Nonviolent folks can be negotiated with. Its not permitted to negotiate with criminals/terrorists.
We need both violent and nonviolent forces, but we're not permitted to say that out loud. But historically, thats what works.
This is definitely true to some extent, especially when non-violence has been used in the more distant past.
But in recent history, the non-violent approach creates a sympathy for the cause among impartial 3rd parties, who find violence against non-combatants to be unpalatable. You can turn the world against an enemy by putting the enemy's asymmetric use of force on display. This doesn't work in a lower empathy society.
Only if you have good advertising for your cause.
Violence is typically good advertising, most news is simply salivating to cover it.
Which means in any non-violent group seeking a goal, it is optimal to have a small violent 'unassociated' group cause just enough problems to get noticed in the global media.
MLK wanted a non-violent showing of force as to stay "legal", but a strong implicit threat of "well, you know, theres a LOT of us. We're peaceful for now". The bus boycotts almost bankrupted down in Atlanta, so money attacks also work.
But now, we have No Kings and 50501. The whole idea of mass protest as a 'nonviolent but imminent threat' is completely gone. Protests were a prelude to something to be done. Now, its more of a political action rally, with not much of anything to follow up the initial energy.
Which is also why the protests; pussy hat rebellion, 50501, No Kings - they've all failed. Theres no goals. Its just chanting and some signs.
Some subscribe to a soft pacifism where non-destructive violent resistance like disarming the defector or disabling the defector using less-lethal technologies like a tazer would be fine. Pure pacifists who don’t believe in any kind of physical resistance whatsoever are almost exclusively religious practitioners who don’t ascribe a high degree of value to life in this world because they believe non-resistance will bear spiritual fruit in the next world.
I happen to hold this philosophy under different words.
MLK chose nonviolent shows of force, whereas Malcolm X chose more direct forms of violence.
Governments could save face by negotiating with MLK, as he used nonviolent means. They couldn't negotiate with Malcolm X because thats the whole "we cannot negotiate with criminals and terrorists".
The important part is that the violence mostly doesn't start until someone tries to hurt those who are there peacefully. Good was there peacefully so retaliation is becoming a possibility.
It's absolutely not realistic. Every right we have was fought for and people died trying to get it. This is especially true in America where a fifth of the population was enslaved at inception. Nothing has never been given to us it had to be taken from abusers of power and there have always been abusers of power in this country.
I mean Trump is no different than Washington. Washington routinely ignored laws, he tried to have his lackeys go get his "property" from free states while never willing to go to court (a provision of the fugitive slave act).
John Adam's called Shays's Resistance terrorists because they had the audacity to close down courts to stop foreclosures of farms (fun fact, that was the first time since the revolution where Americans fired artillery at other Americans (and it was a paid mercenary army by Boston merchants killing over credit)).
You can go down the list, it's always been there but luckily there were always people fighting against it trying to better society against those that simply dragged us down.
Whether you want to be a guerilla group, terrorists, or take a peaceful approach the first step is always going to involvefinding confederates.
So many complaints about government have the form "I'll hit my breaking point and then I'll shoot a bunch of people".
No plan to join a militia, no plan to engage in coordinated action before that. Just a plan to commit a mass shooting and then be gunned down as another statistic. And probably kill a bunch of people who have nothing to do with whatever the problem is.
You just said it out loud. Are you one of "them"?
[citation needed]
There are multiple studies and books that go over how the less a movement uses violence the more likely it is to be successful:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...
* https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-978...
The above book has a chapter about how if a movement is non-violent, but a contingent/faction wants to use it, various ways to handle it.