When Violence Is Boring — Why Nonviolence Wins

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Next Comes What – Episode: "When Violence Is Boring — Why Nonviolence Wins"

Host: Andrea Pitzer
Date: May 14, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores the persistence and effectiveness of nonviolent resistance in the face of increasing political violence and authoritarianism, both in the United States and globally. Drawing lessons from history, the civil rights movement, and current political dynamics, Andrea Pitzer dissects why violence often backfires and how well-organized, strategic nonviolence repeatedly outmaneuvers authoritarian actors like Trump and his allies. The episode is interwoven with commentary from historical figures, scholars, and media voices, focusing on societal responses to violence—both real and perceived.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. America’s Climate of Violence, Real and Imagined

• Recent Events: Referencing the attempted attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner and rising conspiracy theories claiming violent incidents are staged for political advantage.
  • Quote: “One quarter of Americans surveyed think that this was a faked assassination attempt.” (Andrea Pitzer, 00:36)
• Violence as Spectacle: Pitzer and guests remark on the normalization and even boredom of violence in American society. Violence is ever-present in media, politics, and law enforcement.
  • Quote: “People imagine violence to be surprising, but it's so omnipresent that it actually strikes me as a pretty predictable part of American life.” (Andrea Pitzer, 17:22)

2. Historical Roots: Assassination, War, and Instability

• The Dangers of Political Violence: Discussion of past assassinations (e.g., Franz Ferdinand) leading to widespread war and chaos, illustrating how a single act can spiral out of control.
  • Quote: “Political violence tends to beget more political violence and to long term instability.” (Andrea Pitzer, 03:32)
  • Quote: “The World War was a red nightmare... that it should have started with such a relatively unimportant event as the assassination of the Archduke Leopold of Austria.” (MLK Jr. reading, 03:53)
• Imperialism and Militarism: Analysis of how empires pursued violence for power, often with little control over the eventual outcome.
  • “The only cause that matters when we talk about the outbreak of the first World War is imperialism.” (Historian/WWI expert, 05:26)

3. Why Nonviolence Wins

• Strategic Superiority: Nonviolence requires discipline, inclusivity, and strategy—qualities historically shown to yield more enduring gains.
  • Quote: “You can't win games without strategy. You can't be strategic without discipline.” (Andrea Pitzer, 05:36, 05:45)
  • Quote: “Communities that organized principally around committing violence don't have a great long term track record.” (Andrea Pitzer, 06:43)
• Personal and Collective Power: Nonviolence isn’t about lacking power, but wielding it differently.
  • Quote: “Nonviolence isn't refusing to embrace or to use power. It's learning to develop it and use it in different ways.” (Andrea Pitzer, 07:31 & 07:52)
  • Quote: “Organized, non violent resistance is the most powerful weapon that oppressed people can use.” (MLK Jr., 07:35)
• Empirical Support: Research by Erica Chenoweth is cited, noting that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.
  • “There’s so many ways of using power, even physical power, in pursuit of a political end, without committing violence against other human beings.” (Andrea Pitzer, 10:24)
  • “It's a truly inclusive method of resistance.” (Alex Churchill, 11:15)
• Creating Societal Norms: Effective nonviolence reframes what is considered ‘normal’ and isolates violent actors as outliers.
  • Quote: “Make your position the normal one in society...so that those who embrace hate and violence...are the outliers.” (Andrea Pitzer, 13:52)
• Defection from Oppressors' Pillars: Successful movements convince segments of the establishment to defect, undermining authoritarian stability.
  • “There’s always a huge range and a spectrum of loyalties... That provides movements with opportunities to disrupt and pull apart those loyalties.” (Alex Churchill, 14:33)

4. Trump, Authoritarianism, and State Violence

• Theatrical Violence: Trump is depicted as deriving energy from chaos, rallying supporters through talk and approval of violence.
  • “He uses the rhetoric of violence. He’s pleased if violence is done in his name.” (Andrea Pitzer, 18:08)
  • “Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously?” (Trump quoted by MLK Jr., 18:34)
• Manipulating the Narrative: Violence is used to justify draconian policies, often targeting immigrants or marginalized groups.
  • “He gave Stephen Miller the green light to bring ultraviolence to immigrant detention.” (Andrea Pitzer, 21:01)
  • “We are again seeing a level of extrajudicial authoritarian tactics held up by the government.” (Andrea Pitzer, 20:06)
• Nonviolent Resistance as Effective Counter: By refusing violent confrontation, nonviolent actors deny authoritarians the spectacle they crave, instead exposing state violence through contrast.
  • “Highlighting the gap between the narrative the state wants to build to justify violence and the communities they use it against is a more useful kind of theater than violence is.” (Andrea Pitzer, 23:27)
  • “Nonviolent theater is better theater.” (Andrea Pitzer, 24:34)

