Communal Power: From Crowd to Community
We filled the streets. Now we fill the rooms.
The Power and the Peace of the People
This past Saturday, I – along with seven million other Americans – was busy with the duty of loving our country and standing up for it against the powers that have been tearing it apart. In 2,700 locations across every kind of community in this nation, we showed up. People like you and me organized other people like us, from all walks of life, to gather on street corners, in parks, libraries and countless other places. Citizen leaders and citizen advocates, joining in peaceful proclamation that we will not abide the Unitary Executive Theory, Kingship, Authoritarianism, Dictatorship, or name one might give to the despotic rule of a single tyrant and his treacherous servants in service to a wealthy cabal of likeminded oligarchs.
To put it simply: No Kings.
That we came in such numbers and across such geographical and ideological spaces would be historic on its own. To do so peacefully, despite the warnings of violence, the fearmongering, and even threats of military force, makes it more remarkable. We showed discipline, unity, and the capacity for self-regulation. This wasn’t just a protest. It was a clear demonstration of the ability of ordinary people to act as one, without chaos or coercion. It was a sacred practice of the Civic Covenant between citizens and the political state.
What Do We Build With This Power?
The same desire that can drive us to fill the streets, must now drive us to fill the rooms: meeting halls, libraries, and community spaces where the long-term work begins.
Protests serve two functions: First, they apply pressure – they remind power where its legitimacy comes from. Second, they awaken and gather that same civic energy into structures that can hold and direct it.
As I wrote previously, the community is the seat of legitimacy for all governing power. The moral calling of the steward is to serve the people who make up their community, and to wield any authority or following they are granted in pursuit of that calling. Now comes the time to organize both the community and the stewards who will be their champions.
Communal power is the disciplined practice of turning moral conviction into civic infrastructure.
The Steward’s Answer: Communal Power
Communal power is when citizens self-organize around shared stewardship – linking effort, knowledge, and trust across their communities.
Authoritarians would have their power organized into rigid hierarchies, where the unitary executive commands and others obey. The individual, isolated, is left to choose compliance or resistance, but alone power remains a single drop in an ocean.
Communal power, by contrast, multiplies that drop into a tide. It emerges when people with shared experience and varied skills come together to deliberate, plan, and act. No one person has inherent right to issue orders, and the group may combine their strength to perform feats that would break any individual.
By the shared wisdom and needs of the group, a leader may be chosen and empowered, but only as a steward of the power brought by the group itself. The steward’s leadership must answer and nurture the people’s needs, or see that power withdrawn. This is the moral balance that keeps communal power self-correcting and free.
Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash
The Call to Continuity
So what do we do next? We build ourselves into communities of civic power.
We start locally with Stewards’ Circles – small, regular gatherings of citizens dedicated to sustaining civic engagement and mutual learning. A Stewards’ Circle can meet in a library, a park, or even a living room. The format is simple: gather, discuss what matters, study the principles of Stewardship, and decide together what actions would make your community stronger, fairer, and more resilient.
Each circle becomes a living seed of democratic renewal. Not dependent on party machines, wealthy donors, or permission from the powerful. Just people, deciding to take responsibility for the shared world they inhabit.
If you were one of the millions who stood for peace on No Kings Day, don’t let that conviction fade. The next step begins right where you are. Form a circle. Find your neighbors. Talk, plan, build.
Together, we can make the unity we demonstrated into the foundation of a new civic era, through steady, principled Stewardship.
If you are ready to participate in a Stewards’ Circle with your community, do these three things now:
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