We attended the rally in Statesboro GA today. It's a small college town in the heart of Red Trump country. We were afraid there wouldn't be much of a turnout. Instead we counted 120 people and we missed some. There were many people driving by and honking in support. If that happens in the Reddest part of the country it gives me hope.
Claudette Colvin! I never heard the name before, and I grew up in Memphis while Rosa Parks refused to get up. Mr Finnegan, your posts are always outstanding, but this one rises to a whole new level. I can only give my heartfelt thanks. You are a patriot and an educator.
I am an 82 year old white retired professor who would give his eye teeth to teach as eloquently as you do. I did not go to today's protest in Portland because I can at best walk 2 blocks with the aid of a walker, and standing for 20 minutes is beyond me. But I did take a brief walk, during which I encountered a neighbor carrying an anti-Trump sign returning from today's protest. She guessed the crowd at about 5000 people. Multiply that bt 1200 protests and you have five million protesters, at least, out today. Outstanding.
I take your point about just protesting not being enough, but it is a start. Loudly refusing to accept Trump's lies, refusing again and again, will, I hope lead Congress people to realize that their positions are at risk if they continue to silently go along with Trump.
Finally, no one in his right mind would condem you for leaving. You have done more than your share. Thank you.
83 and white and can’t walk far too, but I’m with you. It’s what we must do. My oldest brother Charlie was a navigator in WWII and was shot down over Germany. I’ll do what I can to not let his life be in vain❤️🇱🇷
Sorry to wade in unasked, but if you’re passionate about molecular matters including microbial (me!), it’s a very exciting subject! 😊 Barry, I’m sure you were a great lecturer.
Reading this, I felt the rare electric jolt of moral clarity, something I associate with the best of European dissident writing. There’s a lineage here that runs straight through Havel, through the Berlin streets in ‘89, all the way back to the kitchen whispers of my childhood in Eastern Europe, where truth had to wear a disguise, and courage often looked like silence… but never apathy.
What you’ve articulated, brilliantly I’d say, is the anatomy of collapse. Not the bang, but the shrug. In Ceausescu’s Romania, it wasn’t a missile or a manifesto that brought him down — it was a boo (I still remember it vividly although I was a child). A crowd, planted with state security officers, dared to boo. And suddenly, the emperor’s suit looked threadbare. Not because the people discovered new truths, but because they decided to stop pretending they didn’t already know them.
Authoritarians survive not by force alone, but by a collective fiction we agree to act out. And as you point out, systems rot not from top-down confrontation but from bottom-up refusal. Not grand gestures, but micro-defections — each one a fissure!
But I’d like to offer a new thread to reinforce your argument: authoritarianism is allergic to unpredictability. It needs the choreography of fear, the repetition of compliance. But when people break script (when the governed become erratic, ungovernable, even slightly weird) the entire edifice begins to tremble. Refuse the handshake. Ask the inconvenient question. Take the long way. Laugh at the tyrant. Not because it’s enough, but because it shifts the risk. Unpredictability is a contagion of liberation.
What I’ve learned is this: you don’t need to storm the palace, you just need to destabilise the play. Make the actors forget their lines.
So yes, the protests matter. Not because they’ll change Trump. But because they might change his gatekeepers. Because even the cruelest regime is made up of terrified men with pensions, and the moment they sense the wind shifting, they’ll start throwing each other overboard like sandbags.
Thank you for this piece! It is both a rallying cry and a strategic manual for the infinite game. And I, for one, will not be the extra in someone else’s farce… even if I live in Western Europe, we are all part of this.
This might be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written in response to one of my pieces.
Truly.
Your memory of Ceausescu—a boo—says more than volumes of analysis. That moment didn’t require a new idea. It simply required people to stop pretending the lie was still working. That’s the shift I was writing toward. Not revolution, but refusal.
“You don’t need to storm the palace, you just need to destabilize the play.”
Yes. Exactly. Authoritarianism depends on predictability—on everyone hitting their marks, reading their lines, and pretending the narrative still holds. Break the rhythm, and the whole cast starts to falter. Because beneath the bombast, these regimes are incredibly fragile. They survive on fear, not strength. On complicity, not legitimacy.