5. Building Nonviolent Movements: Examples and Data

• Community Engagement & Protest: Evidence shows Americans remain far more willing to embrace nonviolent disobedience than political violence, with 98% supporting nonviolent activities.
  • Quote: “Asked about nonviolent civil disobedience like sit ins or blockades, 98% supported groups engaged in these activities. 79% agreed with social movements taking more confrontational action. And 69% reported they personally would participate if they were invited.” (Andrea Pitzer, 26:22)
• Tangible Actions: Advocates for community-focused events, strikes, blockades, and creative nonviolent interventions as mechanisms of disapproval and change.
  • Quote: “Organized boycotts, strikes—these are all ways of...show[ing] power.” (Andrea Pitzer, 27:27)

6. The Challenge and Opportunity

• Organizing for Long-Term Change: Emphasis on the hard, slow, but ultimately more successful task of building broad coalitions, educating people, and making nonviolence the dominant paradigm.
  • Quote: “To make it work, you have to begin organizing to educate people and persuade them toward the policy or political goal you want. Or create a community in which you set those goals together...” (Andrea Pitzer, 27:56)
  • “People united, a people organized, cannot be defeated.” (MLK Jr., 27:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the dangers of political violence:

  “Political violence tends to beget more political violence and to long term instability.”
  — Andrea Pitzer (03:53)

• On the power of nonviolence:

  “Organized, non violent resistance is the most powerful weapon that oppressed people can use in breaking a loose from the bondage of oppression.”
  — Martin Luther King, Jr. (07:35)

• On the normalization of violence:

  “People imagine violence to be surprising, but it's so omnipresent that it actually strikes me as a pretty predictable part of American life.”
  — Andrea Pitzer (17:22)

• On reframing societal norms:

  “Make your position the normal one in society...so that those who embrace hate and violence...are the outliers.”
  — Andrea Pitzer (13:52)

• On resisting Trump’s spectacle:

  “Nonviolent theater is better theater. The radical assertion of humanity in the face of violence is powerful.”
  — Andrea Pitzer (24:34, 24:37)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Conspiracy and staged violence narratives: 00:00–02:09
• Historical reflections on assassination and instability: 03:53–05:26
• Strategy and discipline in nonviolence: 05:36–07:19
• Empirical evidence for nonviolent success: 10:24–11:15
• Present-day law enforcement/militarism critique: 08:09–09:21
• Trump’s use of violence as spectacle: 18:05–19:13
• Contrast of Miller vs. Homan immigration vision: 22:35–23:41
• Nonviolent movement statistics: 26:08–27:08
• Call to action for nonviolent organizing: 27:15–end

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Final Takeaways

• Violence, far from being an effective tool for reform, often breeds instability and strengthens authoritarianism.
• Nonviolence, when strategically organized with discipline and inclusivity, not only wins more frequently but also builds movements capable of transforming societies.
• Trump and his allies rely on the spectacle of violence to justify their policies and energize supporters; nonviolent resistance denies them this power and reframes the conversation.
• The historical Civil Rights framework remains a strong template for current and future struggles.
• The data shows the American public overwhelmingly supports nonviolent methods—this is where real change can take root.
• Listeners are called upon to educate, organize, and innovate with creativity and patience, building collective power without resorting to violence.

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Transcript

[Andrea Pitzer]

Tutor and computer engineer Cole Allen entered his plea of not guilty this week in response to charges against him, which stemmed from showing up with weapons and trying to access the Washington Hilton Ballroom at the White House Correspondent's Dinner in April. There were so many questions that rumors and conspiracy theories flooded the Internet. One of the most prominent was that the attack was staged, suggesting a plot to distract from his declining poll numbers or the war in Iran. The Washington Post reports that one quarter of Americans surveyed think that this was a faked assassination attempt.

