Repression Management and (Re-)emerging Authoritarianism in the United States

When Lester Kurtz and I edited the book, The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Social Movements, we dedicated almost half of the project to “repression management.” The backfire dynamic, or the paradox of repression, is well recognized in the literature on nonviolent civil resistance and strategic nonviolent action. Sometimes, under the right circumstances, attempts to demobilize challengers through threats, intimidation, attacks, and other forms of repression can in fact lend energy and justification to a movement and spur its growth. Repression management refers to the applied art of taking measures to either diminish the impacts of repression or to make it more likely that repression triggers the backfire effect. We argued that strategic nonviolent activists have a particular advantage because their tactics can dramatically counterframe their opponents’ claims to e.g. benevolence, democracy, and other forms of legitimacy when those opponents turn to raw violence and intimidation. In these cases, activists’ efforts get right to the roots of obedience, resistance, and authority. We also argued that authorities intuitively understand the paradox of repression and try to apply repressive tactics in ways that are significantly less likely to jeopardize the legitimate forms of power on which they rely and that impel their subjects to obey or at least not resist. Are we witnessing the paradox of repression unfold during President Trump’s second term? If so, to what can we attribute it? Is the continuing proliferation of nonviolent trainings in the United States that began during Trump’s first term ensuring sufficiently widespread nonviolent discipline on which the paradox of repression largely relies? Is it the ubiquity of cellphones and social media posts that help reveal the shocking asymmetry of state repression? Is the Trump administration hemorrhaging it’s legitimate power through it’s increasing reliance on highly public and aggressive policing around immigration? Is it succeeding at employing domestic counterinsurgency strategies? As resistance to the Trump administration grows, are movement organizations intentionally practicing repression management by setting up the backfire effect, tailoring their tactical choices to disrupt repression, and effectively training and preparing people to confront agents of the state? Can we discern the impacts of these repression management efforts? Much will depend on the strategic battle over the meaning of repression and legitimate authority, and activists have tools to shape the outcome.