And you're right to point out that unpredictability is a contagion. Micro-defections are cumulative. One gatekeeper hesitates. Another one improvises. Someone forgets the script entirely. That’s how the facade cracks—not because the tyrant falls, but because his supporting cast forgets why they’re still standing.
So no, the protests won’t change Trump. But they might change the calculation of the frightened men orbiting him. And when their fear shifts from disappointing him to being left alone with him… things move fast.
Thank you for this. You didn’t just reinforce the argument—you enriched it.
And you reminded me why we write in the first place: Not just to reveal what’s true, but to remind each other that we’re not crazy for seeing it.
Isn’t it wild how two people, miles and histories apart, can still recognise the same crack in the wall? You wrote the map, I just scribbled in the ghost stories I grew up with. And yes: refusal, not revolution. The curtain doesn’t fall because someone screams, it falls because someone stops clapping.
I’ll carry your line — “not just to reveal what’s true, but to remind each other we’re not crazy for seeing it” — like a match in my pocket.
Thank you Mr. Finnegan - those wonderful people marching today need people like you watching and knocking back the “naysayers and hypocrites” - don’t think you are not doing everything you can - your essay brilliantly defined what those people protesting stood for today and the 75 year old lady who is going to do it tomorrow - we are all in this together- as Senator Booker said “the power of the people is stronger than the people in power” - this will amplify and help even more of us - stay strong
Hear! Hear! Totally agree that this is the best article I have read in a long time. Sharing it with many who are frightened and disillusioned. Thank you
Mr. Finnegan, this is the second of your essays I've read on Substack, and given the subject matter and the current environment here in the United States, I feel very satisfied that we will survive somehow and someway, and very possibly, well. I hope that there are thinkers like you in the position who will take some effective retaliatory action against this unlawful and deranged (I think DJT has some fantasy blocks in his mind) attack on our freedoms and our system and agencies of government. Thanks for such a thoughful and intelligent writing.
There are so many gems in this, I'm hard-pressed to find my favourite one. I'm Canadian and from us to you - you're in our prayers. Right now, my government is warning that we would be subject to a phone and device search if we were to try and cross the border. Spoiler: I would not pass because I can't stay silent. Not for my country or for yours. If I had to choose, it is the piece you wrote about why Authoritarians fail that spoke to me the most. We don't have MAGA - we have Maple MAGA here and they are a scary breed. Our election on the 28th of this month will decide which way we go - do we continue to rise in newly found national pride? Or do we descend into authoritarian hell with you? If we were, by some fluke, to vote in a Conservative government, I can only hope that our Elbows Up grassroots movement will accelerate into high gear. In the meantime, we will continue to scream loudly for you. Because you have been our neighbour and friend. And because your people are crying out against tyranny.
I was in the NYC march. I went into it cautious and a little nervous (we don’t know what kind of deal Eric Adams made with Trump - maybe “bust heads”?). But yesterday was easy and fun. I recognize, though, that if we are successful, it will be neither.
“Good trouble” means you have to be willing to put your body on the line to make change happen. Yesterday, tens of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers and I made that first decision.
Trump is too dumb or deranged,or both, to understand. Thousands of us took to the streets in Chicago, and when I say “us” I mean older adults. Older adults who vote, and I hope the Republicans in Congress are paying attention because his enablers will be gone in 2026.
I’m not in the loop anymore—but I can almost guarantee every member of Congress is watching this unfold, looking at Cory Booker, and quietly asking: “How do I survive this?”
Some of them—Tuberville, Johnson, the braindead fuckers—will keep toeing the line. They’ll say, “We need more dirt to eat. Money is evil. Trump good. MAGA!” Whatever. Ignore those clowns.
Watch what happens in the Rust Belt, the Deep South, and the Southwest Republican caucuses. When you see even Rand Paul and that assclown Cruz hedging—saying, “I’m not in favor of taxes, I hope this is short-lived”—you know the wall is starting to crack.