[Stephen Miller]

Fake assassination department, where it's more than just a fad.

[Andrea Pitzer]

How can I help you with even more Democrats apparently believing that's the case, while 42% believe the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was staged. There is, of course, the prior case of John Hinckley, Jr. Shooting President Reagan at the same hotel.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

This letter is being written an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jody, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance with this historical deed to gain your respect and love.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And I think of my own strange experiences in that ballroom, ranging from attending a big regional event for Amway distributors there in the 1980s and then later also being involved with Model UN's that were held there.

[C.T. Vivian]

The President will be having a press briefing at the White House in 30 minutes. That is not a joke.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Definitely. We can say the Washington Hilton is a site of cultural framing and the expression of power, but often in some pretty weird or marginal ways.

[C.T. Vivian]

And he insists that we will reschedule this event in the next 30 days.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And that fits in with my experience and I think fits in with events there from April, these conspiracy theories out there on the left and the right,

[C.T. Vivian]

that the event was staged or that it didn't happen.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

What last night didn't happen.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And while I don't see any reason to think that whatever happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner last month was faked.

[News Anchor]

Let's begin this half hour with a check of the headlines.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I do think it's a good moment to consider how we think about violence and power.

[News Anchor]

The US Military blew up another alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific Friday, the third strike in five days, particularly

[Andrea Pitzer]

when it's projected on our screens.

[News Anchor]

Military officials say two men were killed and one survived, adding it notified the US Coast Guard to search for the survivor.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So today's episode will be a little bit less like a summary lecture on history and more of an attempt to give you just some food for thought on violence.

[News Anchor]

The Trump administration's campaign has killed at least 193people since it started targeting alleged drug vessels last September.

[Andrea Pitzer]

For some of you this might be old hat. We but I'm hopeful that it could introduce some new ways for thinking about all this that maybe you haven't considered yet. A bullet meant for President Trump and Butler struck and killed rally goer Corey Comperator. His wife calls the theories the attack was staged offensive, telling the New York Times I'm the one who walked out of there that day without her husband. I know times can feel desperate and you might start to imagine that nothing short of armed revolt could ever change anything in the country at this particular moment you can't earn a billion dollars. That's right. But I personally embrace and recommend nonviolence and political strategy and I do this for a few reasons and here are some of them. Since you didn't earn that, you have to create a myth of earning it. First is that political violence tends to beget more political violence and to long term instability.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

The World War was a red nightmare and it seems incredible that it should have started with such a relatively unimportant event as the assassination of the Archduke Leopold of Austria.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When people think of the strategic removal of one person.

[Alex Churchill]

I'm delighted to welcome Alex Churchill. Alex is a historian and presenter with a fresh perspective on the opening year of the First World War.

[Andrea Pitzer]

As the government is arguing that Cole Allen did when he went to the Washington Hilton.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

There's all these excuses that people come up with for getting involved in the war.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There's very little control that one person has in terms of what they're doing.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

But the really big driving factor for everybody is imperialism is stuff and is being the biggest player on the world stage at the end of it.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Meaning the results often have little to do with the thoughts or views of the person who went to commit violence.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

On 28 June 1914, a 19 year old Bosnian born Serb called Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It's a miracle he pulled it off because he and his friends were grossly incompetent.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Violence often morphs and warps and does harm far beyond the intentions of the person or party or government that inflicts it.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

What Austria, Hungary does is sees the assassination as an excuse to put them in their place. Now they're not trying to start a world war.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I think what practitioners imagine as righteous

[Historian/World War I Expert]

violence you couldn't afford if you were a major imperial power not to have a seat at the table at the end. And really that's the excuse.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Often as night gets hijacked, interrupted and corrupted.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

The big long list of causes, long and short term, are important, but really the only cause that matters when we talk about the outbreak of the first World War is imperialism.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The second reason is that you can't win games without strategy.

[C.T. Vivian]

C T Vivian, the close friend and advisor to Dr. King.

[Andrea Pitzer]

You can't be strategic without discipline.

[C.T. Vivian]

Senator Barack Obama in 2007 called him the greatest preacher to ever live.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Discipline in action is important to build community and coalition.

