able to claim innocence.
CTDOCodebases 9mo ago
> This has been going on for years; the right simply refuses to countenance the possibility of legitimate organic opposition, while also being chronically unable to provide any evidence for their claims. Even their own. Jan 6 for example. It was a guided tour given by FBI agitators apparently.
- lazide 9mo ago
  It all makes sense if you think of it in the form of emotions, and not rationality. Unless there is some concrete penalty (and even then!) why wouldn’t they believe the thing that makes them feel justified and righteous.
a_conservative 9mo ago
Note that you aren't providing evidence either :) Providing evidence is tricky, because most evidence hints rather than proves, so it's very subject to confirmation bias and is easily dismissed by those who disagree. There are large filter bubbles right now that make it hard to agree on basic facts. I don't think any of us really knows for sure what's organic and what's synthetic right now.
- anigbrowl 9mo ago
  The burden of proof is on the claimant, as an intelligent person like yourself is surely aware.
1potatonagger 9mo ago
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yesco 9mo ago

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deleted 9mo ago
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EGreg 9mo ago
I'm not sure it's an anomaly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM
bad_haircut72 9mo ago
They didnt have to "force them to do what they want" just tip the balance of votes at the ballot box. For that aim protest seems like it could be quite effective.
goatlover 9mo ago
I don't understand this comment. What protesting does is let other people know there is dissent, and some people are willing to take to the streets. Enough people do that and you have networking effects as other people are motivated to take a stand. It makes the mainstream media, and representatives feel pressure to address the issue. I've been to a number of protests over the last year, and I can tell you there are even more people honking in support who drive by.
- ptero 9mo ago
  The counter argument to that is in the age of the social media there is no need to take to the streets to show that there is dissent. Everyone the folks on the street could reach will know about the dissent anyway. Motivating other people to take a stand -- I do not think this is true either. A fraction of the folks who would support the issue regardless may join the protest on the street. But that would be those who support the issue already. Change comes from the ballot box. Enough people in the street might influence the next election (sometimes for the issue they are advocating; sometimes in the opposite direction). But 6+ months from the next election the effect I suspect is small. My 2c.
  - lostlogin 9mo ago
    A reply on social media is taking a stand? It seems more of a fetid cesspit. It promotes anger, division and controversy rather than shared ideas, cohesive action and positive social change. I think I need an example of the good social media can do for society and collective action.
    - ptero 9mo ago
      > A reply on social media is taking a stand? No. I only said that spreading information that there is dissent does not require taking to the street.
      - edot 9mo ago
        How much time and energy does it take to hit the like button on a post? How much time and energy does it take to physically protest? The magnitude of dissent is legible in the mode of dissent. How ticked off must a guy be to go protest in negative 20 degree weather?
      - tbossanova 9mo ago
        Interacting on social media is sometimes like shouting into the void. Taking it to the street has a certain visceral nature to it.
ajjahs 9mo ago
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qdog 9mo ago
IMHO, the value of the protest is to demonstrate a portion of the electorate does not agree with whatever they are protesting. There are a lot of people in a bubble that seem to think the majority always views things exactly the same as they do. Maybe you will always default do doubling down on the status quo, but some people will eventually inquire as to why someone is willing to inconvenience themselves to protest. Once someone starts to be curious about other people's motivations and reasoning, it often does impact their own opinions, for good or bad.
- yesco 9mo ago
  Assuming critics are just reflexively resistant is a convenient way to avoid asking whether the criticism has merit. "They'd get it if they were more curious" is unfalsifiable. Everyone already knows dissent exists. Polls, social media, elections make that clear. The question is whether street protests add anything to that awareness, and whether the way they're conducted generates curiosity or just irritation. For a lot of people it's the latter, and waving that off doesn't make the problem disappear.
  - johnny22 9mo ago
    > Assuming critics are just reflexively resistant is a convenient way to avoid asking whether the criticism has merit. "They'd get it if they were more curious" is unfalsifiable. I don't know if it can be proven or whatever, but I do know it has changed me. There have been many events where I thought "hey, why is everybody whining about X thing?". "things are fine the way they are". Until I read more about it and changed my mind. If it was purely online, I wouldn't take it so seriously. So whether it can proven empirically or not, I know it changed me.
  - TheAceOfHearts 9mo ago
    I think protests are good since it requires you to go outside and interact with other people, it requires a higher level of commitment than the slacktivism of the 2010s that was so prominent in online spaces. Polls are gamed all the time and social media is dominated by bots, but you cannot fake a large crowd in a protest. If a protest is large enough it creates a force that cannot be easily ignored.
techcode 9mo ago
In the age of centralized broadcasting where everyone watched the same TV channels ... Those TV channels were virtually always (and to this day still are) controlled by "the government". Meanwhile other TV channels, if there even were any, and if enough people even had chance to watch them (because limited frequency/transmission allocations, artificial limits on cable distribution ..etc) - were and still are labeled as "funded by foreign (state) actors that are trying to destabilize our independance/values/etc". And it's more of the same online. --- This reminds me of an old website that's an absolute gold mine. Knock yourself out https://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/minority_influence.htm https://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/minority_inf...
ianmcgowan 9mo ago
A protest demonstrates a level of unhappiness with a group or policy. People may not believe what they see on the news, facebook, or youtube, but hopefully we have not reached a point where they refuse to believe what they see with their own eyes. The point is to demonstrate "we are not alone in this feeling", that's it...
aprilfoo 9mo ago
> It was always naive to think 3.5% of the population could force the other 96.5% This makes 100%, right. But how many actually care and act, what are the dynamics? Regarding the end of centralized broadcasting, one could argue that social networks might actually act as amplifiers of "small" events.