I’m not saying Trump doesn’t still have his boot on their necks. But when 4% of the U.S. population, plus hundreds of cities around the world, simultaneously say “Fuck Trump and Musk”, it gets Republican attention in the quiet spaces.
These people don’t bend because of principle. They bend because power starts to feel dangerous.
Yes—they’re giddy watching Social Security and public institutions collapse. They love that part. They’re thinking: “I didn’t have to lift a finger. Musk and Trump are doing it for me.”
But when the blowback gets this loud? When it starts to threaten their seats? That changes the game.
Even with gerrymandering, most of them aren’t invincible. Look at what happened in Florida’s 1st and 6th—Republican districts that saw half their base vanish in under 90 days. They still won, sure—but every campaign manager in every red district just got a massive “What the fuck?” alert.
Collins, Murkowski—they flip when it’s convenient. And McConnell? That guy’s Himmler in the last hour, trying to convince the Red Cross he didn’t murder anyone. It’s over for him.
Thune is about as anti-MAGA as a Republican can be in public. That tells you everything you need to know about what’s really happening behind the scenes.
In the House, you don’t need 30 flips. You need six.
Six flips? MAGA Mike is done. Six real flips? Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker.
Don’t think it could happen? Wait until the agriculture-based states can’t sell their products. Wait until cowboy-hat districts can’t move beef. Wait until they realize the world is quietly cutting ties.
Republicans don’t have a mandate. They have a criminal enterprise.
And all it takes is a few of them flipping—turning state’s evidence—and the whole MAGA mafia is nailed to the wall.
Yes and the democrats need to sit up & take notice as well. If you’ve been sitting on your own tongue since November, your seat will be in play as well. If not, it should be.
I attended a march today in my small city and 500 showed up in the rain, and every car that drove by honked in support (except for one). There was a palpable sense that people wanted to take back the power and say a definitive "NO" to Trump and Musk. If anything, the gathering of people created a sense of unity, that we're all in it (the mess and the fight) together. I also shared my experience of watching freedom and the rule of law disappear under the hands of a dictatorship, and why I thought it was so important to gather and protest when we still can! There were calls for action--invitations for people to participate in local elections and engage in local causes. Although from the national perspective, this may seem too little, too late. But as you said, apathy is worse. Our message to the cowards in Washington D.C. cannot be more clear, and hopefully the lawmakers take the clue and do something! And if there is something we the people could still do to fight for the rights of people locally, it's never too late.
Thank you, William. I like to cite Timothy Snyder's advice in his book "On Tyranny," of listening to foreigners who have lived under tyranny, as they have seen what Americans have not seen (adding my own note: but are seeing right now). BTW, Snyder has accepted a position in a university in Toronto and will be emigrating.
You have every right and reason to justify leaving this country. (As you know, I would've left already if it wasn't for my practical constraints. But since I'm here, I try to do what I can.) Your voice is important and can be amplified continually when you are in a country with greater freedom.
You know what a fan I am of using history as a guide to our present and weaving together disparate events to create a stirring narrative. That's exactly what this is. Bravo, William A. Finnegan!
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out in a well thought out and constructive manner. I share your perspective on our current situation and concur that, clearly, there is more work to be done and we are in the early stages of this whole process of realization and mobilization. Let’s keep the momentum going and keep asking our leaders, “What’s next???”
We obviously have to do more, April 5th was great but it’s over now and Trump is still in the Oval Office.
WE NEED TO STAND UP AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR OUR DEMOCRACY!!! ✊🏼✊🏼
We attended the rally in Statesboro GA today. It's a small college town in the heart of Red Trump country. We were afraid there wouldn't be much of a turnout. Instead we counted 120 people and we missed some. There were many people driving by and honking in support. If that happens in the Reddest part of the country it gives me hope.
Claudette Colvin! I never heard the name before, and I grew up in Memphis while Rosa Parks refused to get up. Mr Finnegan, your posts are always outstanding, but this one rises to a whole new level. I can only give my heartfelt thanks. You are a patriot and an educator.