[C.T. Vivian]

Fifty years ago, Vivian was punched in the face by Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark on the courthouse steps in Selma as he tried to escort a group of African Americans inside to register to vote.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And while communal violence can be disciplined and can build interpersonal bonds, in some cases it often does so in really destructive ways that are hard to transition to nonviolent models.

[C.T. Vivian]

The punch was so hard, Sheriff Clark broke his own hand, C.T. vivian began by talking about the power of nonviolence.

[Andrea Pitzer]

If you never manage to transition to a nonviolent model, what was given to

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

us from its very beginnings is an understanding that we could not win by killing.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Communities that organized principally around committing violence don't have a great long term track record.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Light doesn't come because of darkness.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And the third reason is one that really just boils down to personal preference. In some ways, nonviolence is what I've studied and I know what tends to work within its frameworks and even am aware of its shortcomings. If I'm going to be strategic, I'm going to use the tools I know how to use. Sometimes that might limit my toolbox, but I feel responsibility. When I swing a hammer, I want to know what I'm building and how it's going to be put together.

[Stephen Miller]

May I interrupt you there, Dr. King?

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

There are today certainly people who are

[Stephen Miller]

forced to endure a kind of injustice that neither you nor even Gandhi at his time had ever seen.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Don't forget that nonviolence isn't refusing to embrace or to use power.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

I feel that non violence, organized, I should say organized, non violent resistance is the most powerful weapon that oppressed people can use in breaking a loose from the bondage of oppression.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's learning to develop it and use it in different ways.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

I think it should apply in every situation in the world where individuals seek to break a loose from the bondage of colonialism or from some totalitarian regime from the system which we confront in America.

[Andrea Pitzer]

At the same time, I understand that violence is the default for many facets of American society.

[Social Commentator]

In the wake of the George Floyd killing Most Americans have now come to realize that the police need sweeping changes. But the question is, why has it taken so long?

[Andrea Pitzer]

We are an extraordinarily policed society with violence as a core part of daily life.

[Social Commentator]

Why did so many people, particularly white people, think until now that police are just fine the way they are?

[Andrea Pitzer]

We can see this in the allocation of money to law enforcement in our municipal, state and federal budgets.

[Social Commentator]

Well, one reason is that most Americans don't actually have much actual experience with police.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We see it in the fetishization of law enforcement and the military as quasi religious figures to whom the state enthusiastically gives power over life and death.

[Social Commentator]

How are they forming their opinions about the police? Well, a lot of it comes from the same way I form all my opinions about Klingons.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We can see it in the impunity that law enforcement has to commit violence against and kill noncitizens and citizens alike.

[Social Commentator]

It's actually crazy how every cop show has police just regularly using violence to help them do their job.

[Andrea Pitzer]

To be clear, nonviolent efforts often get met with state violence anyway.

[Social Commentator]

According to cop shows, whenever cops are breaking the law, it's only because they have to.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We can't just break protocol because we think it's right at the time and expect to get away with it. Whatever practice you use for social change, I think it's good to ask what your strategy and tactics hope to accomplish in real life.

[Social Commentator]

Beating a suspect is a great way to get them to confess to something they didn't do, which means you've locked up an innocent person and you've let the real criminal walk free.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So why not commit violence if you might be met with violence anyway? Because I grew up with violence and I am interested in creating power that is not violence, that chooses to act outside of frame of violence and actively doesn't replicate it. But that is hard and slow work and it's frustrating for a lot of people. Since the early 2000s, Erica Chenoweth, Frank Stanton professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, has systematically and empirically assessed historical and contemporary mass movements, focusing on the efficacy of nonviolent campaigns, Non cooperation, nonviolent resistance, boycott strikes. There's so many ways of using power, even physical power, in the pursuit of a political end, without committing violence against other human beings.

[Alex Churchill]

The idea is that when people use these types of techniques and sequences that increase their political pressure over time against the opponent while also managing the risk to people for participating, that they can achieve extraordinary political, social and economic breakthroughs that kind of surprise observers who kind of maybe underestimated how powerful people power can actually be.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I want to build something different than some kind of police state light society.

[Alex Churchill]

The most important thing to know about why nonviolent resistance is so effective, I think is that it's a truly inclusive method of resistance.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In our current society. Law enforcement has the power to commit violence. Political actors often make the public afraid in order to be able to make the argument that you are in danger and the state needs the ability to commit more violence in order to protect you. Here now to weigh in is White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller. Stephen, this week the President doubled down on that promise to take on sanctuary cities, saying they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens. This brings more power both to those politicians and to law enforcement.