alephnerd 9mo ago

That's a misreading of Chenowith's argument which itself is heavily based on Timur Kuran's Revolutionary Thresholds concept. The thesis is once mass mobilization of non-violent protesters occurs, it reduces the threshold for elite defection because there are multiple different veto groups within a selectorate, and some may choose to defect because they either view the incumbent as unstable or they disagree with the incumbent's policies. I also recommend reading Chennowith's discussion paper clearing up the "3.5%" argument [0]. A lot of mass reporting was just sloppy. Tl;Dr - "The 3.5% figure is a descriptive statistic based on a sample of historical movements. It is not necessarily a prescriptive one, and no one can see the future. Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future" [0] - https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Erica%20Chenoweth_2020-005.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/Eric...

pinnochio 9mo ago
> Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future Goodhart's law
throwaway17_17 9mo ago
Are you aware of whether Chennowith ever discussed the presence, implied or actual, of more extreme resistance groups/factions operating in the same locations and time periods? I’ve seen some informal work discussing the ‘pressure’ on the incumbent power being supported and made more tenable in comparison to the potential for a more radical approach. I have seen anything widely popularized discussing this outside of ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ which does have some good references and particular examples.
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  Yes, and the result is negative. Violent Action only incentivizes the selectorate to not defect. This is something Kuran pointed out decades ago as did Chennowith. The reality is the only way to affect change is to incentivize elite defection, and that requires organized nonviolent action along with exogenous variables.

monero-xmr 9mo ago

It’s true that large leftist groups fund protests. 100% true. Here’s a recent ABC News report on the No Kings protests https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protests-being-funded-by-foundations-run-by-george-soros-report-chuck-schumer-aclu https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protes... Also they completely stopped once the new anti-ICE thing became popular. Where are all the new organic No Kings protests? Everyone wrote about it in all the major publications and now we forgot(?) and the Tesla dealership protests? No normal person engages in this stuff, it’s hyper activists part of organized groups with real financing

