Political movements must seize fleeting protest moments or lose them to ruling patience

Evidence

Lenin is quite right: it’s imperative that this doesn’t happen — the ruling class are counting on the street militancy fizzling out as suddenly as it flared up. We have an opportunity here, not only to bring down the government — which is eminently achievable (keep reminding yourself: this government is very weak indeed), but of winning a decisive hegemonic struggle whose effects can last for years. The analogy that keeps suggesting itself to me is 1978 — but it is the coalition, not the left, which is in the position of the Callaghan government. This is an administration at the end of something, not the beginning, bereft of ideas and energy, crossing its fingers and hoping that, by some miracle, the old world can be brought back to life before anyone has really noticed that it has collapsed. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1508

Categorization

• XREF: The 1978 Winter of Discontent analogy and coalition-as-Callaghan framing connects to Fisher’s broader capitalist realism thesis about the exhaustion of governing ideas — connects to: Sometimes the right political action is to wait and organize instead of disrupt — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 908; Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization; Effective political action must match its tactic to the phase of struggle — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 902 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Sometimes the right political action is to wait and organize instead of disrupt #contradicts (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 908
• Effective political action must match its tactic to the phase of struggle #qualifies (0.75) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 902
• Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization #corroborates (0.70)