[Stephen Miller]

Ice, over and over and over again goes out into the community to find and arrest these fugitives who have since committed additional egregious crimes after they were released by Fry and Waltz and Ellison. These are acts of insurrection against the laws of the United States and against the sovereignty of the United States.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It may sound obvious, but in my experience, a system that increasingly puts its resources toward a capacity for greater violence will lead to more violence.

[C.T. Vivian]

Pete Hexseth told a House committee that the Pentagon is asking for a war fighting budget. Hexith says the military needs $1.5 trillion for the next fiscal year. That's a 44% increase.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I don't want to contribute violence to a violent system because it rarely ends the violence and instead usually produces more.

[Historian/World War I Expert]

This leads to another one of our long term causes, which is militarism. By this we mean that countries became kind of obsessed with making sure that they had the biggest army they possibly could. And in some aspects they're concerned with having a bigger army than their neighbour.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I'm not saying it's never worked, but I'm saying it doesn't have a great track record.

[Stephen Miller]

The First World War was and still remains the bloodiest war ever fought in the history of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And as I've said before, the involvement and persistence of determined people who keep showing up is undergirded with a different kind of power, a different kind of pressure, implicit pressure, both physical and psychological.

[Alex Churchill]

What this really suggests is just that people power isn't just about a huge number of people being in the streets, but it's about that building of pressure and building of momentum.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The implicit psychological dynamic occurs when you make your position the normal one in society, the reasonable one, that people come to accept and get it to be perceived as such. So that those who embrace hate and violence and targeting vulnerable groups feel those ideas are the outliers and put them outside the social norms in a way that will be upsetting. And to some of them, that kind

[Alex Churchill]

of leads us into the second thing that explains the success of civil resistance campaigns, which is the ability to get people to defect from the opponent's pillars of support.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Others may not mind, but you only need to peel off the margins to secure significant political power.

[Alex Churchill]

There's no such thing as a monolithic pillar. It's not like the entire business community is equally excited to support an autocrat. There's always a huge range and a spectrum of loyalties residing in all of those pillars. And that provides movements with opportunities to really begin to disrupt and pull apart those loyalties.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And the implicit physical pressure is just that. A crowd of people who are unhappy with an existing policy creates real impetus for change.

[Alex Churchill]

Successful movements maintain resilience and organizational discipline even as repression against a movement might escalate.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Coming together in public keeps people with less power from being picked off in isolation and their demands ignored.

[Alex Churchill]

Successful movements to innovate new techniques of nonviolent resistance.

[Andrea Pitzer]

This kind of implicit pressure wears power holders down over time, unsettles them, and can exact concessions.

[Alex Churchill]

Economic non cooperation, withholding labor is one of the most powerful forms of nonviolent resistance that societies have been able to develop.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Despite a commitment to nonviolence. I've tried in my life to understand how violence is used and how it functions. I've studied and taught martial arts for years and worked with refugees who had faced torture, with survivors of sexual assault, with kids in communities with hate crime prevention, public health outreach programs. I'm uninterested in owning a gun, but learned to shoot a variety of rifles to get certified to carry one for defense against polar bears in the Norwegian Arctic. I created a Violence Prevention Bulletin decades ago to look at research on interpersonal violence, which is different than political violence, but can have parallel effects and I think is often applied in similar ways. It's worth remembering that however specific your goal is, violence is a blunt tool. As such, it will often be read however people want to interpret it, or even however they automatically register it. I'm not sure that violence in opposition to the state changes people's perspectives at this particular moment in history. It seems to either reinforce the public's pre existing ideas or fails to affect them in any meaningful way at all. People imagine violence to be surprising, but it's so omnipresent that it actually strikes me as a pretty predictable part of American life. So in its most common forms, people are often numb to it. Enacting violence leads people to respond in stock ways. It may be even more likely that viewing it through a mediated frame, as most people do, a violent act will simply fall into some pre constructed idea in their head and not even enter their thought process in any complex way. People are saturated in violence in our culture and in many others, to be fair. Superhero fantasy films, true crime, conspiracy videos. Violence is a constant in our age, often inextricable from theater. There are definitely people who take this question more seriously, but I'm convinced some number of people who spend time on social media calling for violent uprising just want someone to put on a better show for them to watch. We see a kind of boredom with violence in Trump, who never seems to feel there's enough violence happening.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

I cannot believe how civil it's been up here.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He uses the rhetoric of violence.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

You know, what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He's pleased. If violence is done in his name,

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

they'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He was unhappy with generals in his first administration who he thought weren't subservient enough to do his wishes to commit violence.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Like to punch him in the face. I'll tell you.