estebank 9mo ago
> No normal person engages in this stuff, it’s hyper activists part of organized groups with real financing I guess I'm not a normal person then. I didn't realize that I was a hyper activist because I drew on some cardboard and that my group of friends was being financed. I better go demand for my Soros-check from them.
- monero-xmr 9mo ago
  Are you planning on going to a Tesla dealership again to protest? This was top of my Reddit algorithm for several months, no one even mentions it anymore
  - coryrc 9mo ago
    Because they won? Have you seen Tesla's sales numbers and market share?
    - noxer 9mo ago
      They didn't care about Tesla they wanted to "hurt" Musk Musks net worth is about $270 billion more today compared to when the protests began. Does this look like winning?
      - 9mo ago

awesome_dude 9mo ago

"Paid" demonstrators has been an accusation used by governments for several decades. Edit: https://www.yourdictionary.com/rent-a-crowd https://www.yourdictionary.com/rent-a-crowd (Rent a crowd/mob is often used to claim the protest is attended by people paid to be there, and was first coined in the mid 20th century, but apparently the actual accusation (though) is as old as demonstrations)

lostlogin 9mo ago
The usual boogie man. Did you read that link? It’s hardly damming. “Through a fund, the foundation issued a $3 million grant to the Indivisible Organization that was good for two years "to support the grantee's social welfare activities.” The grants were not specifically for the No Kings protests, the foundation said.” If 7 million people protested, that 3 million over 2 years sure went a long way. They work for pennies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2025_No_Kings_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2025_No_Kings_protests
- awesome_dude 9mo ago
  I'm not sure why you are attacking me, I am clearly replying to someone who is claiming that recent times the retort of "paid demonstrators" is effective, and I have pointed out that the claim of people being paid to demonstrate has been made for decades, if not centuries. Thank you for articulating the accusation, giving me the opportunity to respond, but try to take your own advice and read what's actually being said.
  - deleted 9mo ago
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  - lostlogin 9mo ago
    You appear to have edited your comment after I replied. When I replied to you, the link in your comment was the below one. https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protests-being-funded-by-foundations-run-by-george-soros-report-chuck-schumer-aclu https://abc6onyourside.com/news/nation-world/no-kings-protes...

EGreg 9mo ago

In many countries, it does work, and continues with some regularity: 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity 2018: https://www.occrp.org/en/project/a-murdered-journalists-last-investigation/slovak-interior-minister-resigns-following-massive-protests https://www.occrp.org/en/project/a-murdered-journalists-last... 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqBls-qpRM 2026: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorities-unleash-heavily-militarized-clampdown-to-hide-protest-massacres/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/01/iran-authorit... -- outcome TBD ?

lostlogin 9mo ago
The example of Ukraine is complicated, and that situation has become a nightmare With what followed - though in fairness to the Ukrainians, the west could have done a hell of a lot more, and still could. The Arab Spring turned into The Arab Winter in a wave of repression. Some good has come out of it but the link you have provided says this: Although the long-term effects of the Arab Spring have yet to be shown, its short-term consequences varied greatly across the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia and Egypt, where the existing regimes were ousted and replaced through a process of free and fair election, the revolutions were considered short-term successes.[337][338][339] This interpretation is, however, problematized by the subsequent political turmoil that emerged in Egypt and the autocracy that has formed in Tunisia. Elsewhere, most notably in the monarchies of Morocco and the Persian Gulf, existing regimes co-opted the Arab Spring movement and managed to maintain order without significant social change.[340][341] In other countries, particularly Syria and Libya, the apparent result of Arab Spring protests was a complete societal collapse.[337]
- EGreg 9mo ago
  Yes. I am definitely no fan of regime change through revolution. It has an extremely bloody track record. I am just pointing out that nonviolent protests usually get it done, especially after crackdowns.
- 9mo ago

buckle8017 9mo ago

> Large attendance at Democratic political rallies during the 2024 election was dismissed as being paid for by the campaign And then they lost and the odds of those people being paid actors seems less ridiculous.

caminante 9mo ago
I'd separate protestors from supporters. It's a fact that Kamala burned through $1 billion in four months, including paying tens of millions on performances (Beyonce, Lady Gaga,...) and $1 million to Oprah to host an event. That attracted supporters indirectly even though they didn't get "paid". "Incentivized" is better?

