Tyrants Fall

it is their defining characteristic

How many enemies dreamed of destroying the White House. How many soldiers wished they could flatten it. How many generals fantasized about razing the American People’s house.

This one man beat them all. Same man brought the confederate flag into the Capitol, same man presides over the largest tax hike in history (tariffs are import taxes), signed off on the ending of nutrition for the hungry and ending of healthcare since it will now be unaffordable for millions.

This. One. Man.

But he is only one man. Sure he has supporters around him and appointed to positions to actualize his whims, and he can, has and plans to ruin more.

But there is no version of the American People that let his behavior continue unchecked. The pendulum of American politics will swing back. The only question is the timeline, and the extent of the destruction that happens between now and then, and if the next phase is destructive or constructive. To imagine the American people will not react is to grossly miscalculate America.

Let me meander through some history and thought as I sort of survey where we seem to be and where we might go.

The reaction of the American People to what this President is doing may not be quick, may not be unified and may or may not be productive. Non-violent change tends to be more effective with fewer downsides than violence.

Erica Chenoweth, co-author with Maria J. Stephan of the book Why Civil Resistance Works - The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, says to the Harvard Gazette that key parts of a successful nonviolent campaign include "four different things...

[1] ...a large and diverse participation that’s sustained.

[2] ...[the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites.

[3] ...need to be able to have more than just protests...

[4] ...when...repressed — which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes — they don’t either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves..."

So if the American People can continue to work to defend themselves and each other from federal abuses, and include those four pieces, we will in time stop potus from what he is doing and wants to do. Seems like a framework we can work with.

Number 1 seems to have partly been realized by the No Kings protests, though growing the size and diversity (in all respects) of the people involved needs to happen even more going forward.

Number 2 seems to have partly been seen in the reversal by Disney and others around the suppression of Kimmel and elsewhere. How much those reversals are maturing into a more full bodied recognition that defiance is the smarter and more lucrative path than compliance remains to be seen.

Number 3 may well need to include things like boycotts. Boycotts have already been impacting companies like Target and may be about to impact Spotify (which has been running recruiting ads for ice). Please cancel your Spotify (and shift your playlists elsewhere, perhaps to Qobuz using Soundiz, which is an option I randomly came across).

Number 4 could get...unpredictable. As ice violence continues, it seems likely the American People need courts to contain ice's law breaking and brutality.

“…for where there is an authority, a power on earth, from which relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power.” - 2nd Treatise on Government by John Locke chapter 3, section 21

If courts fail to contain ice, it seems violence is what remains, according to Locke. Locke is saying that if a people cannot appeal to an earthly authority for relief, the people are in a state of war. Put another way, if only God is sorting it out, Locke says armed conflict is the path God leaves us when we (humanity collectively) fail to give ourselves any other options. Dancing inflatable frogs are an option.

The Founders of the United States were influenced by Locke's thinking, not just on this. But this thinking did help them see war as a viable choice for themselves to solve the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence. For them it by and large worked out. Except, less than 100 years later the country tore itself apart. And then a hundred years after that, it still hadn't solved some of the issues baked into our society, and so again tried to find solutions with the civil rights movement. But by and large, over the centuries, the imperfect union has slowly worked to become more perfect.

Now, the President’s advisors like to say we are in a second American Revolution. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” said Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation (architects of Project 2025) on potus' sometimes strategist Steve Bannon’s podcast.

But Roberts fails to realize at least two things. Whomever he deems to be "the left" won't curl up into a ball and simply go away while he gets his way at their expense. Also: violent Civil War is not avoided, nor is it incited, by only one side in the United States. It was never so naively simple before, and it wouldn't be now.

Additionally, violent conflict has uncertain outcomes. One can choose to start a war, but one cannot quite choose how it will end. And those behind Project 2025 are not of one mind when it comes violence. And so far, no side within the administration has created the cohesion needed to enter an armed conflict with any agreement among themselves on what victory even looks like.

The potential for damaging things and people is real, but the potential for us to end up with any one of the mutually exclusive end-states the various groups supporting the admin want is... unclear at best. Their opposition is still working to find its footing, though things like No Kings 2 show progress.

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You may have heard or read how some want blue states to withhold tax payments from the federal government, which is likely neither feasible nor legal.

The US Federal Government routinely runs on debt, so they don't need tax payments right now to function (assuming sovereign loans are still possible going forward). So withholding tax payments is not a very effective cudgel. Also, some are saying such a scheme is a "soft secession" but the Constitution really doesn't have a mechanism for secession, soft or any other kind. The EU has a clause in their constituting document that lets countries choose to leave, as the UK has: Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. The US Constitution has nothing like Article 50. And throwing the US Constitution out is the opposite of saving any of our Constitutional Republic. If that operation were a success, the patient would still die.

Plus, even if taxes could be somehow withheld, it won't solve the underlying tensions of federal overreach when such overreach defies the Constitution as boldly as this presidency's does. We’ve kinda been here before.

