In the summer of 2017, the first Summer of The First Trump Reich, I watched with horror on a Friday night the videos of American Nazis - aka White incels - marching with tiki torches across the famed Lawn of my University, chanting their horrid slogans. Their trail of filth wrapped around the Rotunda and down its front steps to encircle the brave defenders of the statue of Thomas Jefferson. Later that weekend, those same racist fuckers would march across Charlottesville to defend statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, while one of their number would drive his car into a crowd of peaceful people and murder an innocent young woman. In the aftermath, The American Furher, Herr Trumpler, was quoted as saying "there are very fine people on both sides."

The shocking news I stumbled across yesterday regarding my University was less visceral and symbolic, but more sinister and consequential. The University President, James Ryan, resigned. In his statement, he said it was to protect the jobs of hundreds of University employees. A little digging - ok, a little scratching of the surface - revealed that the University was one of the institutions of higher education targeted by The Reich due to its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. These programs had been worked on by the University for decades to attempt to remediate generations of racial and gender exclusion. Apparently, the Trump Reich was pressuring Ryan to resign.

I'm not sure how his resignation is supposed to actually prevent Trumpler's minions from cutting funding. Presumably their pressure is about the programs and not the man, and if the University intends to keep its DEI program, then Trumpler's henchmen will carry out their threats. So, I am not really sure what Ryan's act of career hara kiri accomplished.

What Ryan's resignation did accomplish was a public act of obedience to raw dictatorial power. The Fuhrer commanded, the head of an institution not legally subject to his authority complied. He obeyed.

This event just brought back to me ruminations on the foundation of authoritarian power that have consumed my thoughts from time to time in the last couple of years. Other recent occurrences have led me to contemplate what effects social change. On June 14, 70,000 Cascadians marched in Seattle to demonstrate opposition to Trump Reich policies. Every weekend, I drive by people standing by the street with signs declaring their protest against Trumpzi ideas. And today all of the people important to me are in the midst of tens of thousands of people in Seattle for the Pride Parade.

As a bit of an aside, I should point out that the Pride Parade is intended as a celebration, not explicitly an act of protest. That means it is not entirely fair to lump Pride in with what I am to say next, but especially in the current Amerikkkan political context, Pride is an inherently political act by its participants. Being there is a demonstration of belonging to or standing in solidarity with a social group targeted by the society's ruling power.

The Foundation of Political Power

Mao famously pronounced that "all political power grows from the barrel of a gun." He was not wrong, but he also was not right. Force, or the threat of force, does indeed flower into political power, and the monopoly on violence is a cornerstone of the political state. From time immemorial, rulers gained, held, maintained and extended their power through the use of physical force. In the modern state, the threat is ever-present that the military, the police, or publicly-sanctioned private forces of violence could point guns at you if you do not do what you are told.

But the ruler does not get his political power from the gun held in his hands. Herr Trumpler is not standing up with a gun and commanding everyone to do his will or he will shoot them. No ruler in human history ever gained his position by personally beating up or threatening to kill everyone he was to rule.

It would be more accurate to say that "all political power grows from the willingness of men to point guns at other people for you." This truth tells us what is the real foundation of political power:

Obedience.

Even if we reduce political power to force or the threat of force, it is the obedience of the men who will wield that force to the orders of the man on whose behalf they wield it that produces the power. If Herr Trumpler orders his Gestapo to shoot opponents and those men refuse to obey that order, Trump has no power.

The same principle applies to any ruler. It is the obedience of the men with the guns that gives Vladimir Putin his power, or Xi Jinping his power or the Ayatollah his power or Benjamin Netanyahu his power. Without the obedience of the men with guns, each of those glorious rulers is nothing more than an old asshole shouting at the wall.

Obedience.

The reason that Mao while being right is also wrong is that if the person at whom the gun is pointed still refuses to obey, then the gun still gives no power to the man wielding it or to the man to whom the wielder gives obedience. If you tell me to do something and I refuse and you shoot me dead, I still have not done what you wanted and you have not, in fact, gained power. To the contrary, you have lost power because you can no longer benefit from my actions. You only gain power if I obey the command.

While the legitimacy of a government rests on the consent of the governed, the power of a government rests on the obedience of the governed. It does not need their consent to rule. To make it personal, I do not grant my consent to the Trump Reich, aka the Government of the United States of America. I am not willingly ruled by that government. I obey them under duress - but I do obey. Because I obey, any lack of consent, any dissent I may feel or think or voice or even march in the street to demonstrate is of no effect.

The fear that makes us obey when we do not consent can be induced in many ways, with the barrel of a gun being the last resort of the sophisticated ruler. More commonly they create that fear through the implicit threat to take away our livelihood. If I lose my job, I lose my home, and then I become deemed a bad risk and find banks and landlords unwilling to let me get a new home.

Social Change

I am not going to argue here that massive social change is required. I will make such arguments elsewhere, I suppose, but the need for such change should be self-evident by now to anyone who does not willfully blind themself to reality or believe themself immune to consequences. What I am going to argue here is what does and does not have a chance of effecting needed social change.

First, let's deal with voting and then move on. In theory, voting should be the most powerful means to effect social change. Governing institutions are necessary and control of those institutions gives the most direct and powerful way of creating a desired social order. At some point, if you want to make the rules people will live by, you will have to control governing institutions.

The American electoral system is not the way to get there. The entire system is built to keep the parties of the Capitalist elite in firm control of the government. The vote is pointless if the voter is not provided with meaningful alternatives. The American ruling elite has made damn sure that the only alternatives provided to the voters are the Democratic and Republican parties. To the working classes, this is a choice between being shot in the face or shot in the back. There is simply no way that an insurgent electoral movement will succeed at the federal level if that movement does not further the interests of the Capitalist elite (hence the success of the christofascist movement).

We've also been taught that bombarding our representatives with letters or marching in the streets or gathering in parks and listening to speeches will make our voices heard and lead to better policies. That might be true where the policies sought do not change The Way Things Are or threaten the absolute control of the Capitalists, but if we seek to change the balance of power and wealth one iota, they will be absolutely ineffectual.

Why?

Because the rulers do

not

give

a

fuck

what

we the people

want or need.

So what the fuck is the key to effecting a change in the balance of power?

Disobedience.

The Power of Disobedience

The greatest power the working classes have is the power to disobey. Disobedience does not have to be violent, it does not have to be active at all. It can be as passive as sitting somewhere you are not allowed. It can even be as passive as not getting out of your own bed in the morning. In an era of total surveillance and massive means of force at the disposal of a psychopathic elite, passive disobedience is the safest way for the populace to resist.

This is way too long and I am getting tired of writing, so let me just make the point with a thought experiment. What would happen if on one day, one glorious day, everyone in the world refused to pick up a gun, to threaten another human being, to go to work for an evil corporation, to buy the products of those corporations, to carry out the orders of a government boss? What if we did it again the next day? And the next? Within a week, the system would fall. It cannot function without our obedience.

Pride

But what does all of this have to do with Pride?

Nothing really. Pride is a wonderful celebration of gay life, gay culture, gay humanity. It just isn't a vehicle for social change - nor is it intended to be. I just think of it because it is this weekend, and because those celebrating it are directly in the crosshairs of the Trump Reich. If any part of society needs to know how to fight power, it is the People of Pride.