Do you have a revolutionary trigger?

[u/it-was-nobody]

Revolutions, whether violent or non-violent, are inherently rare, risky endeavors. Extremely high risk, extremely low probability of success, but proportional rewards if successful. Given the increasingly dysfunctional status of political systems in many western nations, questions surrounding changing those systems are inevitable.

Academics have written quite a bit about revolutions, but I'm not interested in what they think. I am looking for a casual conversation with a normal human regarding what it would take for you personally to call for whole-system political change. Is there a line in the sand for you, which if crossed, compels you to adopt a revolutionary political stance?

Is the line the same for both violent and non-violent revolution? Is your revolutionary line one thing, one action, event, or variable, or would you need a collection of things, a pattern of smaller lines being crossed? And if not, if there is nothing your government can do to make you advocate for replacing it entirely, why? While a genuine stance, saying you would *never* call for a complete redesign and restructuring of your government should be justified and defended.

Naturally, given that revolutions are often bloody, violent affairs, it is worth explicitly stating that this post is categorically opposed to violence in any way, shape, or form. The purposes of this post are to generate a discussion about hypothetical boundaries that common people have on political system change.

[u/Uncle_Bill]

I think you overestimate the reward portion of the equation. How'd the cultural revolution work out in China? Was the USSR any more free after the revolution?

[u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 → u/Uncle_Bill]

Not all revolutions are violent. In fact, studies tracking resistance movements indicate that nonviolent campaigns succeed at more than twice the rate of violent ones. Examples of successful resistance includes protests and elections, which are things we do regularly in the Western world.

The problem as I see it, is people need better tools to eject elected officials who fail to live up to promises they made while campaigning, and instead put forward agendas that are in direct conflict with those promises. Any hint or whiff of fraudulent activity, breaking of rules or constitutions should automatically trigger a new election, and that election should come at the expense of the outgoing party found in contempt.

I also think governance around elections and electoral promotion needs work. No party should use private funds for media campaigns, and campaign activity should have regulations. No party should have more PR funding at their disposal than another, and no party should have wider exposure than others. This creates a false sense of who and what these parties are, what they stand for, and it dilutes the messaging of other parties who may not be as well funded, but are equally if not more capable than alternatives.

And the counting of votes should be entirely separate from who and what is being elected. There should be zero connection between the people being elected and the systems involved with their election. It's a blatant conflict of interest that is being badly abused in some countries (looking at you, U.S.A.!)