this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
579 points (99.3% liked)

politics

30906 readers
1660 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
  3. No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
  4. No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, that "rule" is bullshit. It's cherry picked at best.

Edit: for those downvoting, even the wiki page says as much right at the top.

[–] fizzle@quokk.au 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

You're probably right, but i think the point is worth making - a surprisingly small number of people acting in concert can make topple an authoritarian regime.

The thing is, grumbling on Facebook isn't enough. If 5% of people could boycott oligarchs indefinitely, that might undermine Trump's support. That's actually quite hard to achieve though.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The problem with that rule is that it says you have to be perfectly peaceful and roll over. For example, though it's categorized as a non-violent movement, the civil rights movement in the US had a fairly large violent wing as well. Also, the non-violent wing was said to be violent by the media of the time.

Personally, I don't think non-violence alone can accomplish the goals. I think it's useful to show the regime how much support there is, and how much force is available if it's actually needed. The violent wing also needs to be there though causing actual damage that they can witness. They need to see what will happen if they don't listen. The non-violent group will begin increasingly supporting the violent group.

In order to cause real change, there needs to be a credible threat. They don't care if you politely ask for change. They care if they're in danger. That's all authoritarian regimes ever care about. Not the will of the people.

[–] fizzle@quokk.au 2 points 7 months ago

They don’t care if you politely ask for change. They care if they’re in danger. That’s all authoritarian regimes ever care about.

Ok but money is a credible threat.

Dr Jack Goldstone was talking about this on ologies podcast episode about revolutions.

The autocrat supports oligarchs, who use their influence to keep the autocrat in power.

For example, Musk, Bezos, Zucc, contributing many millions in campaign donations to support republicans.

My point is, if public sentiment turns against these oligarchs and is expressed through boycotts, they may withdraw their support for the autocrat. The problem of course is the amount of money Trump is funneling to them in the form of grants and tax cuts. It will be difficult to exceed that.

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago

That’s actually quite hard to achieve though.

But not impossible. Boycott big companies is as good a start as any and beats doing nothing.