“Jaws”: A Playbook for Political Resistance
I’m in Cape Cod, Massachusetts for work, and I spent last Sunday afternoon with a new friend on Martha’s Vineyard. We took the ferry over from Falmouth, rented bikes, and immediately started living out a Jaws fantasy—racing to filming spots, packing in as much as we could before catching the 6:45 PM ferry back.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Spielberg’s 1975 classic, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. After our tour, we went to see Jaws on the silver screen, surrounded by the very waters where it was filmed.
Being around this new friend was unexpectedly eye-opening. There’s something about that archetype in particular: people with the desire to “save the world” in their own way... Being with him reminded me how much I love that quality in others, and Jaws happened to be his favorite movie.
I knew right away that just sitting beside him, would let me see the story through a new lens.
I was immediately proven right.
We’ve come to know Jaws as a horror film, and the birth of the summer blockbuster. But sitting there, I realized: Jaws is also a political thriller. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a real-life superhero story about injustice—the way institutions fail to act, the way denial allows danger to spread, and the way people from different walks of life eventually come together to face the threat head-on.
Jaws is no different from any timeless story about how the human species has overcome injustice.
I. Chrissie Watkins swims out, and is brutally killed by the shark.
Chrissie becomes a single data point, and the signs are there (if you know where to look). Democracy treats early warnings as anomalies, not alarms. But, that is the law of averages: a single data point is not a pattern… yet. And as a result, the first sign of failure often goes unacknowledged. Every democracy has a breakdown moment—something gets smoothed over, and people return to the party.
The United States has been trapped in this cycle, I would argue, since the 1970s.
II: We’re introduced to our protagonist, Martin Brody, the new police chief from New York City. He has moved his family to Amity Island to escape the relentless cycle of crime back home. Ironically, he has never been more uncomfortable, since drowning in the water is his greatest fear. The film also wastes no time reminding us that he doesn’t belong. Early on, as the camera pans across the beach, a line is spoken: “If you’re not born on the island, you’re not an islander.”
Brody is the archetype of the conscientious outsider. In every failing democracy, there is someone newly arrived, not yet seduced by the myths of the community, who sees the danger for what it is. But because he is not “one of them,” his authority is fragile, and his judgment is second-guessed. He wants to protect the people, but he cannot yet command their trust.
The irony of Brody’s fear of water is also political. His vulnerability mirrors our collective reluctance to face what scares us most. The shark represents not only fear but also a crisis the entire town must eventually confront.
The takeaway here is clear: outsiders are often the first to recognize the cracks in a system, yet institutions under strain resist their warnings and dismiss them as naïve or unqualified. Fear, both personal and collective, becomes the barrier that prevents action.
When democracy begins to erode, it is the newcomers, the reformers, the immigrants, who sound the alarm.
III: Chrissie’s remains are discovered. Brody and the medical examiner confirm a shark attack. The truth is visible now.
At this stage, the data is clear. The experts know what has happened, but this is where denial takes center stage. Evidence alone does not compel action when political or economic interests are at stake.
In failing democracies, facts are not enough. Institutions under pressure will bend science, redefine causes, and manufacture alternate explanations. Watch not only for the appearance of truth but for how quickly it is reclassified to serve power.
IV: Brody sits at his desk, typing up orders to close the beaches. His instinct is to protect the public. He does not deliberate, does not wait for confirmation. He acts as any conscientious official should when faced with evidence of danger. This is the right move at the right time.
This is also the pivot point where governance could have worked. Brody embodies what healthy institutions are supposed to do: respond decisively to credible threats in order to protect the people. But the order never takes hold, because of the establishment. It is cheaper to silence the alarm than to acknowledge the shark.
Institutions fail because those in power are unwilling to absorb the costs of early action. Brody’s attempt to act is the exception, not the rule.
In every crisis, there is a moment when the right decision is made early. Watch for it. It will often be struck down by leaders who insist the timing is “too soon,” or who claim “more evidence is needed.”
But the real reason is always the same: they fear the political cost of acknowledging the threat. Once that decision is overridden for reasons of optics or money, you are already inside a compromised system.
V: On the ferry ride, Mayor Larry Vaughn corners Chief Brody. He argues that closing the beaches would devastate Amity’s fragile economy. With members of the town council standing behind him, Vaughn pressures the medical examiner, who dutifully amends his earlier ruling: Chrissie’s death wasn’t a shark attack after all, but a “boating accident.” Outnumbered and politically isolated, Brody is forced into compliance.
