Why Resistance Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
We need to honour different ways of showing up.
Dear friends
Reading some articles and comments here on Substack has made me think a lot about how we talk about protest — and what we expect from each other when things get serious.
There’s this idea, still floating around in a lot of activist spaces, that real commitment looks like turning up to a march. That if you’re not out there with your feet on the street, you’re not really showing up. I get where that comes from. In the US especially, marching has long been the most visible form of dissent.
Part of this pressure today comes from a certain mindset — this idea that once enough people take to the streets, the regime will fall. That if we can just hit that magic 3.5% threshold, the “rule of 3.5%” comes into play, and it’s game over for authoritarianism.
I understand the appeal — it’s simple, it’s measurable, and it offers hope. But it also flattens the complexity of how real change happens, and how regimes fight back.
Yes, that 3.5% figure comes from studies of past movements, but that doesn't make it a guarantee.
It comes from the work of political scientist Erica Chenoweth, whose research with Maria J. Stephan was published in their 2011 book Why Civil Resistance Works. It’s one of the most widely cited studies on nonviolent movements.
But just last month, Chenoweth shared some important caveats:
The 3.5% isn’t a magic number. It’s a snapshot from the past (pre-2006, before the rise of predictive policing, digital surveillance, and sophisticated online disinformation campaigns), not a formula for the future. In fact, it’s already been broken more than once.
It’s built through years of groundwork: small actions, non-cooperation, quiet resistance.
Much of the movement’s strength is built under the radar before reaching mass visibility.
It reflects the peak of a long organising effort, not the starting point.
So, reaching a tipping point doesn’t require uniform action. It requires sustained, collective refusal — in all its forms. The kind that shows up in public, yes, but also the kind that works behind the scenes. The kind that disrupts from within. The kind that quietly builds alternatives and keeps people safe.
Which is why it’s so important to stop measuring everyone’s commitment by whether they’re out there marching. Not everyone can show up like that. People face different risks, carry different responsibilities, and live with different limits. For some, a protest is a powerful act of presence. For others, it’s a fast track to surveillance, arrest, or physical harm. Or it’s just not something their body or nervous system can handle. That doesn’t make their contribution less meaningful.
We’ve got to let go of this idea that everyone should meet us where we are. Or that getting “out of your comfort zone” means doing the same uncomfortable thing someone else is doing. It’s not about pushing everyone onto the front line. It’s about each of us showing up where we’re most effective, most aligned, and most likely to still be standing a week, a month, a year from now.
Resistance takes many forms. And if we want it to last, we need to start respecting all of them.
Some forms are loud, but others are quiet. Some are visible by design, and others must stay deliberately out of sight. All of them matter.
Yes, there’s the kind that shows up in public: marching, chanting, holding signs. Taking over public space to say, we’re here, and we won’t be silent. But there’s also the work of supporting people who are risking more than you are. Or watching someone’s kids so they can attend a rally. Studying other regimes and writing guidelines so you know what to expect. Sharing trusted safety info. Offering a lift to someone who might not otherwise be able to get home safely.
None of that looks dramatic — but it’s often what makes the dramatic parts possible.
Then there’s the digital front. For some, resistance means helping others make sense of what’s real — especially when the official story keeps shifting. That might involve tracking disinformation, protecting communication channels, or simply holding space where people can speak freely and find their bearings.
There’s resistance in refusal. Not just the big dramatic moments — sometimes it’s simply refusing to play along. Refusing to pretend things are normal. Refusing to stay silent when injustice is being minimised, whether that’s at work or school or around the kitchen table. It’s not always visible. But it has a ripple effect.
And sometimes, the most strategic form of resistance is care. Showing up for someone who’s struggling. Offering what stability you can. Keeping relationships strong enough to weather what’s coming.
None of that makes the headlines. But it’s what keeps the work going. Because that range is what helps movements survive — not uniformity.
We need to think of accommodating different skills, different strategies, different risk levels — because what’s possible for one person might be impossible for another. And because no single tactic works forever. What breaks through one month might barely make a dent the next. What’s safe in one city could be deadly in another.
When we expect everyone to resist in the same way, we narrow the movement. We start to mirror the thing we’re resisting: forcing people into a single mould. That creates fragility. And a strong movement has depth — it can absorb shocks, it adapts.
It’s also worth saying this plainly: authoritarian regimes want us divided. They want us spending our energy nit-picking each other’s work, questioning the sources allied writers cite, belittling someone’s efforts because they don’t look like our own. I’ve been on the receiving end of that several times, and it pulls time and focus away from what actually matters.
Even if it’s unintentional, every time we undermine someone else’s way of showing up, we weaken the fabric we’re meant to be holding together. And if we keep doing that, we’re going to lose more than we think we’re protecting.
That plays directly into what authoritarian regimes are trying to achieve — we shouldn’t be helping them get there.
Some people can be loud. Others can be steady. Some can take risks. Others can hold the ground while they recover. And we need all of them. That’s how movements last — not by pushing everyone to the front, but by making sure no one gets left behind.
Honouring someone else’s limits means letting go of the idea that your way is the gold standard. It means not assuming that if you can do something, others should too. And it means trusting that people have assessed what’s at stake in their own lives — even if they’re not talking about it.
It can look like not pressing someone to come to a protest they’ve quietly stepped back from. Or not framing caution as cowardice. Or not using phrases like “real resistance” to draw a line between visibility and everything else.
Sometimes, it means holding your own disappointment quietly, instead of turning it into a judgment about someone else’s commitment. And sometimes, it means asking questions — gently, privately — so you can understand how they are showing up, instead of fixating on how they aren’t.
This isn’t about lowering the bar. It’s about widening the field.
When we create space for people to resist in the ways that make sense for them, we don’t lose power — we build it. Because people last longer when they’re not pretending. And movements last longer when they’re not built on pressure and shame.
In solidarity, always
— Lori
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Excellent column with great recommendations. As someone who was involved in a number of movements over decades, I saw judgmental attitudes create many divides and in-fighting in organizations and action groups. As an organizer, I had to walk a fine line between trying to plug members/volunteers into appropriate and doable (for them) roles and actions in the organization, yet simultaneously pushing individuals and the group into actions that were more effective. Does this make sense?
This: “… authoritarian regimes want us divided.” 100%! Trump uses a divide and conquer approach in politics quite effectively. It started with questioning Obama’s citizenship when he was first campaigning way back when; then the Muslim ban when he first got into office. There’s been endless examples of similar tactics since then…too many to list really. As it applies to The Resistance, he’d love to see us tearing each other down so he doesn’t have to do the hard work of trying to separate us. The best thing we can do is celebrate each other’s approaches to resistance. Empower the movement not the dictator!