Soldiers, civilians, and democracy Book

Imagine a situation:

A long time the state of the world changes slowly if not at all - as in the case of the status quo of East European communism - then without anybody being able to predict anything - except afterward - the state suddenly starts to change very fast and status quo breaks down - e.g. in a few months the communism collapses.

One day only a few people protest against the status quo - like the handful of citizens of DDR in the Dresden churches - then a minor change - like the visit of Gorbachev in the 40 years celebration of DDR - makes the protests to first tenfold and then hundredfold. The public opinions of a huge number of people suddenly - in one week - change because they are no more afraid of expressing their private opinions publicly. The leadership of DDR is not any more motivated to shoot on the protesters.

Soon the institutions - like the police and the border control and the communist party leadership - lose their spirit and the whole system collapses. Not even real communists do anymore dare to express their belief in the system. When beforehand the noncommunists falsified their public opinions, now it is the communists who start to say "I always hated the system in my heart!".

Why does the status quo live so long? Why did a huge majority of the people support the system officially - whether communism or the race quota system in US - even if the private opinions did not support status quo. It is basically because any citizen C stays to support the status quo - and falsify his public opinion and even punish other citizens for criticising the status quo - except if a threshold ratio of other citizens f(C) has changed his public opinion first. (f(C) of course depends on the person.)

Thus even if very high percentage of the population is against the status quo, the status quo may live for a long time and public opposition staying say at 0,1% - the threshold value is more than 0.1% for 99.9% of the people. But sometimes even a modestly sized external cause may cause a huge change. First, the opposition extends to 0.5% because people are not anymore afraid. Then next 2% think "I will also protest because so many other people dared". Next day it is 6%, then 12% and soon the streets are full of protestors.

Communism collapsed but the US race quota system - affirmative action - stays even if approximately two-thirds of the US population privately disapproves it. The people are afraid of being labeled as racists. 1999 Kuran said the situation may cause an explosion in US. I think the election of Donald Trump can be seen as such an explosion.