That’s like saying that 5 wheels on a semi that stop turning are responsible for the truck turning right instead of left.
Candidates win elections based on the numbers of people that vote for them, not the numbers of people that don’t vote for them.
I’m pretty sure that’s how electoral democracy works, but check me if I’m wrong about that, if there’s some byzantine requirement for a plurality of citizens that frames everything in a counterfactual way.
Disrupt the course of the water permanently (every day of the year), instead of a symbolic gesture one day out of the year.
In this case the water is the accumulating mass discontent and the drain is militarism and nationalism.