How Power Gets Stopped

How Power Gets Stopped

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #769: Tuesday, February 10th, 2026

In a casual conversation with a good friend…a guy who doesn’t spend his days watching politics and human behavior the way I do…he said:

“From where I sit…Trump can’t throw everyone in jail. He can’t kill everyone. There are 350 million Americans.

So if people just refuse to go quiet every time they do something horrific something meant to scare us into silence there’s no way he can turn this into an authoritarian country.

Am I right?

And if I’m wrong…tell me exactly where I’m wrong.”

It’s a reasonable question.
It’s also the question…millions of Americans are circling right now.

Was he right?

Mostly.

A dictator can’t jail everyone in a country of 350 million people.

But the leap from “can’t imprison everyone” to “therefore they’ll fail” is where history gets cruel.

Because that’s not how authoritarian control works.

A dictator can’t jail everyone. They don’t have to.

They just have to make examples…and make everyone else unsure.

The Question Everyone’s Asking

How does power get stopped?

Not in speeches. Not in vibes. Not in online outrage.

In systems.

In coordination.

In cost.

And…the fastest way to understand this…is to understand what authoritarian control …actually targets.

What Authoritarians Actually Do

They don’t need to silence everyone.

They need to break coordination.
They need to raise the personal cost of visible leadership.
They need to make people unsure who’s next.

That can be accomplished by destroying the lives of a relatively small number of people:

Organizers
Donors
Journalists
Civil servants
Lawyers
Opposition politicians
Key business figures
Student leaders
And…yes…social media influencers

You don’t need millions of victims.

You need just enough examples.

Why Fear Scales Faster Than Prisons

One highly publicized “example” can change the behavior of…

…tens of thousands who …are never touched.

And it’s not just fear of prison.

It’s fear of:

Job loss
Audits or investigations
Licensing problems
Custody threats
Immigration trouble
Lawsuits
Doxxing or violence
Professional or social ruin

These tools are cheaper than incarceration.
They’re easier to apply unevenly.
And they’re often more effective.

Because they create uncertainty….and uncertainty…makes people police themselves.

The Real Battlefield: Coordination

Here’s the part most people miss:

The battlefield isn’t “courage.”

It’s collective action.

You can have millions who privately disagree…and still end up with a silenced society if people come to believe:

“Most others support him.”
“Nobody will back me if I speak.”
“Speaking up won’t change anything.”
“If I’m singled out, I’m alone.”

Authoritarian systems invest heavily in manufacturing exactly those beliefs through propaganda…fake majorities…controlled media…informants…and selective enforcement.

They don’t need total silence.

They can “win” by making dissent non threatening:

Fragmented, discouraged, constantly on defense, and unable to translate outrage into power votes counted fairly, courts independent, agencies enforcing the law neutrally.

Pause and comment one word:

What feels like the setup to you…distraction, pretext, or intimidation?

Then….keep reading.

Where My Friend Is Right

Scale matters.

A large, diverse population creates friction:

More leaks…more resistance pockets…more people with resources to litigate…organize…and expose abuses.

And sustained…widespread refusal can overwhelm intimidation…if it stays coordinated and resilient.

When dissent becomes broad enough that punishment is economically… administratively…and politically costly…repression can backfire and crack elite support.

So the practical answer is this:

A dictator can’t imprison everyone.

But…they often don’t need to.

They can strip away enormous amounts of freedom using selective punishment + uncertainty + institutional capture.

They fail…when they fail not because “there are too many people,” but because too many people keep acting together in ways that are hard to punish all at once… and key institutions refuse to collaborate.

The Single Sentence Test

Authoritarian control becomes fragile when dissent is:

Massively shared
Visibly coordinated
Institutionally protected

….not just loudly felt.

“Protected” means the difference between a lone person getting crushed… and an institution that says, “No.”

Courts.
Unions.
Professional associations.
Local and state offices.
Newsrooms.
Universities.
Faith communities.
Networks that can document…litigate…and expose.

How Power Gets Stopped

The question many Americans are really asking is this:

How do we prevent democratic backsliding and defend the rule of law?

You prevent it…by making repression too costly and too ineffective before it becomes normal…and by keeping people coordinated…so fear can’t isolate them.

What follows isn’t a warning.

It’s a systems answer.

The Playbook

Protect the pillars power depends on

Power isn’t just “the leader.”

Power is the institutions and groups that carry out orders:

Civil service
Courts
Police and military
Major employers
Professional associations
Universities
Churches
Unions
Media
Local government

These are often called the pillars of support.

Move:

Keep the pillars from being captured…or…if pressured…help them hold the line or defect.

What this looks like in practice:

Defending independent courts…election administrators…inspectors general…auditors… ombuds…and public records systems

Professional associations drawing bright lines around ethics…and due process

Local and state institutions building habits of documentation…transparency…and rapid legal response

Treat early power grabs as structural, not “politics”

Backsliding is usually legalistic.

Rules are bent.
Norms are reinterpreted.
Authority quietly concentrates.

This is executive aggrandizement:

Consolidation through law, personnel control, emergency powers, and selective enforcement.

Move:

Treat early moves as structural not “just politics” because once enforcement and courts are politicized…the window narrows fast.

Make repression backfire by staying nonviolent and broad

The strongest comparative evidence we have shows that broad…nonviolent movements succeed more often than violent ones…in part because they mobilize more people…and trigger loyalty shifts inside institutions.

Move:

Expand participation without escalating into conflicts the state can justify crushing.

That means:

Designing actions normal people can participate in safely
Keeping messaging legitimacy focused so fence sitters and institutions can join

Make targeting expensive fast

Authoritarians scale fear by picking off a few.

The antidote…is making any targeting immediately costly.

Move:

If you touch one…you get ten.

What works:

Standing legal defense funds and pro bono networks
Rapid response documentation and court watching
Immediate solidarity that turns isolation…into escalation

Defend the information ecosystem against capture

One of the fastest ways to make dissent feel futile is bending media and platforms into compliant megaphones through ownership pressure…lawsuits…licensing threats… and access retaliation.

Move:

Keep reality shareable.

That means:

Supporting independent journalism
Protecting distribution channels
Building redundancy: email lists…mirrors…offline networks

Coordinate locally, not just nationally

National movements are easier to demonize and disrupt.

Local networks are harder to dismantle.

Move:

Build many small fires of civic capacity towns…unions…congregations…campuses.. professional groups so repression can’t sever one head and end the threat.

Decide the lines in advance

People freeze when they don’t know what crosses the line.

Successful resistance movements pre agree on:

What is unacceptable
What the immediate response is
Who activates what

So response isn’t improvised…under fear.

Do This Today (One Practical Action)

Pick one pillar you touch…workplace…union…church…school…city council… professional org.

Then identify the one person who would feel pressure first if intimidation shows up.

That person is a leverage point.

If they’re isolated…the system wins.

If they’re protected…documented…backed…lawyered…surrounded…intimidation starts to fail.

The Prevention Equation

Keep institutions independent.
Keep people coordinated.
Make selective punishment fail.

Parting Comments

The goal isn’t that everyone stays loud.

The goal…is that institutions don’t comply with illegal or anti democratic directives …and…that targeting one person triggers a hundred, not silence.

That, my friend…is how power gets stopped.

Not by outrage. By refusal to comply…and refusal to isolate.

Quietly.
Lawfully.
Together.

#Holdfast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. This isn’t about panic. It’s about orientation. Once you understand how fear scales…and where it breaks…the noise fades…and the leverage becomes visible.