Fighting Fascism: The Unforgiving Physics of Political Power

It's Not About Pushing Harder; It's About Pushing Smarter

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I get is about clarity. Many of you have said that you appreciate how I cut through the political noise to make complex dynamics feel understandable. Today, I want to let you in on one of the secrets behind that clarity: a mental framework I call the “Political Laws of Motion.”

In politics, moral truth alone is inert. Power only moves when you push.

It all comes down to a simple physics analogy. If there’s a boulder sitting in your path, yelling at it won’t move it. You can reason with it. You can explain why, morally, it shouldn’t be there. The boulder doesn’t care. To move it, you have to apply Force—push, lever, pry—and you have to do it in the right place and in the right direction.

In politics, the same physics apply. For too long, we’ve been yelling at the boulder, mistaking moral outrage for effective action. This framework is how we stop. It’s the diagnostic toolkit we need to understand why we’re failing and how to finally start winning.

Let’s break it down.

The Political Laws of Motion

To understand why so much of our effort fails, we need to define our terms. This isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a diagnostic toolkit:

• Force: The actions we take. This is our raw energy—protests, calls, boycotts, strikes, and voting.

• Leverage: The amplifiers that multiply small efforts into massive shifts. These are our tools: media, institutions, culture, law, and money.

• Friction: Everything that resists motion and wastes energy. This is the sludge of politics: misinformation, apathy, economic precarity, burnout, infighting, fear, and confusion. Friction is why so much sincere effort generates heat instead of movement.

• Work: The actual change produced when our actions move the system. Work isn’t about how hard you push; it’s about whether the boulder actually moves. This is a law changed, money redirected, or a norm shifted.

• Power: How quickly and cohesively change happens. Power isn’t just strength; it’s timing, coordination, and endurance.

A Simple Example: Moving an Ally

This is the default for most activism. The total amount of energy—the Force—is significant, but it’s applied inefficiently and gets eaten by Friction.

• Scattered In-Person Protests: Instead of a single, focused protest, activists organize multiple small protests across the state, targeting different companies that are known climate offenders. While well-intentioned, this diffuses the message. The Senator isn’t the target, so she feels no direct pressure. Furthermore, holding numerous protests demands that dedicated supporters repeatedly take time off work, a high-cost action that increases Friction and leads to burnout.

• High-Friction Boycotts: Online, a passionate group calls for boycotts of the targeted companies. But this is another high-Friction tactic. Getting people to stop using the main power company or the biggest local employer is a huge ask they’re not willing to make. The boycott call fizzles out, creating a sense of failure.

• Unfocused Direct Contact: People are calling the Senator’s office, but it’s sporadic and there’s no unified message. Her staff fields a jumble of disconnected complaints. One call is an angry rant, the next is a ten-minute academic lecture on glacial melt. With no clear, repeated “ask,” the calls are logged as general “environmental concerns” and easily dismissed. Virtually no one is using social media to coordinate.

• The Messaging is a Lecture: The language used by the activists is complex and academic. Instead of sharp slogans, they present detailed policy arguments on their signs and in their calls. They sound like they’re delivering a thesis defense, not a political demand. This cognitive Friction makes the message inaccessible, unmemorable, and emotionally sterile.

The result? A tremendous amount of Force is exerted, but it produces almost no Work. The activists are exhausted, the public is confused, and the boulder of inaction hasn’t moved an inch. The Senator feels no focused pressure, just a vague, ignorable hum of discontent.

The Leveraged Approach (Doing the Work)

Now, let’s use physics. This approach uses the same amount of collective energy but focuses it with Leverage and a completely different messaging strategy. Instead of academic lectures, the messaging is snappy, emotional, and built around simple slogans. The detailed data and policy briefs exist, but they are the foundation for the campaign, not the bullhorn.

• Institutional Leverage: You get three local unions and a major faith leader in her state to make a joint statement, not just supporting climate action, but explicitly asking the Senator to “co-sponsor the Clean Future Act, S. 123.”

• Media Leverage: You work with a local journalist on a story, not just about the climate, but about the specific benefits of S. 123 for her state, positioning her co-sponsorship as a tangible win for her constituents.

• Coordinated Phone Campaign: You organize a single-day call-in event. 500 constituents deliver the exact same 30-second script with a clear, actionable ask: “Hello, I’m a constituent calling to urge the Senator to co-sponsor the Clean Future Act, S. 123. This bill is critical for our state. Please ask her to sign on this week.”

• Coordinated Social Media Campaign: You launch a national campaign with a specific ask.

  • Positive Reinforcement: Allies tweet: “Senator, your constituents are asking you to co-sponsor the Clean Future Act. Be our climate champion! #CoSponsorS123”

  • Negative Reinforcement: The message focuses on the cost of inaction: “Every day Senator [Name] waits to co-sponsor S. 123, [State] falls further behind. #CoSponsorCleanFutureNow”

• Coordinated In-Person Protest: You organize a disciplined protest outside her main office. The signs aren’t generic; they are focused on the ask: “SENATOR, CO-SPONSOR S. 123“ and “[STATE] NEEDS THE CLEAN FUTURE ACT.” The chant is simple and specific: “What’s the bill? S-1-2-3! What’s the ask? Co-sponsor, please!”

