It's a fundamental undermining of the established order, and a rallying voice that could dominate politics for years forwards.
You need to understand that you are the revolutionary, and not actually a conservative, because the values you are trying to conserve have already been dismissed from the Overton Window of the establishment. Your primary objective (as was Saul Alinsky's) is to undermine the legitimacy of the ruling power by dragging the counter-narrative directly in front of the general public and beating the drum of your demands is actually the thing that delegitimizes them, and sets them as the target of blame for the society's problems.
It exposes the enemy, it forces the Overton Window to shift, and the damage against legitimacy, inevitability, and invincibility is far more significant than simply an executive order or a bill that could be changed or left unenforced. That's what this scene in Chernobyl is all about. The reason "humiliation" is so important, is because it is the absolute rejection of power. Once you are unable to summon a sense of legitimacy, civil disobedience to your authority becomes normalized, and people start operating as if the other guy was already in charge. Eventually, the parallel society becomes dominant. Just don't forget to gatekeep when they realize we've won.
Sounds good on paper, but the damage has already been done. And such 'moments' unfortunately have had only temporary effect in the past. The unrelenting stream of immigrants continued unabated. They only took on different forms: low-skilled immigrants got turned into asylum seekers.
It's a fundamental undermining of the established order, and a rallying voice that could dominate politics for years forwards.
You need to understand that you are the revolutionary, and not actually a conservative, because the values you are trying to conserve have already been dismissed from the Overton Window of the establishment. Your primary objective (as was Saul Alinsky's) is to undermine the legitimacy of the ruling power by dragging the counter-narrative directly in front of the general public and beating the drum of your demands is actually the thing that delegitimizes them, and sets them as the target of blame for the society's problems.
It exposes the enemy, it forces the Overton Window to shift, and the damage against legitimacy, inevitability, and invincibility is far more significant than simply an executive order or a bill that could be changed or left unenforced. That's what this scene in Chernobyl is all about. The reason "humiliation" is so important, is because it is the absolute rejection of power. Once you are unable to summon a sense of legitimacy, civil disobedience to your authority becomes normalized, and people start operating as if the other guy was already in charge. Eventually, the parallel society becomes dominant. Just don't forget to gatekeep when they realize we've won.
Sounds good on paper, but the damage has already been done. And such 'moments' unfortunately have had only temporary effect in the past. The unrelenting stream of immigrants continued unabated. They only took on different forms: low-skilled immigrants got turned into asylum seekers.