This is the first real confrontation between truth and power. Brody’s legal authority is no match for Vaughn’s political muscle. Notice how Vaughn doesn’t contest the evidence directly—he reframes it. To him, the greater threat isn’t the shark, it’s economic collapse. Vaughn’s reasoning isn’t entirely irrational: Amity’s economy is seasonal, the town depends on tourism, and panic could ruin them. His flaw is choosing denial as his strategy. He convinces himself that controlling the story will control the crisis.
A democracy begins to fail not when politicians lie—that is almost expected—but when institutions of truth allow themselves to be bent in service of the lie. When the medical examiner changes his ruling under pressure, we witness the capture of science by politics. When Brody yields, we see how conscientious actors are trapped by the machinery of consensus.
When the truth becomes negotiable, the system is already compromised.
VI: On a crowded beach, Brody sits tense, scanning the swimmers. His paranoia builds as children splash in the water, the camera cutting between his watchful eyes and the carefree play of vacationers. Then the shark attacks, brutally killing young Alex Kintner in front of dozens of horrified witnesses. Later, in the aftermath, Mrs. Kintner slaps Brody, blaming him for failing to close the beaches.
This is the first public breakdown of the denial narrative. The shark is no longer a rumor; it kills in broad daylight, in front of the entire town. Yet even here, the instinct of the political establishment is to spin reality—frame catastrophe as manageable and an isolated incident.
Notice how accountability flows downward. The Mayor, who insisted the beaches remain open, avoids immediate blame. Instead, Brody—the overruled conscientious official—absorbs the community’s anger. The system protects the powerful while assigning responsibility to those caught in the machinery. Vaughn continues to project calm, while Brody carries the weight of guilt.
A system that denies the first signs of danger inevitably produces public catastrophe. And yet even blood in the water is often not enough to force change.
When institutions shield the powerful from accountability, the cost is always borne by the innocent. More lives will be lost before the truth is allowed to matter.
VII: The townspeople gather in a hall, shouting over one another. There is panic, anger, and demand for action after Alex Kintner’s death. Mayor Vaughn tries to hold control, his calm voice contrasting with the chaos. He refuses to close the beaches but offers police patrols as a compromise. To ease public fury, the council announces a bounty on the shark. Then Quint rises from the back, grizzled and blunt. He offers to solve the problem, but for a steep price.
This is the first time the public enters the story directly. The crisis is visible, and the people demand answers. Vaughn cannot dismiss them outright, but he also won’t give them what they need. Instead, he throws them a gesture of action that changes optics but not reality.
Quint, meanwhile, emerges as a new political force: the private-sector fixer. He’s outside the state, disdainful of its weakness, but willing to sell his services when the institution admits it cannot protect its people. The state does not collapse entirely, but it shows its vulnerability. The forces of power have shifted.
This is the moment where populist anger collides with captured governance. In real democracies, this often produces “band-aid policies”—empty reforms, headline-friendly actions (bounties, commissions, curfews) that redirect anger but avoid structural change. This is also when mercenaries, profiteers, or opportunists step in to offer solutions that may or may not align with the public good.
When citizens finally raise their voices, watch carefully: are their demands met with real reform? A system in decline will use symbolic gestures to placate the crowd while avoiding the hard costs of real action.
VIII: Word of the bounty spreads, and the docks erupt with chaos. Boats too small for open water are overloaded with men shouting, baiting hooks, firing rifles into the surf. The harbor is full of vigilante justice. Then, a group of out-of-towners captures a tiger shark. They drag it ashore, triumphant, and hoist it up for photographs. The town gathers, cheers, and for a moment believes the nightmare is over.
This is mob politics. Leadership has abdicated responsibility, and the people act on their own terms. But the frenzy is disorganized, dangerous, and as likely to produce new harm as to solve the crisis. This chaos is sanctioned by Mayor Vaughn because it produces optics. It allows him to point to bodies and headlines and say, “See? We’ve handled it.”
The captured tiger shark becomes a false victory. It is not the real threat, but it plays well on camera. It provides the establishment with the illusion of control, and a narrative they can sell to the public. Brody knows better, Quint knows better, Hooper knows better, but their truth is inconvenient. The town wants to believe, and Vaughn wants to give them a reason to.
When governments fail, people will act—but uncoordinated action, born of desperation, creates more danger than it resolves. In a failing democracy, this is the pattern: false enemies are paraded, false victories declared. The appearance of success is always preferred to the risk of real confrontation. While the crowd cheers, the true danger swims closer.
