From Resilience TO Resistance
This year, Resilience to Resist has centered on grounding, connection, and sustaining our capacity to act, primarily through contacting our elected representatives and some direct action. That remains vital — but now the times demand a sharper strategy.
We’re shifting toward strategic noncompliance: the deliberate, collective refusal to cooperate with systems of harm. It’s the art of disrupting authoritarian power by withdrawing the obedience and consent that sustain it– in small and large ways.
Strategic noncompliance isn’t about isolated acts of defiance; it’s about coordination. Each person contributes in ways aligned with their capacity and risk level — whether that’s participating in boycotts and buycotts, mini strikes, work slow-downs, community protection, communications support, mutual aid, or direct action. What matters is that it’s collective and strategic. Individual acts, however brave, are rarely effective on their own.
Learning from Movements That Work
Our task now is to learn how ordinary people — from Brazil to Serbia to South Korea — have done this before: disrupting authoritarian control through disciplined, creative, nonviolent, and networked action.
If this sounds daunting, or you think “I’m not an activist,” know that the spectrum of ways to participate in noncompliance is vast — from cancelling a Disney subscription, to being a voice in your professional organization for divesting from Tesla, to joining strikes and work slowdowns.
What matters is that each act, no matter how small, contributes to a larger collective strategy. For example, we can look at the immense economic and public pressure applied to Disney to put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air– and it worked!
Building the Muscles for Collective Movement
If you’ve been feeling powerless in the onslaught — read on.
Many of us were taught to trust our own “power,” to believe that the system of laws and due process would protect us. But those instincts — shaped by privilege and proximity to safety — won’t meet this moment. And for many Americans, they never did.
It’s time to learn from those who have long organized outside that illusion — who know in their bones how collective power is built and sustained.
What’s Next
I’ll be assisting with 2-day-long strategic non-cooperation trainings, one on November 22nd, and the other on December 6th. Please reach out directly to me if you are interested in joining, as these trainings are not being publicized publicly.
.. if you want a little more about what strategic non-cooperation is, and some examples…
Podcast: Hardy Merriman on the Power of Coordinated Public Pressure
Coordinated Action, Real Hope
From Daniel Hunter, international anti-authoritarian strategist, consultant, and movement leader.
“It will be helpful to have a power analysis in our minds, specifically, that’s known as the upside-down triangle. This tool was built to explain how power moves even under dictatorships.
The central tenet is that, like an upside-down triangle, power can be unstable. It naturally topples over without anything supporting it. To prevent that, power relies on pillars of support to keep it upright. Shifting the loyalty, even a little bit, in a pillar, and the power structure becomes unstable:
Describing the pillars of support, Gene Sharp wrote:
‘By themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, keep markets supplied with food, make steel, build rockets, train the police and army, issue postage stamps, or even milk a cow. People provide these services to the ruler through a variety of organizations and institutions. If people would stop providing these skills, the ruler could not rule.’
Removing one pillar of support can often gain major, life-saving concessions. One recent example, among many, is that in response to Trump’s 2019 government shutdown, flight attendants prepared a national strike. Such a strike would ground planes across the country and a key transportation network. Within hours of announcing they were 'mobilizing immediately' for a strike, Trump capitulated.
There is real hope to be found in this strategy that has been shown, time and time again, around the world, to be effective against authoritarian power grabs and even in bringing down regimes.