Notice the difference? This is a pincer movement of pressure. Every channel—institutional, media, digital, and physical—is delivering a consistent, disciplined signal. The first approach was just noise. This is how raw Force is focused and translated into actual Work. The amount of energy might be the same, but it’s focused and amplified. The Leverage bypasses the Friction. It’s no longer easy for her to ignore the issue; in fact, supporting the bill has now become the path of least resistance. She co-sponsors it. Work has been done.

Now, let’s scale this up. What happens when it’s not a hesitant ally, but an entire political movement pushing back with its own force, its own leverage, and a deep understanding of these very laws?

The Imbalance of Power

But here’s what many people miss: politics isn’t a vacuum. There’s almost always another side pushing back. The system only moves when one side produces more net work than the other.

In this context, the political right has mastered Leverage. They’ve learned how to turn small, coordinated pushes into seismic shifts using social media algorithms, think tanks, legal networks, and deep-pocketed donor systems. They don’t always apply more raw Force, but they’ve mastered where and how to apply it to make work happen.

Let’s be clear: the right has inherent advantages in this fight. Decades of long-term investment in think tanks and a natural alliance with corporate power give them immense economic Leverage that the left often cannot match dollar-for-dollar. But this asymmetry is not an excuse to abandon the field. It’s a reason to be smarter. It means our strategy must be so precise, our message so disciplined, and our use of the Leverage we do have so effective that we overcome their brute-force financial advantages.

But instead of rising to that strategic necessity, the left keeps trying to move the boulder by hand. It’s all raw Force—outrage, protest, moral clarity—but often applied without leverage or synchronization. It feels righteous, but in physics terms, it’s just energy dissipating as heat.

The Three Kinds of Friction Killing Our Momentum

So why are we stuck generating so much friction? It comes down to three uncomfortable truths.

1. The Curse of Purity: Too many people on the left refuse to use certain tools—whether it’s mass media strategy, legal hardball, AI, or coalition-building with imperfect allies—because those levers feel tainted. But that’s not a moral high ground; it’s self-sabotage. At some point, every movement must face this question: Would you rather compromise a little so your ideals can survive, or keep your purity and watch those ideals die out completely? In a fight where the other side is using every lever available, there is no universe where you get to keep your purity and win.

2. The Curse of Individuality: The left has an obsession with creative individuality. Everyone wants to remix the message, put their own spin on it, and brand it in their own aesthetic. The intent is good, but in terms of power, it’s self-defeating. Messaging works like physics, too: a hundred scattered pushes in slightly different directions cancel each other out. The right has perfected message discipline—repetition, simplicity, consistency—so their collective force acts like a sharp knife. Meanwhile, we’re trying to cut through steel with our bare fingers. Every time someone dulls the blade with unnecessary deviation, we lose momentum.

3. The Curse of Intellectualism: We are addicted to sounding like the smartest people in the room. While the right hammers simple, emotional slogans, we deliver academic lectures. We assume facts will win on their own and that reason will cut through the noise. We write long rebuttals, explain policy nuances, and act like we’re giving a PowerPoint presentation at a think tank. This is a fatal error. Facts don’t move people; stories and emotions do. By prioritizing complex arguments over powerful, repeatable slogans, we create massive cognitive Friction. Our messages are too dense to stick and too detached to inspire. In an information war, the side that makes its audience feel the most, wins. We must stop talking like Sunday school teachers and start fighting with the conviction and fury that the facts demand.

Real-World Physics: A Hard Look at the Broadview ICE Protests

To see this framework in action, let’s analyze a real-world situation: the ongoing protests outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois.

First, let’s be clear: the people showing up there are driven by a righteous and courageous morality. They see a system enacting cruel policies and are putting their bodies on the line to stand against it. Their energy is admirable. But is it effective? To answer that, we first have to identify the boulder.

The boulder isn’t the physical building in Broadview. The boulder is the policy of detention and rendition itself. The power to move that boulder—to change ICE’s behavior or abolish it altogether—lies exclusively with Congress and the White House. We currently hold neither. And even if we did, the correct targets for protest would be the White House and the specific, flippable members of Congress needed to pass a law, not a local enforcement facility.

When you apply the Political Laws of Motion, you realize that protesting outside an ICE facility isn’t pushing the boulder at all. It’s more like pushing against the ground beneath it, trying to move the entire Earth—the current political structure—with your bare hands.

Not only is this tactic ineffective, but it actively helps the other side. Here’s how:

• It Provides Leverage for Our Opponents. The right has no problem using false narratives as a tool. Protests provide perfect raw material. They can frame dedicated activists as a violent mob, using the footage to build morale among their base and justify the very use of force the protesters are opposing. Our Force becomes their Leverage.

