Here’s the thing: I’m with you. I agree as an American that the only thing that can stop this train is a wholehearted, full-throated rejection of everything this administration represents. That comes with a couple of issues, though, and the first is that the body politic here is intensely complacent; much too comfortable to be driven to action. The fact of the matter is that disapproval of Trump is the majority view, and even at the beginning of his second term that was still about a dead even split, but not even Trump’s atrocious performance in his first term was enough to galvanize a large portion of the US voter base in the 2024 election, despite it clearly being a critical inflection point. Unfortunately, if it doesn’t affect their life immediately and directly, a large portion of America simply doesn’t give a shit. Overcoming that apathy is likely going to require something large, noticeable, bombastic, demonstrably wrong, and personally painful, and by that point there’s a good chance it’ll be too late. Additionally, any revolution or unrest is likely to be heavily suppressed by the second issue: the US police state and its willingness to use deadly force, regardless of the severity of the situation. Between police forces, riot police, swat teams, the national guard, domestic surveillance, and now the might of the US military turned on its own populace, the Trump administration has all the tools to make any true resistance deeply costly and incredibly painful. Talk of resistance, of revolution, of taking up arms against this fascist takeover is easy, but the feasibility of a clean revolution in the face of the US police, military, and intelligence apparatus is doubtful. More likely we would end up with either civil war or insurgency, fighting an asymmetric campaign against an overwhelming force. We know that the US is vulnerable to such tactics (see: US expeditionary wars in Vietnam and the Middle East), but we also know that those tactics are incredibly costly, and require a populace that is highly motivated by what they perceive to be an existential threat.

The key here, in my opinion, is the military. Historically, he who controls the military, controls the state. The victors of coups and revolutions practically always have the military on their side, and for good reason; very few things are as persuasive as the threat of a bullet. Morale in the US military right now seems to be low, and if we can manage to break the trained obedience to hierarchy, we might just have a chance, but without them, I don’t see a way forward. Even every citizen striking and causing a complete shutdown of the US economy would just be likely to lead to threats being made to and examples being made of them, and getting people onboard for that is unlikely to be feasible from a fundamental level, given that the majority of America lives paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t want to be fatalistic or claim that this can’t be done or that we shouldn’t be doing anything about it; we should, and have a moral obligation to act, but the reality of the situation is that the time to act while avoiding discomfort was last November, and the viable options available to us now are going to hurt, and will likely only get more painful as time goes on. That makes people hesitant to act, and until such a time as they have more to lose from inaction than they do from action, I don’t expect that to change.

God, do I hope I’m wrong, though.