IX: Amidst the frenzy, oceanographer Matt Hooper arrives. Young, wealthy, educated, and confident, he brings expertise. The tiger shark is too small, the bite radius doesn’t match, and there is no evidence it killed Chrissie or Alex Kintner. He explains the science, but his warnings are brushed aside.
Hooper is the technocrat—the voice of data and analysis in a system that does not want to hear it. He represents knowledge, evidence, and sober risk assessment. But like many experts in failing democracies, he is dismissed as elitist and alarmist. The Mayor also clings to the optics of the “victory” shark. Hooper’s expertise, though correct, threatens the narrative.
This is the deeper pattern: experts are the first casualties of denial. Science becomes inconvenient, and truth-tellers are sidelined. In failing democracies, false solutions are protected even after they’ve been disproven. The more visible the false victory, the harder it becomes to undo, because reversing it would require leaders to admit guilt. The captured shark is politically useful, so it remains “the solution” even when debunked.
Watch for the moments when experts are summoned but their findings are ignored, attacked, or buried. That is the sign you are living inside a system where narrative has already replaced truth.
X: Hooper takes Brody out at night, searching for proof the real shark is still at large. They find Ben Gardner’s boat (and Ben Gardner…) gutted and drifting. Hooper dives and discovers a massive shark’s tooth embedded in the hull. But in his shock, he drops it. The physical evidence is lost.
Truth is fragile. In politics, evidence is never enough on its own—it must survive the gauntlet of being recorded, defended, and made undeniable. A single missing artifact, a silenced witness, a lost report, and denial marches on.
Never assume truth is self-protecting. In compromised democracies, evidence has to be defended at every step, or it will vanish before it can alter the narrative.
XI: It’s the Fourth of July, and the beaches are full again. Vaughn’s denial strategy has worked—for now. Tourists pour in, and the town celebrates its supposed safety. Police boats patrol offshore as theater, while Vaughn basks in the optics of normalcy.
First comes a false alarm: children with a cardboard fin send the beach into chaos. When the prank is revealed, the crowd laughs nervously, relieved. But then the real attack comes. In the estuary, the shark kills a man in plain view of Brody’s son. The illusion collapses. This is the collision of spin and reality. The lie detonates in public, Vaughn’s credibility is destroyed, and panic overtakes the town.
The longer leaders cling to the false narrative, the more catastrophic the reckoning becomes. False alarms erode trust. Real catastrophe annihilates it. When denial collapses, it does so under maximum exposure.
After the attack, Brody confronts Vaughn in the hospital. The Mayor sits trembling, guilt finally breaking through. Brody forces him to sign Quint’s contract, authorizing the mercenary hunter to take on the shark. Governance collapses into outsourcing. Public safety, once the responsibility of elected leaders, is handed to a private contractor.
In failing democracies, leaders cling to denial until the cost becomes unbearable. And when they finally capitulate, they do not repair the system—they outsource the solution.
The moment a government abandons responsibility and contracts out survival is the clearest signal of institutional collapse.
XII: Quint readies his boat, the Orca. The docks are lined with gear: harpoons, barrels, hooks. Brody and Hooper join him as uneasy allies, and the dynamic is tense. Quint, grizzled and contemptuous of authority; Hooper, polished and scientific; Brody, awkward and out of his depth.
Three men, three worldviews, bound together only by necessity.
This is coalition government born out of collapse. When the state fails, survival depends on alliances between law (Brody), expertise (Hooper), and force (Quint). Each represents a constituency, a mode of problem-solving. None trusts the others, but all recognize they cannot face the threat alone.
What makes this coalition even more precarious is that its anchor—Brody—is also its weakest link. He is not just inexperienced at sea, but terrified of the water itself. The hero of the story boards the boat already confronting his greatest fear. And yet that fear is the very engine of his arc: his willingness to act despite it proves that true leadership is not the absence of fear but the courage to move through it.
When institutions break, the response often emerges from unlikely coalitions. The lawman, the expert, the mercenary—they don’t need to like each other, but they must cooperate if they want to survive. And sometimes, the one most afraid is the one most fit to lead.
In times of democratic failure, unity is not ideological—it is pragmatic, forged out of shared vulnerability to the same crisis.
XIII: The Orca leaves the harbor, and Quint commands the deck. Hooper unpacks his instruments, convinced that knowledge and technology can solve what muscle cannot. Brody lingers between them, the outsider with no mastery of this world. Quint sneers at Hooper’s privilege and book-learning. Hooper rolls his eyes at Quint’s crude methods. Brody is caught in the middle, watching two extremes clash.
