The subject of political science is not political institutions, nor is it the relation of institutional political action to society or economy. The subject is, quite simply, power./1

Power is the ability to compel specific action or inaction regardless of the desires or will of the agent. It is not identical to control, the ability to direct the actions of others, though they overlap./2

Put another way, power is the ability to compel obedience to formal rules governing human action and to compel that obedience with the threat of death. This covers lesser threats of injury or forcible restraint./3

Power does not have to be directly implemented, although it usually is. Its purpose is to compel obedience to law without necessary action (e.g., obedience to speed limit signs as opposed to obeying a traffic cop)./4

Power originates in the need of human communities of defined social order, that is specific principles of action required for the working of society. The crucial question is not what compels order, however./5

It is who gets to exercise that compulsion. This is the condition called legitimacy. Legitimacy is the shared agreement that the persons or institutions exercising power are rightfully doing so./6

This does not need to be overt or actively given. It is indicated by the fact of obedience to law as it exists. The denial of legitimacy, on the other hand, requires action. This dissolves the existing order & replaces it./7

We call decisive, open, action to reject the legitimacy of government, that is of those exercising power, by the name of revolution. This is visible action by the People to remove their rulers./8

Comparable action against a legitimate government is either subversion of the order or treason against the state. Such action is illegitimate if the majority of people favor the existing exercise of power./9

We are currently experiencing an attempt to subvert the state by people who actively deny the legitimacy of the Republic. This is a minority, and is actively opposed by a majority of the citizenry./10

The underlying question is who, legitimately, may exercise power, with a substantial minority challenging the legitimacy of the participation in politics of defined groups of citizens. Given the clear support of the state by/11

the majority of citizens, we may define this attempt to take power from the citizenry & the constituted order as treason (though it does not meet the formal definition of the term)./12

Historically, substantial groups of people have been denied the ability to share in the exercise of power, by reason of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, or religion. The inclusion of all groups in society in the exercise/13

of power on an equal basis is democracy, that is the power of the People. The question of who constitutes the People, and how they exercise power is actually the central question we confront today./14

How we answer it, and so far the People have stood by the Republic, is determinative. However, we do have examples of the illegitimate seizure of power in the US, such as in Wilmington, NC, in the late 19th century./15

I am deeply worried by the efforts of Orange Mussolini to retain power illegitimately. As Brecht wrote, “although the world stood up & stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”/end