The Protest Playbook II: Building a Living, Breathing Resistance

Resistance that Grows Adapts and Endures

Protest movements that burn bright but fade fast serve only as momentary disruptions. The goal must be something more: a living, breathing movement—adaptive, self-sustaining, and capable of surviving the state’s efforts to suppress and co-opt it. This requires abandoning static models of resistance in favor of decentralized structures, strategic regeneration, and an understanding of struggle as an ongoing process rather than a singular event.

The first Protest Playbook laid out a tactical ladder—from visibility to disruption to sustained mass action. Now, we go deeper. The following strategies, drawn from Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome, Mark Fisher’s Marxist Super Nanny, Whitehead’s process philosophy, and seasonal organizing models, provide a framework for ensuring that movements do not just appear but endure.

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I. The Rhizome: Resistance Without a Head

Hierarchical organizations are vulnerable: cut off the leadership, and the movement collapses. The rhizome model, by contrast, is an anti-fragile network. It has no central node that can be removed, no single point of failure.

Key Principles of Rhizomatic Resistance:

• Multiplicity, Not Unity – Instead of a single centralized organization, a movement should be a dense web of autonomous nodes, each capable of operating independently.

• Redundancy and Adaptability – If one organizing hub is shut down, others must already be in place, able to take its role with minimal disruption.

• Nonlinear Growth – Movements must spread through contagion, not command. Decentralized action, direct relationships, and mutual inspiration drive expansion better than directives from a leadership core.

Example: The 2019 Hong Kong protests operated as a rhizome, with decentralized tactics, encrypted communication, and fluid leadership roles. No single group could be targeted without new leaders and strategies emerging in response.

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II. Beyond Spectacle: Protest as Infrastructure

Protests fail when they exist only to make demands. The system is designed to absorb temporary disruption. The alternative? Create alternative infrastructure within the movement itself—one that outlives the spectacle.

Applying Fisher’s Marxist Super Nanny

Mark Fisher argued that the left must not just oppose capitalism but also provide structures of support and care. Protest movements must do the same.

• Sustaining Protesters – Food distribution, medical networks, legal aid, and housing support turn short-term mobilization into long-term community-building.

• Parallel Governance – Community assemblies, mutual aid networks, and alternative economic structures prevent movements from becoming dependent on the system they seek to dismantle.

• Protest as an Ecosystem, Not an Event – Every action should strengthen the broader movement, not just disrupt. Protests should build new networks, train new activists, and reinforce long-term organizing.

Example: The Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast Program did more than provide food—it demonstrated that the state was failing its people and that alternative power structures could meet those needs better.

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III. The Horizon: Movements Without an End Point

One of the greatest weaknesses of protest movements is goal fixation—the belief that the struggle ends once a single demand is met or a government changes hands. This is a trap. The horizon model treats protest as an ongoing pursuit, not a moment of victory.

How to Keep the Horizon Moving

• Avoid Final Demands – Instead of pinning movement energy on a singular outcome (e.g., electing a leader, passing a bill), develop demands that create ongoing leverage and structures of autonomy.

• Think in Terms of Phases, Not Endpoints – Every campaign should transition into the next stage of resistance. The goal is not a singular “win” but a continuous shifting of power away from oppressive structures.

• Prepare for Absorption and Counterrevolution – The system will attempt to absorb protest demands into weakened, defanged reforms. Movements must anticipate this and refuse co-optation.

Example: The fight for climate action must not end with a single Green New Deal—it must continuously adapt to new corporate and governmental countermeasures.

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IV. Seasonality: Knowing When to Strike and When to Retreat

Movements that operate at a constant fever pitch burn out. Understanding seasonality allows for sustainable resistance.

Seasonal Organizing as Strategy

• Cyclical Escalation – Protest movements must recognize political rhythms (elections, legislative cycles, economic downturns) and time major actions accordingly.

• Strategic Dormancy – Moments of retreat are not failures. They allow for regrouping, training, and capacity-building before the next escalation.

• Weathering the Repression Cycle – Governments respond to movements with a predictable pattern: first ignore, then demonize, then crack down. The key is anticipating these responses and preparing counterstrategies in advance.

Example: The French Yellow Vests did not maintain the same level of mobilization year-round. Instead, they surged during moments of heightened political tension and withdrew to regroup when repression intensified.

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V. Process Philosophy: Organizing for an Unfinished World

Whitehead’s process philosophy suggests that reality is not static but constantly becoming. Resistance must be the same.

Key Principles of Process-Based Organizing

• Coalitions as Living Entities – Movements must be willing to evolve their strategies and alliances over time rather than adhering to rigid ideological boundaries.

• Recognizing Emergent Power – Activists must identify and harness new opportunities as they arise, rather than being trapped by past methods or expectations.

• A Politics of Becoming – The goal is not to "win" in the traditional sense but to continually shift the terrain of struggle, making domination less possible and autonomy more real.

Example: The most effective movements, from Zapatista self-governance to Indigenous pipeline resistance, do not seek final victories but instead create ongoing forms of autonomous life outside of state control.

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Conclusion: The Future of Protest is Adaptive, Decentralized, and Regenerative

Resistance cannot be a one-time action. It must be a continuous process—one that builds its own infrastructure, operates through decentralized networks, adapts to shifting conditions, and refuses the trap of single-issue victory.

To outlast the state’s countermeasures, movements must be:

• Rhizomatic – Able to spread and regrow no matter how many nodes are cut off.

• Self-Sustaining – Offering care and alternative structures, not just demands.

• Horizon-Oriented – Seeing struggle as ongoing, not limited to short-term wins.

• Seasonally Attuned – Timing actions for maximum effect while avoiding burnout.

• Process-Based – Understanding that resistance is not about achieving a single moment of victory but about reshaping the world over time.

█ This is how movements survive repression, outmaneuver co-optation, and become more than a moment. This is how protest becomes a way of life.

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Note: The idea for this post wasn’t ours—or it was, in that it was this movement’s, born out of a critique from and dialogue with a reader who challenged us on the narrowness of our approach to this material, and who suggested themes and connections with which we should broaden The Protest Playbook, endowing it with a more human scope. They were right.