TacticalCoder 9mo ago

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TacticalCoder 9mo ago
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- crm9125 9mo ago
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PunchyHamster 9mo ago

well, aside from alleged riots there have been actual ones and those have unfortunate effect of making it easier to dismiss the cause

komali2 9mo ago
Am American "riot" is a European city after a football game. Would that Americans use the term more accurately.
- throwawayq3423 9mo ago
  Considering Americans get shot during riots, I would say you're wrong.
  - hansvm 9mo ago
    Even the Rodney King riots didn't have as many deaths (gunshots or otherwise) as the worst EU football events. Guns are scary or whatever, and the US should definitely handle them better or ban them or something, but I still think I'd rather take my chances in an average US riot (give or take recent ICE murders) than something heated in the EU.
    - throwawayq3423 9mo ago
      > Even the Rodney King riots didn't have as many deaths (gunshots or otherwise) as the worst EU football events. I honestly don't even know what you're referring to. There have been tragedies related collapses of stadiums and trampling due to poor crowd control. But that is not even remotely similar to what we're talking about.
- anamax 9mo ago
  How often do people die during football riots? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests says $1-2B in damage and more than 19 deaths. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-kill... says 25 deaths.

beloch 9mo ago

There appears to be a few factors combining in the U.S. right now that make protests less effective than they once were. 1. Politics are religion more than ever before. There is a solid MAGA core that will not turn on Trump for any reason. When confronted by uncomfortable truth, they dismiss it as lies. When they can't dismiss it as a lie, they choose not to care. The Democrats have people like this too, but they haven't been hired and turned into a paramilitary goon squad the way ICE has. Yet. The "unreasonables" on both sides of the spectrum are not going anywhere. After Trump dies they could easily be harnessed by someone else. When so many people cannot be swayed, the impact of protests are dulled. The "unreasonables" aren't swayed when the other side protests, and the mushy middle will tend to dismiss many protests as products of people they view as extremists. 2. There is a ruling class (i.e. Billionaires) with a firm grip on power (through both parties) and complete insulation from the public. In his discourses on Livy, Machiavelli observed that Roman officials who protected themselves from those they ruled with forts or castles tended to rule in a more brutal and less productive manner than those who lived among the governed. If you want good government, those governing should feel vulnerable enough to behave reasonably. U.S. billionaires, and the politicians they own, are completely sealed off from public wrath. Minnesota could burn and none of them would get more than a warm fuzzy watching it on the news. If a protest doesn't scare billionaires it will have no impact on how the U.S. is governed. 3. "Flood the zone" is just one of the tactics being used to numb people and encourage them to switch off from politics. The nastiness of hyper-partisan politics is, at times, a distracting entertainment, but it's fatiguing the rest of the time. People rightly observe that both of the U.S.'s diametrically opposed parties tend to do similar things (e.g. tax breaks for the rich) and are funded by the same billionaires every election. If people will scream at you for picking a side in what looks like a sham of false choice, why not just stay home, plug in, and tune out? When a big protest happens, people who are numb and tuned out are just going to change the channel and consume some more billionaire-produced pap. As a Canadian, what's going on in the U.S. has been terrifying to watch. We're so culturally similar that what happens in the U.S. could easily happen here. Even if it doesn't, we're still subject to the fallout. A classic pattern of authoritarian regimes is to lash out at allies and neighbours in order to give their people threats to fear more than their own government. Well, that's us. If MAGA isn't checked, Canada will likely be subjected to far more than tariff's and threats. It's hard for Canadians to appreciate how nations elsewhere in the world can harbour such bitter and long-lived enmities against one another. We're now experiencing how they're created. It's not hatred yet, but the trust we once had for Americans is gone and won't return for generations. For the rest of my life, we'll always be four years or less away from what could be the next round of American insanity.