I am an 82 year old white retired professor who would give his eye teeth to teach as eloquently as you do. I did not go to today's protest in Portland because I can at best walk 2 blocks with the aid of a walker, and standing for 20 minutes is beyond me. But I did take a brief walk, during which I encountered a neighbor carrying an anti-Trump sign returning from today's protest. She guessed the crowd at about 5000 people. Multiply that bt 1200 protests and you have five million protesters, at least, out today. Outstanding.
I take your point about just protesting not being enough, but it is a start. Loudly refusing to accept Trump's lies, refusing again and again, will, I hope lead Congress people to realize that their positions are at risk if they continue to silently go along with Trump.
Finally, no one in his right mind would condem you for leaving. You have done more than your share. Thank you.
What did you teach, Dr?
Thank you for the kind words.
83 and white and can’t walk far too, but I’m with you. It’s what we must do. My oldest brother Charlie was a navigator in WWII and was shot down over Germany. I’ll do what I can to not let his life be in vain❤️🇱🇷
I can’t stand or walk that long either but I did bring a camping chair and I sat there with my sign!
Molecular and Microbial Evolution at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Rochester.
Wow. lol. That’s a tough subject I suspect to make exciting. lol.
Sorry to wade in unasked, but if you’re passionate about molecular matters including microbial (me!), it’s a very exciting subject! 😊 Barry, I’m sure you were a great lecturer.
Reading this, I felt the rare electric jolt of moral clarity, something I associate with the best of European dissident writing. There’s a lineage here that runs straight through Havel, through the Berlin streets in ‘89, all the way back to the kitchen whispers of my childhood in Eastern Europe, where truth had to wear a disguise, and courage often looked like silence… but never apathy.
What you’ve articulated, brilliantly I’d say, is the anatomy of collapse. Not the bang, but the shrug. In Ceausescu’s Romania, it wasn’t a missile or a manifesto that brought him down — it was a boo (I still remember it vividly although I was a child). A crowd, planted with state security officers, dared to boo. And suddenly, the emperor’s suit looked threadbare. Not because the people discovered new truths, but because they decided to stop pretending they didn’t already know them.
Authoritarians survive not by force alone, but by a collective fiction we agree to act out. And as you point out, systems rot not from top-down confrontation but from bottom-up refusal. Not grand gestures, but micro-defections — each one a fissure!
But I’d like to offer a new thread to reinforce your argument: authoritarianism is allergic to unpredictability. It needs the choreography of fear, the repetition of compliance. But when people break script (when the governed become erratic, ungovernable, even slightly weird) the entire edifice begins to tremble. Refuse the handshake. Ask the inconvenient question. Take the long way. Laugh at the tyrant. Not because it’s enough, but because it shifts the risk. Unpredictability is a contagion of liberation.
What I’ve learned is this: you don’t need to storm the palace, you just need to destabilise the play. Make the actors forget their lines.
So yes, the protests matter. Not because they’ll change Trump. But because they might change his gatekeepers. Because even the cruelest regime is made up of terrified men with pensions, and the moment they sense the wind shifting, they’ll start throwing each other overboard like sandbags.
Thank you for this piece! It is both a rallying cry and a strategic manual for the infinite game. And I, for one, will not be the extra in someone else’s farce… even if I live in Western Europe, we are all part of this.
This might be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written in response to one of my pieces.
Truly.
Your memory of Ceausescu—a boo—says more than volumes of analysis. That moment didn’t require a new idea. It simply required people to stop pretending the lie was still working. That’s the shift I was writing toward. Not revolution, but refusal.
“You don’t need to storm the palace, you just need to destabilize the play.”
Yes. Exactly. Authoritarianism depends on predictability—on everyone hitting their marks, reading their lines, and pretending the narrative still holds. Break the rhythm, and the whole cast starts to falter. Because beneath the bombast, these regimes are incredibly fragile. They survive on fear, not strength. On complicity, not legitimacy.