[Andrea Pitzer]

My sense is he does this because he likes seeing violence committed, he likes hearing about violence, and he likes it when other people know he has the power to inflict it.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously?

[Stephen Miller]

I will pay for the legal fees, I promise.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And his whole ethos is to have no accountability at all.

[Stephen Miller]

In North Carolina this week, the world saw a Trump supporter do exactly what Donald Trump had called for, sucker punching a protester as he was being escorted out.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So his real glee comes from his supporters or agents committing violence that exceeds the norms, that exceeds what is legally permissible, even though the category of what is normal and what is legally permissible from the President of the United States is incredibly expansive.

[Stephen Miller]

Now Trump's rivals are openly accusing him of sowing the seeds of chaos and fomenting violence. The job of a true leader is not to stoke people's anger.

[Andrea Pitzer]

This line of thinking sees extrajudicial violence as the best kind.

[Social Commentator]

Encouraging violence is wrong, and that's why I've called it out.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I think this is another reason why the civil rights model and approach to nonviolence is a good basic framework for us.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Now I accept the Nobel prize for peace.

[Andrea Pitzer]

1. It already has a track record, and Americans have some familiarity with it. And it is seen by a majority of us as a good thing at

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Two, While the violence that was unleashed against black civil rights communities and demonstrators was extraordinary, we are again seeing a level of extrajudicial authoritarian tactics held up by the government. Government as the very model of what law enforcement, particularly ICE and Border Patrol, should be, with the justification that people are somehow subhuman or terrorists or a threat to national safety.

[Stephen Miller]

Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller. All right, Miller, we got Haitians now on the gravy train, not just eating the dogs and cats anymore.

[Andrea Pitzer]

This is a perverted part of governance that Trump understands very well that they

[Stephen Miller]

are going to come here and steal everything we have. Somalia has this giant coastline, and the only industry they have created after hundreds of years is piracy.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He gave Stephen Miller the green light to bring ultraviolence to immigrant detention.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

I'm Michelangelo Signorelli and I am with Joe Sudbay. We're both at SiriusXM.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And when that excess of violence manages to break through the jaded viewers of violence and actually offend white voters, as it did with the deaths of Alex Pretty and Renee Goode.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

There was an article in the Atlantic that published today about Stephen Miller and how he's supposedly been isolated a bit.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He understands the need to dial it back long enough to serve his own political ends.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

You know, Stephen Miller's like an addiction for him.

[Andrea Pitzer]

He.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

He understands he's bad for him politically, but it makes Trump really feel high embracing Miller and that agenda.

[C.T. Vivian]

Right.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

He can never quit him and resort

[Andrea Pitzer]

to it again later at a point when it's more advantageous for him to try to shock once more.

[Stephen Miller]

This is the thing that drives Trump.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

They're building concentration camps all across the country. They've got to fill them up. We're going to do something with them.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So now, for a while, at least ahead of the election, we're going to get more Tom Homan.

[Stephen Miller]

Last week there was a conference in Arizona, and Tom Homan was there and had said, talking about mass deportation, you ain't seen shit yet.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And we're going to get less Stephen Miller.

[Stephen Miller]

A lot of people hate Stephen Miller inside and outside the administration because he is as diabolical and evil as he appears.

[Andrea Pitzer]

More than a year ago, I talked to Aaron Reichland Melnick, who laid out exactly this dynamic before Trump even returned to office. This question of Stephen Miller versus Tom

[Joe Sudbay]

Homan, I would say the Miller version would be Trump 2.0, and the Homan version is Trump 1.5.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Tom, how good a president is Trump? Good as president of my lifetime. Yes, sir. I got a question, I got a question. Are you all legal?

