[fooey]

There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.

The US government is entirely non-responsive and only nominally representative.

Barring a wave of Republican retirements in the House, the absolute soonest there are any guardrails are after the 2026 midterms when a new congress is seated in 2027.

[burnt-resistor]

Gerrymandering, infinite lobbying corruption, and manufactured consent are supposed to keep the populace doing and thinking what the 1% want, and cheating to help them. They can't even do those properly anymore with vast resources. Perhaps billionaires and failed celebrity reality stars don't make the best public administrators.

[throw0101d]

> There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.

If there are ICE agents in your area follow and film them. Create evidence of their jackboot tactics.

Most folks do not like force/violence, and the more people see the jackboot policies and actions of one side, the more folks will lean towards the side(s) that are against those policies.

[naijaboiler]

58% of Americans were okay with goverment shooting at protesting students at Kent State shooting.

[throw0101d]

53% of Americans say that the ICE agent for shooting the woman in Minneapolis:

* https://xcancel.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016

In a different poll 53% say Trump is doing "too much" to deport illegal immigrants (up from 44% in March):

* https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/15/growing-s...

[throwworhtthrow]

The source for this [1] is more nuanced (someone can be both "not okay" with it while also blaming the victims), but it's true that survey respondents were five times more likely to blame the students than the National Guard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#cite_note...

[UncleMeat]

There are still some things. A handful of court cases have gone against the trump admin and they have (in many cases) respected them. For example, the suits against national guard deployments in chicago. Donating to organizations using the courts to leverage the law against the trump administration does have material effects.

The senate can also still hold some things up. If you have a senator who keeps voting for trump's judicial appointments or you have a senator who is in leadership then yelling at them to stop letting trump's judicial appointments sail through is important. The fact that the dems are not using every procedural step to slow down the process is ridiculous.

[mrtksn]

Of course there’s, it’s just that anti-Trump people don’t care as much and are not as brave as the pro-Trump people. MAGA people stormed the capitol, anti-Trump people just write well thought concerns on the internet. MAGA people for years endured deplatforming and being outcasts but developed methods to deal with it, the anti-Trump people are scared to lose what they have and are too concerned about their differences within and they are unable to build anything. It’s people with nothing to lose and everything to gain vs people with everything to lose and nothing to gain from having a fight.

Those who stormed the Capitol did it because they were against the current course of affairs. Are the anti-Trump people ever going to do something like that if they are against the current course of events? I don’t think so.

Consequently, Trump will win. That’s why people who control the capital are aligned with MAGA.

[sapphicsnail]

People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors. Leftists protestors are and always have been more harshly treated by this government than the other side.

[shimman]

If anyone is doubting this, look at how the police treat "ecoterrorists" versus mass shooters. Ecoterrorists in quotes because the real ecoterrorists are those polluting and destroying the planet for money, not a group of people that stop a machine from raping the land.

[mrtksn]

> People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors

I never understand what's the point of those protests. They should be taking over power by force or GTFO. Notice that successful revolutions storm the HQ, destroy some building of iconic significance or kill/capture the leader, not just enduring the atrocities of the foot-soldiers of the people who they are against.

The peaceful protest thing works when the people in the HQ care about what you think about them, which means it only works if those protesting are their people and not the opposition.

The lefties should start taking notes on what works and what the far right did to gain so much power and start stealing their methods. Display of dissatisfaction isn't going to work, if anything that dissatisfaction is satisfaction to the right wingers. They feel giddy when see the people they hate protesting, their only complain can be that the protests are not big enough.

[atmavatar]

> I never understand what's the point of those protests.

For one, it's about showing politicians just how unpopular these policies are. If you can convince a large enough swath of Republican congressmen their seats aren't so secure, they may start to break with the administration.

On the more extreme end: I doubt many of the protesters are familiar with it, but there is a 3.5% rule[1] in political science that states when nonviolent protestors grow to about 3.5% of the population, authoritarian regimes become likely to fall from power.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule

[jacquesm]

> destroy some building of iconic significance

I think you have the parties confused there.

[Tanoc]

The pro-Trump group don't think about consequences is the thing. The anti-Trump group do, and that's a big reason why they're slow to respond. Performing a siege on the Capitol was a stupid, angry, and impulsive reaction with no thought of the consequences afterwards. That's the way the entire pro-Trump group tends to act. Meanwhile the anti-Trump group think about knock-on effects and long term consequences because they understand that nothing is an island and that everything is connected to everything else, even through degrees of separation. It makes them hesitant to do anything right away because they first have to consider what the ripples are going to affect outside of the area of their immediate focus. One group is reactive and the other is proactive, and being proactive is always going to be slower.

[jacquesm]

I think it is much simpler than that: creation takes time, destruction is fast.

[mlrtime]

I don't think that's it. It has more to do with something to lose or not.

"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose"

Liberals are generally more empathetic towards others and have good intentions when protesting. However if they have a comfortable life they will back down very quickly when faced with force. Just my opinion, could be wrong.

[insane_dreamer]

A big difference is that if anti-Trump protesters tried to storm the Capitol like MAGA did, they would be shot dead.