sersi 9mo ago

> This has been going on for years; the right simply refuses to countenance the possibility of legitimate organic opposition, while also being chronically unable to provide any evidence for their claims. That strategy is also typical of China. Whenever there's a protest (for example the HK protests), it's always financed by western interests. Even volunteers organically organising themselves to help victims of the Tai Po fire were deemed to be western interests trying to discredit China. It's a surprisingly effective tactic. I just always wonder how we have so many people eating this up when the strategy is so blindingly obvious.

throwaway17_17 9mo ago
I can’t help but be a little depressed by this realization. But to take it a step further, while I think there are some people who are genuinely buying this propaganda, I expect that a chunk of the propaganda aligned side also don’t think there is any point correcting the misleading statements. They benefit from the overall control of their ‘side’ and so just go right along sliding toward the fanatical fringe extreme of their side. On the other ‘side’, many people seem to have decided there is no use attempting to counter message after seeing the failure to move any extremists from their positions (and a failure to get even a milk toast correction from the non fanatics who are aligned). I think that the end result of this pattern is a gradually accelerating move towards the far ends, leaving no one to have any reasonable discourse in the center. I’m not saying I support the center positions, nor that I don’t support what is often called an extreme position, just that this seems to be a watershed moment globally.
- notarobot123 9mo ago
  Polarization leaves very little room for reasonable discourse at the poles too. Pure tribalism doesn't care about reason unless that reason is in service of the identity and ideology of the tribe. What if political discourse was focused on policy not identity and couched in terms of mutual interest instead of party affiliation? There would still be tensions, trade-offs, conflicts and political strategy at play but the discourse would be infinitely more reasonable. I think this is what we mean when we talk about "center positions": a "value-based realism" that recognizes that society is nothing but the mutual alignment of values and interests. I don't understand why "common sense" has become so unpopular.

somenameforme 9mo ago

I think it's more of just Goodhart’s Law in play: 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.' In a case of relatively organic or somewhat spontaneous action, 3.5% of people doing something is huge. The reason is because in organic or spontaneous action, those 3.5% probably represent the views of vastly more than 3.5% of people. But as actions become more organized and less spontaneous, you reach a scenario where those 3.5% may represent fewer and fewer people other than themselves. At the extreme example of effective organization (where you get 100% participation rate), those 3.5% of people may represent nobody beside themselves. I was perusing the dataset they used [1] for the '3.5% rule' and it seems that a more unifying theme is leaders losing the support of their own base. And it's easy to how that could strongly correlate with large organic protest since you've done things to the point of not only pissing off 'the other side' but also your own side. I think Nixon is a good example of this. There were vastly larger protests against Nixon's involvement in Vietnam than there were for Watergate. Yet the Vietnam protests had no effect whatsoever, while he left office over Watergate. The difference is that he lost the confidence of his own party over Watergate. Had he not resigned, he would likely have been impeached and convicted. Had 3.5% of people protested Watergate, he would even be included on this list, which I think emphasizes that protests (or lack thereof) are mostly a tangential factor. [1] - https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ON9XND https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi...

saghm 9mo ago
I'm not sure this is Goodhart's law, but I think you're right that the data doesn't really seem to support the claim, as well as with Nixon. My understanding is that the reason Nixon ended up resigning is that the Republicans in Congress told him that there would be enough votes to convict him after being impeached, so it didn't make much sense to stick around and get permanently stained as the only president ever to be forcibly removed from office after being impeached rather than leaving on his own terms and at least being able to claim innocence.

CTDOCodebases 9mo ago

lazide 9mo ago
It all makes sense if you think of it in the form of emotions, and not rationality. Unless there is some concrete penalty (and even then!) why wouldn’t they believe the thing that makes them feel justified and righteous.

a_conservative 9mo ago

Note that you aren't providing evidence either :) Providing evidence is tricky, because most evidence hints rather than proves, so it's very subject to confirmation bias and is easily dismissed by those who disagree. There are large filter bubbles right now that make it hard to agree on basic facts. I don't think any of us really knows for sure what's organic and what's synthetic right now.

anigbrowl 9mo ago
The burden of proof is on the claimant, as an intelligent person like yourself is surely aware.

1potatonagger 9mo ago

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