Winnability is key. When you’re organizing a population against dictatorship, it’s important to understand what the main emotional barriers are that stand in people’s way. In a lot of countries, that ends up being fear. I look a lot to Otpor in Serbia as an example: they identified fear as the main barrier and said, “What’s the antidote to fear? The antidote to fear is humor. We’re going to be funny in all of our actions so that people aren’t scared.” It was great.
I don’t think the main barrier in the US is fear. It’s skepticism. Most people don’t believe in our ability to change things. So one of the most important things for organizers right now is to pick campaigns that are ambitious, tangible, and winnable — wins that aren’t so small they feel meaningless but are still actually achievable. Because one of the biggest things we need to prove to ordinary people right now is that we really do have power over how the government operates, and over what happens in our society.
Winnability is always important, but it’s particularly important in the United States at this moment. That’s part of why we were picking hotels and Hilton: Hilton’s business model makes us directly relevant to how they make money in a way that’s really helpful for applying pressure. Similarly, this was true of the Disney+ subscription campaign around Jimmy Kimmel and the Tesla Takedown. It’s about identifying where there’s direct leverage — where we can interfere with how they make money in ways that can significantly damage their brand.
And I agree about Amazon and Palantir. I don’t think it’s bad to tell people about them. But I do think there’s a danger of overwhelming a lot of people right now. So many people tell us, “I don’t know where I’m supposed to shop. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Any interaction I have is bad.” That can be paralyzing. It doesn’t move people into action, and it doesn’t get people…
Auteur: Aru Shiney-Ajay