And you're right to point out that unpredictability is a contagion. Micro-defections are cumulative. One gatekeeper hesitates. Another one improvises. Someone forgets the script entirely. That’s how the facade cracks—not because the tyrant falls, but because his supporting cast forgets why they’re still standing.
So no, the protests won’t change Trump. But they might change the calculation of the frightened men orbiting him. And when their fear shifts from disappointing him to being left alone with him… things move fast.
Thank you for this. You didn’t just reinforce the argument—you enriched it.
And you reminded me why we write in the first place: Not just to reveal what’s true, but to remind each other that we’re not crazy for seeing it.
Isn’t it wild how two people, miles and histories apart, can still recognise the same crack in the wall? You wrote the map, I just scribbled in the ghost stories I grew up with. And yes: refusal, not revolution. The curtain doesn’t fall because someone screams, it falls because someone stops clapping.
I’ll carry your line — “not just to reveal what’s true, but to remind each other we’re not crazy for seeing it” — like a match in my pocket.
Thank you!
Beautifully written. True. Thank you. It is up to We the People. Disobey. Occupy. Vote.
Thank you Mr. Finnegan - those wonderful people marching today need people like you watching and knocking back the “naysayers and hypocrites” - don’t think you are not doing everything you can - your essay brilliantly defined what those people protesting stood for today and the 75 year old lady who is going to do it tomorrow - we are all in this together- as Senator Booker said “the power of the people is stronger than the people in power” - this will amplify and help even more of us - stay strong
what a dang good article...i have zero words it is so good..
It is IN the top 10 articles of at least 200 and I have saved about 500..
Hear! Hear! Totally agree that this is the best article I have read in a long time. Sharing it with many who are frightened and disillusioned. Thank you
Mr. Finnegan, this is the second of your essays I've read on Substack, and given the subject matter and the current environment here in the United States, I feel very satisfied that we will survive somehow and someway, and very possibly, well. I hope that there are thinkers like you in the position who will take some effective retaliatory action against this unlawful and deranged (I think DJT has some fantasy blocks in his mind) attack on our freedoms and our system and agencies of government. Thanks for such a thoughful and intelligent writing.
There are so many gems in this, I'm hard-pressed to find my favourite one. I'm Canadian and from us to you - you're in our prayers. Right now, my government is warning that we would be subject to a phone and device search if we were to try and cross the border. Spoiler: I would not pass because I can't stay silent. Not for my country or for yours. If I had to choose, it is the piece you wrote about why Authoritarians fail that spoke to me the most. We don't have MAGA - we have Maple MAGA here and they are a scary breed. Our election on the 28th of this month will decide which way we go - do we continue to rise in newly found national pride? Or do we descend into authoritarian hell with you? If we were, by some fluke, to vote in a Conservative government, I can only hope that our Elbows Up grassroots movement will accelerate into high gear. In the meantime, we will continue to scream loudly for you. Because you have been our neighbour and friend. And because your people are crying out against tyranny.
I was in the NYC march. I went into it cautious and a little nervous (we don’t know what kind of deal Eric Adams made with Trump - maybe “bust heads”?). But yesterday was easy and fun. I recognize, though, that if we are successful, it will be neither.
“Good trouble” means you have to be willing to put your body on the line to make change happen. Yesterday, tens of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers and I made that first decision.
Trump is too dumb or deranged,or both, to understand. Thousands of us took to the streets in Chicago, and when I say “us” I mean older adults. Older adults who vote, and I hope the Republicans in Congress are paying attention because his enablers will be gone in 2026.
I hope so too.
I’m not in the loop anymore—but I can almost guarantee every member of Congress is watching this unfold, looking at Cory Booker, and quietly asking: “How do I survive this?”
Some of them—Tuberville, Johnson, the braindead fuckers—will keep toeing the line. They’ll say, “We need more dirt to eat. Money is evil. Trump good. MAGA!” Whatever. Ignore those clowns.
Watch what happens in the Rust Belt, the Deep South, and the Southwest Republican caucuses. When you see even Rand Paul and that assclown Cruz hedging—saying, “I’m not in favor of taxes, I hope this is short-lived”—you know the wall is starting to crack.
