Tag: noncooperation

See tags: boycotts, slow-compliance, strike, walk-out, withdraw, work-to-rule

How to Be a Dissident

By Gal Beckerman
Apr 21, 2026
Publisher: Crown
Recommended by: Bruce R

An invigorating guide to fighting back—part philosophy, part history, and part manual for living with integrity in an age of conformity and authoritarian drift

How do we push back in a world where political leaders wield fear and intimidation? Where digital technology dehumanizes and flattens us? We need role models, and in this engaging book, acclaimed writer Gal Beckerman goes looking for them. Drawing on the stories of dissidents from around the globe and across time, from Socrates to Ai Weiwei, and thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Iris Murdoch, Beckerman reveals the defining characteristics these extraordinary figures share, a set of attributes and practices for anyone navigating the pressures of modern tyranny.

Structured around ten qualities—among them, Be Pessimistic, Be Funny, Be Reckless, and Be Immortal—this illuminating, surprising book blends intellectual history, biography, and cultural criticism. It charts a dissident’s journey from the solitary moment of recognizing the truth, through the risks of speaking it, to the legacy that can outlast a life. What makes dissidents tick? And how might we change when we encounter them?

Urgent and inspiring, Beckerman’s book shows that dissidence is a human capacity we can all cultivate, a refusal to betray one’s inner voice, no matter the cost. In a polarized America and a world sliding toward authoritarianism, we need dissidents—not only the jailed and martyred, but also those of us who face small daily compromises of conscience. How to Be a Dissident lights the way.

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How To Resist Authoritarianism Without Losing Yourself | Gal Beckerman
VALOR Media Network and Kristofer Goldsmith (May 27, 2026)

Not in theory. Not in history books. Right now.

In this episode of On Offense, Kris Goldsmith speaks with Atlantic staff writer and author Gal Beckerman about his new book, How to Be a Dissident, and the deeper psychological questions raised by life under rising authoritarianism.

This conversation explores conformity, moral courage, propaganda, normalization, and the pressures that cause ordinary people to stay silent while democratic institutions erode around them.

But more importantly, we discuss what makes dissidents different, and Beckerman’s ten rules that shape them.

Drawing from dissident movements across history — and from the lived reality of the second Trump administration — Beckerman argues that resistance begins long before politics. It begins with the refusal to normalize cruelty, corruption, fear, and obedience.

Together, Kris and Gal discuss:

  • Why authoritarianism depends on adaptation and exhaustion
  • How propaganda reshapes identity and social behavior
  • The psychological pressure to conform
  • Why some people comply while others “sit apart”
  • The role of community and “neighborism” in resisting authoritarian politics
  • Why “hopeful pessimism” may be necessary for democratic survival
  • What integrity looks like in moments of democratic decline

This is a conversation about how human beings behave when institutions fail — and how we choose who we become in the process.

The key to defeating Trump? Mass non-cooperation

Our studies in civil resistance offer insight into the level of popular organizing needed to repel assaults on democracy.

by Mark Engler and Paul Engler

Publisher: The Guardian

Recommended by: Bob B.

In the wake of two horrifying killings of legal observers in Minnesota, on top of the abduction of countless immigrant community members, the country has reached a turning point. Backlash against ICE’s lawlessness and aggression has reverberated so loudly that even Trump has heard it. But the effects on ordinary Americans contemplating what they would do if they lived in Minneapolis or St Paul is perhaps even more profound.

The extraordinary level of grassroots solidarity and creative resistance in anti-ICE protests in Minnesota has given people a new appreciation for the power that mass non-cooperation can have in resisting the Trump administration’s drive toward authoritarianism. And it has created an awareness of why such action is clearly needed.

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This Is an Uprising

Keep Your Guard Up

Know Your Rights

By ACLU

Last month, the Bay Area braced for a surge of National Guard soldiers and federal immigration agents. Although Trump ultimately called off the troops, in the short time Border Patrol officers were here, they fired flash-bang grenades at peaceful community members and shot a pastor in the face with a pepper ball. The unprovoked violence was a chilling glimpse of how future immigration raids could unfold here. That’s why we can’t become complacent.

Be prepared and know your rights in case federal agents show up anywhere in our region:

This is from the ACLU’s Know Your Rights page.

Noncooperation & Targeting Pillars of Support

This handout describes some of the Pillars of Support.

Each time a pillar institution yields to or supports the regime, the regime grows stronger. In contrast, noncooperation — refusing to do what is expected, disrupting the normal course of events, and withdrawing support from unjust or illegal policies — weakens the regime and creates cracks in its foundation of power.

PDF Handout

One Million Rising

by Indivisible

Publisher: No Kings

Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations, rollbacks of civil rights, weaponized courts, and full-scale attacks on our democracy. We don’t have to wait until it’s too late. We can stop this. But it’ll take all of us—not just single days of mass action, but sustained organizing in our communities.

That’s why this summer, we’re launching One Million Rising—a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design. This is how we build people power that can’t be ignored. You’re invited to join us—and lead.

You can visit the site to see the recorded videos and access the training materials.

https://www.nokings.org/rise

Attack from Within

How Disinformation is Sabotaging America

by Barbara McQuade

Publisher: Penguin Random House

UPDATED EDITION: The MSNBC legal analyst explores the impact of disinformation after the 2024 presidential election—and what Americans can do before it’s too late.

“A comprehensive guide to the dynamics of disinformation and a necessary call to theethical commitment to truth that all democracies require.” —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

Disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth, whether from opportunists on the far right, misinformed media influencers, or others—is fragmenting America more than ever before, pushing the nation toward extreme views, civil unrest, and violence.

In this bestselling book, now with a new foreword by the author, Barbara McQuade identifies how disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society, causing havoc in our voting systems, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and the Capitol.

McQuade, an MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor confronts the ways disinformation is being weaponized to polarize voters, degrade our legal structures, and leverage the political influence of manipulators and authoritarians. Now newly updated, Attack from Within shows us how to fight back against misinformed, extremist thinking and work toward preserving America’s hard-won democracy.

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Defy

The Power of No In a World That Demands Yes

by Sunita Sah

Publisher: Random House

Imagine living the life you want to lead, not the one you’re willing to accept. This profound but practical book offers clear steps to stop people pleasing and start living your truth.

“A powerful book. If you’ve ever compromised your principles to please others, Defy will give you the will—and skill—to stand up for yourself.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

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Why Civil Resistance Works

The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan

Publisher: Columbia University Press

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents’ erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment.

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Strategizing For A Living Revolution

by George Lakey

Publisher: History As A Weapon

Recommended by: Bruce R.

This article is a comprehensive strategic framework for nonviolent revolution, combining historical case studies, practical organizing guidance, and theoretical insights about movement building.

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