[Joe Sudbay]

It's hard to say whose vision is going to actually prevail. You know, personally, when we look at how governments execute immigration enforcement and how it has historically executed it, I think the Hohman vision is maybe slightly more likely because that is the vision that envisions an enforcement system that does broadly look like the system we have today, just with more resources involved with it.

[Andrea Pitzer]

As in the civil rights era, highlighting the gap between the narrative the state wants to build to justify violence and the communities they use it against is a more useful kind of theater than violence is.

[Joe Sudbay]

But there's also a real possibility that we do go down the Stephen Miller path. That he does the president and elect Trump does deputize the National Guard, that they do start building dozens of new detention centers. And whose vision is going to win the day remains to be seen.

[Alex Churchill]

Right.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's a kind of nonviolence theater to meet Trump era violence with violence creates the visuals that either reinforce the image of a warrior that he wants to create or risks legitimizing him as anything more than a doddering, washed up coward.

[Stephen Miller]

Trump's opponents are now wavering on their promise to support him if he wins the nomination. Do you support him as a nominee

[Historian/World War I Expert]

if he, if he's the nominee?

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

I don't know. Getting harder every day.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I think that nonviolent theater is better theater.

[Stephen Miller]

This is Tim Snyder.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The radical assertion of humanity in the face of violence is powerful.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

We know from history and we know from recent experience that nonviolent protest makes authoritarian regime change less likely and makes it more likely that we'll have a future of open, free politics again.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Nonviolent tactics don't require a rejection of power. It's understanding that power can show out in different ways.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

It changes the atmosphere.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Polarization can be a fine, fine thing, but you want to frame the split around the values that will draw people to be part of what you want to accomplish.

[Michelangelo Signorelli]

When we go outside, when we join together, we help show the country, we help show the world, we help show everybody else that this is not normal, that we are on the wrong path.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Playing hardball with ideas while creating compelling frameworks is more appealing than violence. If not on television, then in the real world, which is where we really need to get moving. NO Kings and similar groups sometimes get knocked for not following through and engaging in more specific ways. But any of us can take on that role and set goals for something specific in our communities.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Aloud. Mayday. Welcome to New York City Mayor. New York City Mayor Thorad Muami Mamdani.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Dana Fisher's research on no Kings has shown that far more people are interested in next steps that are non violent than are prepared to engage in violence.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Workers have won the rights that are taken for granted today. The 40 hour work week, the weekend, overtime pay, minimum wage, Social Security, workplace safety standards.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Asked about non violent civil disobedience like sit ins or blockades, 98% supported groups engaged in these activities. 79% agreed with social movements taking more confrontational action. And 69% reported they personally would participate if they were invited.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

And that is why we continue to fight for those who power this city as we look to deliver universal child care, faster buses, cheaper groceries, protecting our neighbors from the cruelty of ice.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But at the most recent no Kings March, only 1 in 4, 25% thought Americans might have to resort to political violence.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

And yes, working to tax the wealthiest and the most profitable corporations in New York City.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Those statistics are an invitation to launch nonviolent actions and community events where you live.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

In the words of Samuel Gompers, you can't do it unless you organize millions

[Andrea Pitzer]

of bodies in the street, organized boycotts, strikes. These are all ways of expressing disapproval of policies that hold an implicit threat of accountability and show power.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Together, we will show the world what solidarity means.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Specific actions that draw attention to a problem or confront those with power to change it are a model for asserting a different kind of power.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

People united, a people organized, cannot be defeated.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But to make it work, you have to begin organizing to educate people and persuade them toward the policy or political goal you want. Or create a community in which you set those goals together, figure out what you're moving toward and invite people in. And you have to be creative. The more you surprise people, the more you move away from the abstract to get them to consider something in a new way. The more you offer some kind of interaction that moves them outside of the predictable and the known, the more likely you are to get them to really engage. Sometimes that means confronting power holders in unusual ways or in unusual settings. Sometimes that means just getting public attention and finding ways to engage people. From community events and performances to interactive activities and things that are fun. But you can find the things that show your strengths that over time will build power. The kind of power we can assert together that carries a sense of force and accountability in the physical world to bring change and long term stability for all of us. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next Comes what? Please share this with one person who's looking for ways to survive this mess. To support this podcast, please become a paid subscriber at andreapitzer. Com and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts.