No, The 3.5 Percent Will Not Overturn Trump's Presidency

American Thinker 

Rachel Maddow likes to play armchair political scientist. Asked by Jimmy Kimmel if she thinks the “peaceful protests” she highlights on her show do any good, Maddow enthusiastically replies, “Yes!” and explains:

In political science terms, there’s what’s called the 3.5% rule which is that if you look at authoritarian regimes of various kinds all over the world over the last like century, once you have 3.5% of a population protesting nonviolently against a dictator or an authoritarian, that is essentially an unstoppable force that they can’t oppose. And that precludes them from consolidating dictatorial power….It’s not that much larger a number than what we are already seeing in the streets against Trump.

Where did Maddow come up with this 3.5% theory? In April 2025, MoveOn.org sent out an email glorifying their nationwide success with the “Hands off!” protests against “oligarchs” Trump and Elon Musk. As Maddow made clear, their goal then wasn’t and isn’t now, just to express outrage over the actual issues—oligarchy, Musk, ICE, George Floyd, Women, Jan 6—but was instead to mobilize 3.5% of the population to resist Trump and sow chaos with the long-term goal being his ouster.

MoveOn’s claim as repeated by Maddow in her conversation with Kimmel, is that “no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilized against it during a peak event,” a theory taken from Erica Chenoweth’s 2020 discussion paper at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at...wait for it... the Harvard Kennedy School. As Chenoweth says, it’s more a tendency or rule of thumb than an actual law, and a quick read of the paper generates more questions than actual answers. Maddow should have actually read it before promoting Chenoweth’s theory as fact.

Two of the uprisings cited in Chenoweth’s paper failed, even with protest participants significantly exceeding the 3.5%, but that is admittedly a small number compared to the other post-WWII uprisings she cites, and it’s a long list: Hungarian anti-communist, East German uprising, Euromaidan, South Korean anti-military, Serbian anti-Milosevic, Anti-Gayoom Campaign, Tongan pro-democracy movement, Madagascar pro-democracy movement, Royalists, Active Voices, First Palestinian Intifada, Libyan Civil War, Philippines People Power, Djibouti Arab Spring, Brunei Revolt, Rose Revolution, Velvet Revolution, Iranian Revolution, Chile anti-Pinochet campaign, Anti-King Hamad Campaign, Lithuanian pro-democracy movement, Sudanese anti-Jaafar, Albanian anti-communist, Latvian pro-dem movement, Anti-Morsi Protests, Anti-Islamist Government Protests, Singing Revolution, Lebanon Political Crisis, Cedar Revolution, Zambian independence movement, Argentina pro-democracy movement, and Slovenian Independence.

You don’t have to be an award-winning political scientist to see that most of these uprisings involved majority populations seeking seismic change to oust tyrannical, authoritarian, communist, or post-USSR regimes that had a stranglehold on their economies and freedoms. Notably absent are Western European and Anglosphere nations, countries with a robust history of freedom and democracy in which the rule of law and free and fair elections thrive.

America’s communists are trying to lump America in with Sudan, Chile, and Zambia, but it doesn’t wash. They are forcing this comparison to mobilize the most radical among them to wreak havoc not only upon the Trump Administration, but against any Republican or conservative in power. For leftists, MAGA, as a kind of practical ideology that has unified a party used to divisions, must be stopped at all costs before it further infects the body politic. 

And, yes, today’s Democrats are true believers, indistinguishable from progressives, socialists, Marxists, and communists. It’s time we stopped calling them Democrats when they collectively fall so far from the mark and just call them what they are: damn communists! Or Commiecrats, if you will.

Maddow’s fantasy of the 3.5% forcing Trump’s ouster falls short on several levels. It’s not a “political science term”, whatever Maddow thinks that means, but a working theory with many moving parts and variables, with no two revolts being exact replicas. How organized is the resistance? How non-violent is it? How well funded? Do they have arms? What kind of regime is in place? How strong is it, and what are its vulnerabilities? How heavily militarized is it? Is there outside support? Have there been other uprisings? What percentage of the overall population supports or opposes the governing regime?

That last question is key, especially in evaluating whether the 3.5% holds in America, where an overwhelming majority would need to protest. Otherwise, it’s just a small group speaking the loudest and carrying the biggest stick, trying to impose its will on the remaining population as it seeks to control the reins of power.

This raises a key question: Is it the 3.5% that drives this, or does it occur only when that 3.5% is backed by large majorities who oppose an existing government or leader? For example, Iran’s population is about 80 million. If the uprisings in Iran are successful and the millions of participants represent 3.5% of the population, will success actually result because the 3.5% is backed by these numbers: 92% of Iranians oppose the regime; only 20% want the regime to remain in power; 70% oppose continuation of the Islamic Republic; and 80%want the Ayatollah to go. Those numbers are likely even higher in a country where it’s dangerous to respond to polls.

In the US, we don’t have anywhere near that kind of opposition to Trump, even using Rasmussen’s current poll finding Trump’s approval among likely voters at 45% and his disapproval at 54%. There’s a significant difference between slightly half of the population opposing a leader versus 80%.

We may be a country divided and deeply polarized, but I doubt we are ready for an insurgency by 11-12 million people (3.5%) to oust the MAGA “regime” and install a communist alternative. While that 3.5% might be the most radical among us, if we ever reached that point, I believe an overwhelming majority of Americans would oppose them, even if they didn’t support President Trump. Most Americans are satisfied with voting and, provided they can trust the electoral system, they would rather wait four years for a legitimate change in governance than have a violent coup oust a duly-elected leader.

In her report, Chenoweth echoes my concerns: “If a movement can mobilize 3.5% of the population to participate, there are likely much larger proportions of the population that sympathize with and support the movement.” [Emphasis added.]

I contend that 3.5% supported by 50% of the population is very different from 3.5% supported by 80%.

MoveOn claims 3.5% is easily achieved because Democrats would only have to double the 1.6% of participants at the Women’s March (four million). Echoing MoveOn, Maddow giddily tells Kimmel they aren’t that far away! Maddow suffers from the delusion that if Democrats can reach that magical 3.5% there’ll be a much larger number behind it. It’s more likely that the full support will be 3.5%, if that much.

Call it hubris, delusion, wishful thinking, or just plain propaganda, but it’s astounding that Maddow, Kimmel, and MoveOn can say with straight faces that turning 3.5% of the population against the existing democratically-elected government, is a legitimate democratic aim when it is clearly turning democracy on its head—ignoring the defining principles of democracy” “majority rule, coupled with individual and minority rights...while respecting the will of the majority, zealously protect[ing] the fundamental rights of individuals and minority groups.”

If 3.5% of the population can overthrow a duly elected administration and assume power, that is the definition of government by a small group; here, elite progressives who are really communists. An oligarchy by any other name...

Oligarchy for me, but not for thee.

Communists like Maddow and Kimmel can dream of the pussy-hatted 3.5% with their self-righteous claims about democracy and ousting oligarchs, but in America today, it’s still just a pipe dream.