In 1828, a tariff (import tax) signed by President John Quincy Adams was so unpopular in the south that South Carolina started talking about simply declaring it nullified, and refusing to pay it.

By 1832, South Carolina was making military preparations to resist federal enforcement of the tariff (import tax), and President Andrew Jackson was in a pickle: South Carolina would be the only one of two constitutional crises on his plate. Georgia was trying to enforce its laws against and on Cherokee lands, and the Supreme Court said the state of Georgia could not do that because only the feds had legal standing and relations with the Cherokee (Worcester v Georgia). Jackson, not wanting another constitutional crisis with Georgia on top of the one he already had with South Carolina, decided not to enforce Cherokee rights against Georgia. This is where the idea he said, "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" comes from.

So instead of enforcing Cherokee rights on Georgia, Jackson favored and chose Cherokee “relocation,” basically violent deportation/ethnic cleansing, instead of triggering war between feds and the state of Georgia.

In 1833, at the other end of the pickle, Congress came up with a compromise tariff, and a threat of federal troops enforcing the tariff bundled with it, which combined to make South Carolina happy-ish enough to avoid armed conflict with the feds.

Jackson did not avoid war between Georgia and the feds by hurting the Cherokee and ignoring the federal court, and also did not avoid war between South Carolina and the feds through changing import taxes (tariffs) and making a threat: he deferred and amplified it. The Civil War still turned states to ash, and killed hundreds of thousands of Andrew Jackson’s generation’s kids and grand-kids. Bad compromises are bad because they don’t meaningfully or persistently solve anything.

Cut to 2025. Federal forces are violently deporting people, the president is trying to ignore courts, his shifting tariffs (import taxes) are ravaging the economy, and people call for states to withhold/nullify tax payments.

But we are not in the 1830s. This time,

• the taxes people are mainly referring to withholding are income taxes, not import taxes (tariffs),
• deportations are being done to assert and consolidate federal power while ethnic cleansing, not to allow states to impose their will on native land while ethnic cleansing, and
• the current president seems to lack the nuanced awareness Jackson (hardly known for nuance) had of the tensions between states and the federal government.

The current President wants to enforce his will everywhere, without being questioned, using military force, and shows no concern for any state’s, or his own people’s, wishes whatsoever. History does not repeat, but it can rhyme.

The President’s advisors like to say we are in a second American Revolution. One problem with that thinking is, those who start revolutions rarely are the ones who get to end them. Robespierre is just one example of someone who ardently pushed for change, only to have that change eventually modify him from living to dead. Another problem with the President's advisors' thinking is: all despots fall. As I said before "...history prepares to do what it always does eventually with despots: it deposes them." Dictators never last forever; they're doomed.

bannon, vought, miller and potus believe they can re-make the civilization of the United States in their vision. They can’t. They can hurt a lot of people and break a lot of stuff. And in their attempts they already are doing both. But their endgame is the pure fantasy of an all-white Christian ethno-state (or technate) that somehow, without having been articulated, leaves them personally and financially relatively intact. Robespierre could suggest how they're probably wrong.

Over multiple time-zones, and with over 330 million people, there is no possibility of transforming of the US into what they want in any near term, and their attempt is unlikely to leave them personally unscathed. bannon has already been to prison once. The collection of reversals of some of their core aims, like attempting to reduce the federal workforce to almost nothing, is already massive.

They're still working to actualize Project 2025, and they have made progress. It is not all good news for anyone. But there is real-time push-back against their efforts too. They're over-extended and their fantasies of a glorious Second Revolution or Civil War is flawed. Creating chaos, ruining the economy and flooding the internet with images of federal aggression doesn't help the administration in the near or long term.

Even if Locke is right and violence does become more appealing to the populace as other paths to resolution seem unsatisfactory, Locke never promised it would happen fast. This administration needs to consolidate its power quickly before it loses momentum and, so far, the American People have not given them the violence they crave to justify their consolidation efforts. We have not taken their bait.

The tactical frivolity of dancing inflatable frogs doesn't fuel authoritarian crackdown. The peaceful assembly of 7 million people for No Kings 2 simply doesn't propel the autocracy into high gear. You do not win over the American People by destroying a wing of the White House. They chose the wrong country to try to play absolute monarch. The American People still have choices about where this goes.

Our task, as much as we each individually and collectively can, is to stop them and reduce the harms they invite. Finding joy and building hope is part of that effort. And so, now that I have enjoyed finishing writing this, I am off to do something else enjoyable, like eat lunch. I hope you'll find joy today too.

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© Copyright October 26, 2025, David August, all rights reserved davidaugust.com

David August is an award-winning actor, acting coach, writer, director, and producer. He plays a role in the movie Dependent’s Day, and after its theatrical run, it’s now out on Amazon (affiliate link). He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, on the TV show Ghost Town, and many others. His artwork has been used and featured by multiple writers, filmmakers, theatre practitioners, and others to express visually. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios, helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the Internet.