• It Neuters Our Own Coordinated Campaigns. Protesting a federal enforcement agency cuts off our most effective avenues of pressure. Should people call the facility? Those calls won’t even be picked up. A social media campaign against the local ICE office? They’re “just following orders,” and the people giving the orders in D.C. have no interest in our opinion. The target is immune to the very tactics that would amplify our Force.

So, what should we do? Nothing?

No. The answer isn’t to stop pushing, but to start pushing on the boulders we can actually move. While the federal government is a hostile target, the power structures in blue states are ostensibly our allies. Yet, we have been applying little to no focused Force against them to meaningfully impact the ICE problem.

They could be passing laws to prohibit the use of masks by federal agents operating in their states. They could be using their own justice systems to criminalize and prosecute abuses of force and acts of wanton cruelty. They could be pushing to extend state executive power—just as the federal executive has done—to push back against overreach.

But for some strong words from a few Democratic governors, little to nothing has been done. Why?

Because we’ve been too busy applying Force where it can’t possibly make a difference (the wrong boulder), while completely failing to use the Leverage available to us. We are hobbled by our own curses: a Curse of Purity that prevents us from engaging in the kind of hardball politics, protests and social media campaigns needed to pressure our allies, and a Curse of Individuality that leaves our messaging scattered and easy to ignore.

This isn’t a critique of the activists’ courage. It’s a critique of a strategy that consumes courage without producing change. And this brings us to the final, unforgiving law of political physics.

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If this framework for political power makes sense to you, then join us in wielding it. The American Manifesto is more than just analysis—it’s a workshop for a smarter, more disciplined movement. Every subscription helps us develop these strategies, sharpen our message, and teach others how to apply force where it actually moves the boulder. Join us, support this work, and help us build a movement that knows how to win.

Focus. Amplify. Win. The future depends on it.

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Obey the Political Laws of Motion or Be Crushed by Them

Physics doesn’t care about your virtue. The boulder moves for whoever applies the greatest effective Force in the right direction, with the best Leverage, the least Friction, and the most Power. It moves for the side that acts faster, steadier, more unified, and more precise.

For too long, we’ve been wasting our force on the wrong boulders, pushing against the unmovable while ignoring the levers of power right in front of us. We do this because we are hobbled by our own curses—a Curse of Purity that makes us allergic to effective tools, a Curse of Individuality that scatters our message, and a Curse of Intellectualism that makes us lecture when we should be leading.

If we want to preserve the very possibility of a just and equitable future, the path forward is clear. We must become better political physicists. That means identifying the boulders we can move—like the allied power structures in states we control—and applying disciplined, relentless, leveraged force until they do what we demand.

Becoming a better political physicist means asking the right questions before we act. It means applying this simple checklist to every proposed action:

• What is the tangible, achievable objective? (Are we trying to move a boulder or just pushing against an immovable object?)

• Who is the actual target with the power to grant our demand? (Are we applying Force in a direction the boulder can move?)

• What is the single, disciplined message that communicates our specific ask? (Is our Force focused or just scattered noise?)

• Are we using every available tool? (Are we amplifying our Force with Leverage, or are we trying to move the boulder with our bare hands?)

This is not a call to act like machines, devoid of emotion. The moral clarity and righteous anger that fuel activism are the essential engine of our movement. Without that passion, there is no Force to begin with. But passion must be the fuel, not the steering wheel. Our morality tells us why we must push the boulder. A clear, focused strategy tells us where and how to push so that it actually moves.

Let’s be clear: there’s nothing “clean” about sacrificing everything we believe in for the sake of purity. The time for maximizing our ideology is when we’re in power, not when we’re being crushed by those who seek to destroy us. The goal is to win long enough to build a world where our ideals can actually thrive. The other side already understands these laws. They are moving their boulders, bending the road to their will. If we don’t learn to push back—smarter, harder, and together—that road leads to the annihilation of everything we claim to care about.

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Your Move — Let’s Build This Playbook Together

This framework is a starting point, not a final word. It gets stronger when more people apply it, test it, and sharpen it. We need to hear from you in the comments:

• Does this ‘physics of power’ framework resonate with your own experience in activism? What’s the biggest source of Friction you see in movements you’re a part of?

• Which of the “Three Curses”—Purity, Individuality, or Intellectualism—do you think is the most damaging to our side, and why? Can you share an example you’ve witnessed?

• Thinking about the Broadview example, what is a “movable boulder” in your own state or community? Who is the right target, and what is the specific, actionable ask?

• Let’s practice message discipline. Pick an issue you care about and suggest a single, powerful, repeatable slogan for a campaign. What’s the punchline that will move people?

• What angle did I miss? If you have other ideas for applying these ‘laws of motion’ or identifying key leverage points, I want to hear them.