Democracy is not a spectator sport.

That truism has been repeated by notables from Gen. Jim Mattis to Barack Obama to George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state. But it’s fitting that the person credited with first saying it was a private citizen whom nobody particularly remembers.

Lotte Scharfman (1928–1970) was a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria who became president of the Massachusetts chapter of the League of Women Voters. Her cause was an obscure one: She wanted to reduce the size of Massachusetts’s bloated House of Representatives from 240 members to 160. The measure failed on its first vote in the House in 1970, for the obvious reason that no representative wanted to risk losing their own seat. But after several House members were voted out later that year for opposing the reform measure, it cleared the state legislature, and in 1974 it won overwhelming approval from Massachusetts voters.

Corruption was “a way of life” in the Massachusetts state House of the 1960s and 1970s, a state investigating panel later concluded—it was rife with bribery, extortion, and money laundering. Yet even in that civic sewer, a legislative body was persuaded to do something that most political scientists would tell you is a logical impossibility: put one-third of its own members out on the street. That should clue you in to the power of participatory democracy.

“People know deep inside them,” Ralph Nader told me recently, that “if they really blow their top, nothing can stop them.” Is Nader, who at 91 has logged six decades walking the citizen-action beat, feeling optimistic that President Donald Trump’s multifront assault on constitutional government can be stopped? “Not optimistic,” Nader replied. “Just realistic…. As some people stand up to power, it becomes contagious.”

Granted, this country has never witnessed an abuse of presidential authority so extreme as what Trump is right now wreaking in every conceivable direction. But as I write this, an extraordinary national mobilization is underway. Every conceivable method of lawful opposition is being applied to arrest Trump’s bizarre and frequently illegal sabotage of the very government he was elected to lead. Some acts of resistance will work; others will fail. It will be some time before we have a clear sense of what works best.

Surveying this Boschian hellscape, many good people will despair. Yes, Trump is much more dangerous than he was during his first term (which was harrowing enough). He’s more giddily reckless about impounding funds, shutting down agencies, disobeying court orders, and using the government to punish political enemies. But if you allow yourself to tune out this ugliness, you might as well have voted for the man. The president is counting on such demoralization. “If you are overly cynical and think ‘Oh, there’s nothing we can do,’” warned David Cole, former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, “that also has a snowball effect.” Democracy is not a spectator sport.

How can ordinary citizens fight back? To scout the best approaches, I canvassed activists, lawyers, scholars, politicians, and union leaders for advice. Some of what they suggest will lie beyond your abilities, expertise, financial resources, or sense of personal safety—in which case, choose something you can do. Just about everyone I spoke to emphasized that there is no silver bullet—no single arena, not even the courtroom, where Trump’s illegal power grab can be stopped. “There’s no messiah” who will “sweep in and make everything better,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. That’s up to you and me. The good news is there are a lot of us.

Indeed, there may be even more than we can know just yet. Because Trump isn’t careful about whose interests he acts against, Resistance 2.0 has potential to evolve into a bipartisan movement. “Successful authoritarian regimes determine what their winning coalition is,” observed Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the resistance nonprofit Indivisible, “and then they work very hard to keep that coalition together.” Trump lacks such discipline, and as a result he frequently screws over natural allies.

Trump alienates the military by installing as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a boozer and womanizer who called an officer of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps a “jagoff” and, after he was confirmed, fired the top JAG officers in the Air Force, Army, and Navy. Trump alienates Big Pharma by installing as health and human services secretary a recovering heroin addict, womanizer, and (according to his cousin Caroline Kennedy) “predator” who less than two years ago said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” As HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommends treating measles with cod liver oil and letting bird flu spread unchecked through poultry flocks. Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, “I’m not worried about inflation,” and “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Trump, meanwhile, terrorizes Wall Street with market-killing tariffs and stray threats not to honor the national debt.

No matter who joins this fight, it won’t be won next week, or next month. Barring impeachment and removal, Trump will be president for four long years, and not even his allies expect him to become less authoritarian and kleptocratic. So pace yourself. But the sooner you join in, the more effectively we can limit the damage.

Here’s how.