Stop Waiting for Someone to Save You. No One's Coming.
The Resistance Sabotage Manual: 12 Ways We Accidentally Collaborate with Our Own Defeat
Day 8 of 12
August 30, 2025
Still Waiting?
Mueller will save us. The courts will save us. The military will intervene. The DOJ will act. Congress will stop them. The media will expose them. Corporate America will pull funding. International sanctions will work. The 25th Amendment will be invoked. State attorneys general will block it. The intelligence community will leak everything.
How's that working out?
They Waited Too. They're Gone.
Chile 1973: Citizens waited for "constitutionalist" generals like Carlos Prats to prevent Pinochet's coup. Prats was forced into exile; the coup proceeded on schedule.
Germany 1932-33: Conservative elites believed President Hindenburg would control Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act within 60 days.
Russia 2000-2003: Western observers insisted oligarchs like Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky would check Putin's power. By 2003, one was in prison, the other in exile.
Turkey 2016: Secular Turks relied on the military's traditional role as constitutional guardian against Erdoğan. The coup attempt failed; 150,000 were purged.
The Savior Complex That Enables Authoritarians
The savior complex in political contexts manifests as the delegation of civic responsibility to institutions, leaders, or systems presumed to have greater power or moral authority than organized citizens. This psychological abdication occurs precisely when collective action is most necessary.
Why waiting for rescue ensures defeat:
Delegates responsibility: Every moment spent waiting for institutional intervention is a moment not spent organizing community power
Delays action: The window for effective resistance narrows while citizens wait for signals that never come
Misunderstands power: Institutions derive authority from public consent; when citizens wait for institutional action, they surrender the very power institutions need to act
Ignores collective strength: Ten thousand organized citizens have stopped more authoritarian advances than any single prosecutor or judge
The Psychology of Rescue Fantasy
Why we want to be saved:
Childhood authority patterns: Developmental psychology shows we're wired to expect parental intervention against threats. This translates to seeking institutional parents in political crisis.
Hero mythology: From Cincinnatus to Washington, Western culture valorizes the singular leader who saves the republic. We pattern-match current crises to these narratives.
Responsibility avoidance: Accepting no one will save us means accepting personal responsibility for outcomes. Cognitive dissonance makes waiting feel safer than acting.
Fear of direct action: Organizing carries real risks - job loss, social ostracism, state retaliation. Waiting for institutional action feels risk-free (though it guarantees defeat).
The Historical Pattern We're Repeating
Weimar Germany: "Hindenburg will control Hitler"
Between January and March 1933, German conservatives believed Field Marshal President Hindenburg would contain Hitler as chancellor. The Junker aristocracy, industrial magnates, and Center Party all calculated they could use Hitler while Hindenburg held ultimate authority. Within eight weeks, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act. Within 18 months, he was dead and Hitler combined both offices.
Cost of waiting: While Germans waited for Hindenburg to act, Hitler built the SS from 50,000 to 200,000 members, passed the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and eliminated all trade unions.
Chile 1973: "The constitutionalist generals will prevent a coup"
Through 1972-73, Allende's supporters believed the "Schneider Doctrine" (military non-intervention) and constitutionalist officers would prevent a coup. General Carlos Prats, commander-in-chief, was forced to resign August 23, 1973. The coup occurred 18 days later. No military savior materialized.
Cost of waiting: While Chileans waited for military constitutionalists, coup plotters mapped arrest lists, identified detention centers, and coordinated with US intelligence. 3,200 were killed; 40,000 were tortured.
Russia 2000s: "The oligarchs will limit Putin"
Western analysts insisted Russia's oligarchs would constrain Putin's power through economic leverage. By 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested; by 2013, Boris Berezovsky was dead in UK exile. The oligarchs who survived became entirely subordinate to state power.
Cost of waiting: While Russians waited for oligarchs to check Putin, he eliminated independent TV, ended gubernatorial elections, and passed laws making NGOs "foreign agents."
Who You're Waiting For (And Why They Won't Come)
The Courts: Judges face the same pressures as everyone else - career concerns, physical safety, ideological capture. Courts without enforcement power become paper tigers against executives willing to ignore rulings.
"Good" Republicans: The few who speak up get primaried, receive death threats, and watch their families targeted. Those remaining have already made their choice between conscience and power.