I’m not saying Trump doesn’t still have his boot on their necks. But when 4% of the U.S. population, plus hundreds of cities around the world, simultaneously say “Fuck Trump and Musk”, it gets Republican attention in the quiet spaces.
These people don’t bend because of principle. They bend because power starts to feel dangerous.
Yes—they’re giddy watching Social Security and public institutions collapse. They love that part. They’re thinking: “I didn’t have to lift a finger. Musk and Trump are doing it for me.”
But when the blowback gets this loud? When it starts to threaten their seats? That changes the game.
Even with gerrymandering, most of them aren’t invincible. Look at what happened in Florida’s 1st and 6th—Republican districts that saw half their base vanish in under 90 days. They still won, sure—but every campaign manager in every red district just got a massive “What the fuck?” alert.
Collins, Murkowski—they flip when it’s convenient. And McConnell? That guy’s Himmler in the last hour, trying to convince the Red Cross he didn’t murder anyone. It’s over for him.
Thune is about as anti-MAGA as a Republican can be in public. That tells you everything you need to know about what’s really happening behind the scenes.
In the House, you don’t need 30 flips. You need six.
Six flips? MAGA Mike is done. Six real flips? Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker.
Don’t think it could happen? Wait until the agriculture-based states can’t sell their products. Wait until cowboy-hat districts can’t move beef. Wait until they realize the world is quietly cutting ties.
Republicans don’t have a mandate. They have a criminal enterprise.
And all it takes is a few of them flipping—turning state’s evidence—and the whole MAGA mafia is nailed to the wall.
It won’t take much.
Yes and the democrats need to sit up & take notice as well. If you’ve been sitting on your own tongue since November, your seat will be in play as well. If not, it should be.
I attended a march today in my small city and 500 showed up in the rain, and every car that drove by honked in support (except for one). There was a palpable sense that people wanted to take back the power and say a definitive "NO" to Trump and Musk. If anything, the gathering of people created a sense of unity, that we're all in it (the mess and the fight) together. I also shared my experience of watching freedom and the rule of law disappear under the hands of a dictatorship, and why I thought it was so important to gather and protest when we still can! There were calls for action--invitations for people to participate in local elections and engage in local causes. Although from the national perspective, this may seem too little, too late. But as you said, apathy is worse. Our message to the cowards in Washington D.C. cannot be more clear, and hopefully the lawmakers take the clue and do something! And if there is something we the people could still do to fight for the rights of people locally, it's never too late.
I think your voice, Lilly, and those of others who fled oppression from other countries are among the most salient.
Thank you, William. I like to cite Timothy Snyder's advice in his book "On Tyranny," of listening to foreigners who have lived under tyranny, as they have seen what Americans have not seen (adding my own note: but are seeing right now). BTW, Snyder has accepted a position in a university in Toronto and will be emigrating.
You have every right and reason to justify leaving this country. (As you know, I would've left already if it wasn't for my practical constraints. But since I'm here, I try to do what I can.) Your voice is important and can be amplified continually when you are in a country with greater freedom.
Thank you, Finn. Cogent, thorough, and spot on!
You know what a fan I am of using history as a guide to our present and weaving together disparate events to create a stirring narrative. That's exactly what this is. Bravo, William A. Finnegan!
Thank you! I showed up in my town
💪🇺🇸❣️
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out in a well thought out and constructive manner. I share your perspective on our current situation and concur that, clearly, there is more work to be done and we are in the early stages of this whole process of realization and mobilization. Let’s keep the momentum going and keep asking our leaders, “What’s next???”
We obviously have to do more, April 5th was great but it’s over now and Trump is still in the Oval Office.
WE NEED TO STAND UP AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR OUR DEMOCRACY!!! ✊🏼✊🏼
no this is bullshit.
Certain action is needed.
Every second people wait to perform that swift, sure, decisive action: the more entrenched the regime becomes, and the more damage it's allowed to do.
Pussyfootin around is just as blameworthy as apathy or collaboration.