> I've seen individual cops, or small groups of 'em, stand down in the US,
> too.
Zizek’s point isn’t quite what Doug implicitly attributes to him: that when cops stand down, the jig is up. Zizek’s point is rather that cops standing down may be a marker of the turning point in any regime’s fall from legitimacy / authority / durability. In Iran, that point was marked by a cop standing down; in other contexts, it may take other forms - although presumably always linked in some way to the machinery of state power.
Maybe there’s an interesting question to be pursued as to whether the form of power implicated in such turning points must necessarily be the power of coercion, or whether such a turning point might manifest in the domain of persuasion. I can’t think of an example, and my sense is that the answer is no. We are a stubborn lot.