Two months of Donald Trump’s second term has shattered a lot of suppositions about the nature of the US Government. The White House has embraced and indeed gone beyond a maximalist approach to Project 2025, Elon Musk is leading the rogue DOGE agency in dismantling the administrative state with barely any resistance, and while everyone, myself included, expected there to be at least SOME resistance to Trump’s more egregiously unqualified cabinet nominees, all sailed through Senate confirmation. Even before Trump took office the Biden administration and prosecutors Trump didn’t have in his pocket took great pains to avoid ever holding Trump accountable in a way that, ya know, mattered. Donald Trump appears to have some malevolent omnipotence over the US government, and while we can joke about the President having the Spear of Longinus in his underwear drawer the reason is much simpler: January 6th.

When the dust settled after Donald Trump loosed a mob against the US Congress during the certification of the 2020 election, most observers were concerned with the legal and national political ramifications. There was an assumption that the perpetrators would face swift and immediate consequences, that Republicans would finally turn against Trump having faced a threat to their own lives, and Democratic opposition would be more vigorous than ever. What we failed to appreciate was that these 535 people, many of them old, rich, and heavily sequestered from consequences beyond political or legal, faced mortal danger for defying Trump. I’d wager that for most, this was the first time in their lives that they faced a life-or-death situation, and for Republicans it was from the leader of their own party.

Trump had punished defiance before: firing members of his own White House, or backing primary challengers regardless of the risk to his majority, but January 6th proved that he was capable of anything when threatened. Congressional Democrats, having plenty of members from marginalized communities who’ve faced regular threats of violence, responded with as much vigor as you would expect given the limited tools available to them. Republicans responded with subservience. Those that continued to defy Trump were gradually purged from the party via the by now well established processes of the contemporary Conservative movement, leaving a coalition of genuine fanatics, quislings, and cowards.

The modern Conservative movement has always been a culture of cowardice, with its adherents steeped in a climate that relies on fear, exclusion, and degradation to maintain ideological cohesion. But Republicans were not the only ones who chose surrender rather than to fight. The Biden administration response to Trump will be remembered as, at best, completely feckless. Attorney General Merrick Garland spent 4 years on an investigation with the goal of never actually convicting anybody. Congressional leaders, despite the extensive investigation of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, frequently showed trepidation when faced with the possibility of actually punishing Trump and his ilk. Biden could have easily invoked the insurrection act shortly after taking office and had Trump and his confederates arrested for high treason, but he never even suggested the idea. Instead Democratic leaders passed and continue to pass the responsibility of holding Trump accountable.

Do high-ranking Democrats fear that Trump will sick another mob on them if they force him to face justice? Probably, but I don’t believe self-preservation is the only reason for their unwillingness to act. Institutional inertial no doubt plays a large part of Democratic paralysis, Senate Minority Leader (at time of writing) Chuck Schumer has indicated as much with his eternal hemming and hawing about the threat posed by Republicans. Moreover, Democrats seem to fear any action to hold Trump accountable risks widespread political violence. Following the 34 felony conviction levied against Trump in 2024, Senate Democrats expressed such fears that Trump supporters would take up arms. Fear of a general rebellion is not just a fear for one’s own safety; it doesn’t take a scholar or a veteran of war to know how destructive rebellions can be. To those in power, avoiding such a catastrophe is worth any price. And this is where we have our problem.

January 6th convinced a lot of Republicans that there is no alternative but to submit to Trump lest they face a risk to their lives, while many Democrats fear a larger insurrection. In effect, both parties are now gripped by the same appeasement fallacy that allowed the authoritarians of the 20th Century to rise to power. But appeasement has never, and will never succeed in deterring violence levied by would-be-tyrants like Trump. Any capitulation is treated by the aggressor as a sign of weakness, emboldening their aggression. Whereas every time Trump has faced someone who has actually stood up to him, he’s retreated. The only way for America to avoid a widespread rebellion is to resist Trump and his ilk on every front. Congress must grind the wheels of government to a halt, the courts must use every tool at their disposal to bind the executive from action, and the people must refuse to comply with any act designed to reduce their rights. We’ve seen this work, most recently in South Korea following the putsch by President Yoon Suk Yeol last December. You don’t beat a bully by begging him not to punch you. You beat him by standing your ground.