David A. Graham writes:

For months, as Donald Trump has hollowed out the executive branch, defied courts, and worked to suppress dissent, his critics have rightly worried about the lack of visible public opposition. Democratic Party leaders are still obsessing over the 2024 election; outside organizations are fatigued; and mass protests such as those seen in the early months of Trump’s first term have been missing.

That began to change over the past few days, as demonstrations arose in Los Angeles over immigration-enforcement operations by federal agents. As they begin to spread to other cities, these protests look like the first mass movement against the second Trump administration. And with events scheduled this weekend to serve as counterprogramming to Trump’s birthday military parade, they have the potential to grow.

Yet as this moment begins, some members of the anti-Trump coalition worry that these demonstrations will bring about disaster. Protests are messy; even when the majority of participants are peaceful, just a few bad actors can produce instances of violence, and big protests always draw a few bad actors. Observers have also worried about the optics of protesters carrying Mexican flags, lest the protests be seen as unpatriotic or anti-American. One overriding concern is that even minor missteps by Trump’s critics will give him an excuse to overreach further. “Trump is expecting resistance,” my colleague Tom Nichols wrote over the weekend. “You will not be heroes. You will be the pretext.”

These concerns are understandable, and they are offered in good faith by dyed-in-the-wool Trump critics, who don’t hesitate to call him a budding authoritarian. They’re correct that Trump is welcoming confrontation. Trying to convince anti-Trump allies about the most effective tactics can feel much more productive than appealing to Trump to respect protests or the rule of law, especially because his actions are frequently erratic and irrational. But the focus on specific tactics, or on trying to predict how the president will respond, overlooks how effective large protests have been—not just historically, but also during Trump’s first term. The same could be true now.

None of this is to excuse violent protests, which are dangerous and destructive, and also usually politically counterproductive in America. Actual violence in Los Angeles appears to be limited and small in scale, and Trump’s decision to federalize thousands of National Guard members and deploy hundreds of U.S. Marines is, as I wrote yesterday, both legally dubious and wildly disproportionate. The most heralded victims so far have been some Waymo driverless taxis, and local authorities blamed scattered violence on provocateurs who are tangential to the protests. Most protesters appear to be on the streets simply to witness and to speak out against the administration’s immigration raids. Take the president’s word for it: Even Trump says the situation is “very well under control.”

The existence of large demonstrations, which are spreading into other cities, is itself a sign of Trump’s vulnerability. His turn to the military to try to enforce his will, less than six months into his term, is a gesture of authoritarianism, but it’s also an indication of his weak sway over the public. Plenty of experience shows that Trump almost always folds. Besides, Trump definitely wins if people disperse because they don’t want to provoke him. Peaceful protests can be very effective at changing policy and public opinion, and the biggest win for Trump might be for people to be so scared of what he’ll do next that they do nothing at all. As the journalist Asawin Suebsaeng noted on Sunday, you would be hard-pressed to find Americans counseling protesters in repressive nations—such as Iran or Burma or Hungary—to stop protesting just because their leaders might be spoiling for a fight. [Continue reading…]