This is what coalition politics actually looks like. It is not clean. It is not comfortable. It does not feel like unity. When people who normally don’t speak—or even openly despise each other—are forced together by crisis, friction is inevitable. Each brings a worldview, a set of habits, and a deep mistrust of the other. And yet here they are, sharing the same boat, rowing toward the same enemy, each motivated for different reasons.
This is the hardest part to grasp: solidarity rarely feels like solidarity at the beginning. It feels like bickering, posturing, and turf wars. It feels like nothing is working. Yet survival in failing systems is built this way, with people of wildly different instincts staying close enough, long enough, to recognize that the threat to their lives as individuals is the same threat they face together.
When institutions fail, expect tension. Expect mistrust. Expect rivals to circle each other before they cooperate. But conflict is not failure—it is the beginning of solidarity. In your personal relationships, you know damn well that the relationship is over when you STOP talking.
What matters is not whether people agree, but whether they remain in the same boat. A democracy under strain can only survive if its factions endure the discomfort of coalition long enough to confront the crisis together.
XIV: The villain rises from the sea. Brody stumbles back in shock and delivers the most famous line of the film: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” For the first time, all three men grasp the full scale of the enemy.
Every failing democracy has a point where the true size of the crisis can no longer be minimized, spun, or dismissed. When the shark surfaces in full view, no narrative is strong enough to hide it. The coalition, fractured as it is, can no longer afford illusions.
Solidarity begins when recognition of the threat is greater than difference.
Then, for the first time, the chase pauses. Quint pours drinks. At first it is still posturing—Hooper shows a scar, boasting lightly, and Quint fires back with his own. Each mark is proof of endurance—a tally of what they have survived. Brody laughs nervously, watching from the sidelines.
But the tone shifts. The scars stop being bravado and become testimony about how the world, the sea, and the shark, has cut them down. Hooper, the wealthy technocrat, is no longer just detached science; his scars reveal he has been tested and humbled. Quint, the hardened mercenary, is no longer mere bluster; his marks carry history, sacrifice, survival.
What began as mockery turns into recognition, and recognition turns into respect.
And then Quint tells his story: the USS Indianapolis. Hundreds of sailors thrown into the sea, sharks circling, rescue delayed for days. The government knew they were out there, but no one came. By the end, most were gone. But of course, the bomb was delivered on behalf of the establishment…
This is no longer a story about the ocean. It is a story about abandonment—when institutions collapse, survival is left to chance, and the powerful turn away from those adrift. The shark is not only a predator here; it is the embodiment of systemic failure, feeding on the gap between what leaders promise and what they deliver.
When institutions fail to act, people die waiting. Every democracy has its Indianapolis moment: citizens left adrift while leadership debates, hesitates, or hides the truth. By the time rescue comes—if it comes at all—the damage is already irreversible.
Each man now sees the other’s pain. The shark, the sea, the crisis, has scarred them all in different ways. Hooper respects Quint’s survival. Quint respects Hooper’s courage. Brody, the outsider, sees both differently. Unity is not born of agreement. It is born of scars. People learn to respect one another when they see how the fight has marked them.
Respect is earned through vulnerability, through showing the wound instead of hiding it.
When people lower their guard and reveal how the common enemy has hurt them, respect takes root. Shared wounds build trust faster than shared beliefs. When you can look across at someone you once dismissed and say, “I see how you have been hurt too,” you cross the threshold from suspicion to solidarity.
That is the pivot every failing democracy must find, the moment when people realize that, in different ways, the shark has bitten them all.
XV: The laughter fades, and almost on cue, the shark returns. The men have just begun to taste solidarity, and already the enemy reminds them of its power. The moment people finally find common cause, the crisis will push back harder.
The shark with the barrels in its flesh is the image of a threat that refuses to be controlled, a problem that adapts to every attempt to contain it. The coalition holds—for now—but its fragility is exposed.
Authoritarianism, corruption, collapse—these forces fight back. The lesson is that unity must translate into coordinated, relentless action, because the enemy will not yield simply because you have finally seen it clearly. Solidarity is the beginning, not the end.
XVI: Hooper lowers himself into the water in a steel cage, harpoon in hand, hoping to end the fight with science and precision. Below the surface, the shark appears larger, more unstoppable than ever. It smashes against the bars, twisting steel like paper. Hooper’s spear slips from his hand. He escapes by hiding in the reef, but the cage is destroyed.
