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Ignore the Leader.
Target the Pillars.

A You and a Few Strategy Guide
Why focusing on the person at the top is exactly what the authoritarian playbook is designed to make you do — and what to do instead.
Start Here
Goal Stop reacting to the spectacle and start targeting the institutions that enable it.
Time to Read 10 minutes
What You'll Do After Pick one pillar and take one action on it this week.
One Line You Can Use Today "The leader is the distraction. The pillars are where the leverage is."
The Core Insight

The leader is the distraction

Every outrageous tweet. Every norm violation. Every cruel policy announcement. Every shocking statement. Each one is designed to do one thing: keep your attention fixed on a single person.

This is not incompetence. It is strategy. And it works.

When you focus on the leader, you are doing exactly what the authoritarian playbook is designed to make you do. You spend your energy on outrage. You debate his latest statement instead of his latest policy. You share his name, amplify his message, and keep him at the center of every conversation. You become part of his communications strategy for free.

"Every minute you spend talking about the leader is a minute you don't spend organizing, a minute you don't spend targeting the structures that actually hold power in place."

— Adapted from the pillars of support framework, civil resistance literature

Here's the core insight from decades of research on authoritarian regimes: no leader governs alone. Every authoritarian, every would-be autocrat, every strongman depends on a network of institutions, organizations, and individuals who choose — every day — to cooperate with the regime. These are called the pillars of support.

The leader is the face. The pillars are the body. And the body is where the vulnerabilities are.

The Framework

The pillars of support

Authoritarian power rests on the active or passive cooperation of these key groups. When enough of them defect — when the cost of supporting the regime exceeds the cost of opposing it — the regime cannot function. This is not theory. This is how every authoritarian regime in history has either been sustained or has fallen.

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The Judiciary
Courts, judges, attorneys general, prosecutors. When they rubber-stamp executive overreach, the regime has legal cover. When they push back, the regime has to escalate visibly — which costs public support.
Pressure point: Support judicial independence. Show up to hearings. Amplify judges who rule against overreach. Make it socially and professionally rewarding to uphold the law.
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The Legislature
Members of Congress, state legislators, local officials. Many are quietly uncomfortable but calculating political cost. They need to see that their constituents are watching — and that silence will cost them more than courage.
Pressure point: Flood them with constituent contact. Show up at town halls. Make it impossible for them to claim they didn't know what their voters wanted. Phone calls matter more than tweets.
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Independent Media
Research identifies independent media as the democratic institution most frequently attacked during backsliding. When media is captured or silenced, accountability disappears. This is always an early target.
Pressure point: Subscribe. Pay for journalism. Share reporting, not opinion. Defend press freedom vocally. When local newspapers die, accountability dies with them.
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The Business Community
Corporations, employers, industry leaders. They cooperate when it's profitable and defect when it's costly. They respond to market pressure faster than any other pillar.
Pressure point: Consumer pressure works. Boycotts work. But so does the positive version — publicly supporting businesses that take principled stands. Make courage profitable and complicity expensive.
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Security Forces
Police, military, federal law enforcement, border agents. The most dangerous pillar if fully captured — and the most consequential if it defects. Every authoritarian project requires their cooperation.
Pressure point: Personal relationships matter here more than public pressure. Veterans' groups, police families, retired officers — these are the people who can create internal doubt. Chenoweth's research shows security force defection is often the tipping point.
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Religious Institutions
Churches, mosques, synagogues, faith communities. When religious leaders provide moral cover for harmful policies, they give millions of people permission to look away. When they speak out, they give millions permission to act.
Pressure point: Appeal to stated values, not politics. "Does this align with what we teach?" is a more powerful question than any partisan argument. Religious communities have historically been both the strongest enablers and strongest resistors of authoritarian movements.
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The Bureaucracy
Civil servants, government employees, administrators at every level. Policy is only as effective as its implementation. A bureaucracy that slow-walks, documents, or refuses to implement harmful directives is an enormous check on power.
Pressure point: Support and protect whistleblowers. Normalize documentation. Celebrate civil servants who uphold their oaths. Make it clear that "just following orders" will be remembered.
The Evidence

Why this works better

✗ Focusing on the leader
  • Amplifies their message and name recognition
  • Creates a personality contest you can't win
  • Triggers tribal loyalty in their base
  • Makes opposition look reactive and emotional
  • Burns out supporters with outrage fatigue
  • Leader is insulated from direct pressure
  • Changes nothing structurally
✓ Targeting the pillars
  • Focuses on specific, reachable people and institutions
  • Creates real costs for cooperation
  • Doesn't require changing anyone's mind about the leader
  • Builds structural resistance that outlasts any single figure
  • Gives people specific, local actions
  • Each defection weakens the whole system
  • This is how regimes actually fall

The key insight is this: you do not need the leader to change, resign, or lose an election. You need enough pillars to stop cooperating. The leader without cooperating pillars is a person on a stage with a microphone and no power. The pillars are where the actual power resides — and the pillars are far more reachable than the leader.

In Practice

What this looks like every day

01
Stop sharing his name. Start sharing theirs.

Every time you share the leader's latest outrage, you amplify him. Instead, share the names of the judges upholding the law. The businesses taking stands. The legislators who vote with courage. The journalists doing critical reporting. The civil servants who refuse to comply with unconstitutional orders. Starve the spectacle. Feed the resistance.

02
Make your pressure local and specific

You probably can't influence the leader. But you can absolutely influence your city council member, your local business owner, your school board, your state legislator, your congregation's leadership. That's where your "few" has real leverage. National movements are built from local pressure applied consistently over time.

03
Use the language of costs, not morality

Telling a business that cooperating with harmful policies is "wrong" gives them moral discomfort they can rationalize away. Telling them that cooperating is costing them customers, employees, and reputation gives them a problem they have to solve. Make the practical cost of cooperation visible.

04
Document everything

The bureaucracy can only be held accountable if there are records. The judiciary can only intervene if there is evidence. The media can only report if there are sources. Documentation is not passive — it is one of the most strategically important things any individual can do. Screenshot. Record. Save. Share with journalists. File FOIA requests.

05
Celebrate defectors

When an official breaks ranks, when a business refuses to comply, when a civil servant blows the whistle — celebrate them loudly and publicly. Defection from the pillars is the mechanism by which regimes weaken. Every defector who is celebrated makes the next defection easier. Every defector who is ignored makes the next one less likely.

The Deeper Game

The attention economy weapon

Authoritarian leaders are creatures of the attention economy. They feed on coverage — positive or negative. Every minute of cable news, every trending topic, every viral clip is oxygen. The leader wants you to focus on him. Your outrage is his engagement metric.

The most radical thing you can do is redirect your attention. Not to ignorance — you should absolutely stay informed. But redirect your energy, your conversation, your social media, your action toward the pillars. Talk about what your local officials are doing. Share what your community is building. Amplify the people who are quietly holding the line.

This isn't about ignoring what's happening. It's about refusing to let the leader set the agenda for your resistance. He chooses the spectacle. You choose the strategy.

For every minute you spend reading about the leader, spend two minutes acting on a pillar. Call a legislator. Subscribe to a local paper. Show up at a town hall. Support a business that took a stand. That's where the leverage is.

You and a Few

The leader is the lightning rod.
The pillars are the grid.

Knock out the grid, and the lightning has nowhere to go. Print the guide. Share the strategy. Target the pillars this week.

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