The Military: Modern militaries in democratic states are specifically conditioned against intervention. The brass who rise highest are political operators, not constitutionalists.
Corporate America: Corporations adapt to any regime that ensures profitable stability. IBM serviced Nazi census machines. Krupp used slave labor. Boeing sells to authoritarians today.
International Community: Sanctions rarely topple regimes (see: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia). International pressure requires domestic movement to channel it into change.
How Your Waiting Actively Helps Them Win
This isn't just ineffective—it's active collaboration. Your waiting is not neutral.
Every day you wait is calculated into their timeline. Authoritarian strategists literally count on "wait and see" periods—it's written into their playbooks.
What authoritarians think while you wait: "Let them wait for Mueller, for the courts, for the military. By the time they realize no one's coming, we'll have replaced the inspectors, the judges, the generals."
While you wait:
They consolidate: Each day of inaction = another loyalist installed, another institution captured
You normalize: What shocked you Monday becomes acceptable by Friday
Anger dissipates: Peak outrage that could fuel resistance fades into resignation
Networks atrophy: Potential resistance connections never form while everyone waits alone
The sabotage mechanism:
Waiting legitimizes each step: By not responding immediately, you signal acceptance
Hope prevents desperation: Real resistance requires the desperation that comes from knowing you're on your own
Delay allows entrenchment: Every day you wait, their roots grow deeper
Paralysis spreads: Your inaction influences others to also wait
Windows close permanently: Some opportunities for resistance exist only briefly
The bitter truth: Your hope for institutional rescue is their most powerful weapon against you.
The Success Stories That Prove We Don't Need Saviors
Danish Resistance 1943: When Nazis ordered Danish Jews deported, no external savior intervened. Instead, ordinary Danes organized the rescue of 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews to Sweden in small boats. Fishermen, doctors, taxi drivers, homemakers - regular people who stopped waiting and started moving. No allied invasion saved them. No resistance leadership directed them. Communities saved themselves through spontaneous, networked action.
Rosenstrasse Protest 1943: When Nazis arrested Jewish men married to non-Jewish German women, the wives didn't wait for help. They gathered at Rosenstrasse detention center, protesting for a week despite machine guns and threats. The regime, fearing domestic unrest, released the men. Ordinary women achieved what diplomats and generals couldn't.
The lesson: Every successful resistance began the moment people stopped waiting for rescue and became the rescue.
How to Stop Waiting and Start Building
Easy Mode: The Local Focus
Stop doomscrolling national politics for "savior signals"
Find your three closest organizing groups (tenant unions, mutual aid networks, community defense)
Commit four hours weekly to one group
Learn five neighbors' names and needs
Establish one regular community gathering (weekly coffee, monthly potluck)
Medium Mode: The Collective Build
Form affinity groups of 5-8 trusted people with shared values
Create mutual aid networks covering basic needs (food, medicine, transport, communications)
Establish alternative information channels (Signal groups, mesh networks, community bulletins)
Build cop-watch and court-watch programs
Develop community safety protocols without police involvement
Hard Mode: Become the Response
Lead formation of neighborhood assemblies for democratic decision-making
Build alternative structures (community land trusts, cooperatives, time banks)
Create resilient infrastructure (tool libraries, seed banks, skill shares)
Establish sanctuary networks for targeted populations
Develop parallel power structures that can operate regardless of federal actions
Your Savior Complex Audit
☐ "Someone will stop this"
☐ "The authorities will act"
☐ "Good Republicans will intervene"
☐ "The courts will save us"
☐ "International pressure will work"
☐ "The next election will fix it"
☐ "The military won't allow it"
☐ "Corporate interests will prevent it"
☐ "The intelligence community will expose it"
☐ "State governments will resist"
☐ "The media will turn public opinion"
☐ "History doesn't repeat"
If you checked any box, you're still waiting. And they're counting on it.
Tomorrow: How the left eats itself every. single. time. (With receipts.)
The Resistance Sabotage Manual is a 12-day series examining the specific ways we accidentally collaborate with authoritarianism — and how to stop. Each day reveals one self-sabotage pattern we must break. Based on analysis of democratic collapses from Weimar Germany to present day.
Who are you waiting for? What could you do today instead of waiting? They're counting on your paralysis. Disappoint them.