This is the failure of technocracy in the face of brute force. Hooper’s faith in expertise, equipment, and calculated strikes cannot withstand the chaos of reality. The coalition had begun to trust one another, but this moment shows that trust alone is not enough if each part of the coalition insists on fighting the crisis in their own way.
In failing democracies, experts are vital, but expertise alone cannot end the crisis.
Systems of corruption, authoritarianism, and collapse require collective effort, persistence, and the full weight of solidarity. If unity splinters into siloed approaches—science on one side, force on another, law caught in between—the shark keeps circling.
The cage breaking is the metaphor: no one discipline, no one approach, can contain a systemic threat.
XVII: The barrels fail to hold the shark, and exhaustion begins to set in. Quint grows manic, pushing the Orca harder than it can bear. He disables the radio, smashing their chance to call for outside help. He drives the engines past their limits, the boat falters, and the coalition is trapped in open water. Quint is consumed, more determined to kill the shark on his own terms than to live.
This is the danger of obsession within a coalition. Quint embodies a kind of destructive pride: the refusal to compromise, or to recognize limits. His traumas drive him toward recklessness. In politics, this is the leader or faction that undermines solidarity because they cannot let go of their own crusade. They would rather burn the boat than share control.
The smashing of the radio is especially telling. Quint severs the line to broader help, trapping the coalition in isolation. In democratic systems, this is the moment when a single figure cuts off institutions, checks, and external accountability in order to wage their own private war.
Every alliance must guard against the pull of obsession. Solidarity is not indestructible; it can be undone from within when one member decides survival matters less than pride.
Watch for the figure who insists only their way is valid, who cuts off communication, and who drives the system past its limits. A failing democracy cannot afford a Quint.
Coalitions succeed only when humility tempers strength, and when the pursuit of victory never eclipses the need for survival.
XVIII: The Orca is battered, sinking fast. The shark bursts through the stern, dragging Quint across the deck. He fights, but his grip slips, and he is pulled into the beast’s jaws. He thrashes, screams, and is swallowed whole. The mercenary who refused to bend is destroyed by the very enemy he sought to conquer alone. Quint’s death is the cost of obsession. He burns too hot, and the crisis devours him.
Strength without cooperation is self-destruction. In a failing democracy, beware of the figure who rejects solidarity in favor of their own crusade. They may have courage, even brilliance, but if they cannot share power, they will be consumed—and they may take others down with them.
XIX: With Quint gone and Hooper missing beneath the waves, Brody is left alone on the sinking wreck of the Orca. He climbs the mast, rifle in hand, the last survivor of the coalition. The barrels drag the shark upward as it charges. Brody fires again and again until one shot finds its mark. The compressed air tank lodged in the shark’s mouth explodes. The monster is obliterated.
Coalitions are essential, but when crisis reaches its breaking point, someone must act. Brody, the outsider, the bureaucrat dismissed and overruled at every turn, delivers the final blow. Brody not only destroys the enemy after all others have fallen, he also faces the fear that defined him from the beginning: the water itself. The man who once felt powerless before the sea climbs above it, steadies his aim, and stares the threat down head-on. His triumph is not only over the shark, but over himself.
Even in solidarity, individuals matter. In failing democracies, it is often the outsider who makes survival possible. Do not underestimate the Brodys of the world—their power lies in courage. When the stakes are high enough, even the deepest fears can be faced and overcome for the sake of the common good.
XX: The sea is calm again, and the shark is gone. Brody clings to wreckage, exhausted, when Hooper resurfaces, alive. They paddle back to shore together, bloodied but breathing, survivors bound by what they endured. The coalition has been broken and remade. They defeated the shark through endurance, solidarity, and courage at the breaking point.
This is what it takes for democracy to survive, and it never comes without sacrifice. Survival depends on solidarity—on ordinary people uniting across their differences and finding the courage to do what must be done.
Every democracy faces its shark. At first the danger is denied, minimized, dismissed. Experts are ignored, officials silenced, false victories staged. The people wait as institutions falter. But if enough of us recognize the wound, if we stay together long enough to share our scars, solidarity can take hold. And when the final test comes, survival will rest not on perfection but on unity, and on the courage of those who refuse to stand down.
This is why we tell these stories. Jaws. Star Wars. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. The Hunger Games. The setting shifts, the villain wears a different mask, but the pattern never changes. A fractured people, forced to come together, discover their only chance is solidarity. They prevail because they endure, together.
