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The 3.5% Protest Rule That Could Bring Down Trump by Erica Chenoweth, Jon Favreau

The 3.5% Protest Rule That Could Bring Down Trump

from Pod Save America

by Erica Chenoweth, Jon Favreau

Published: Sun Jun 15 2025

Show Notes

How much of America would we need to mobilize to stop Trump's power grab? According to political scientist Erica Chenoweth, it takes 3.5 percent—the threshold after which every protest movement, across the world, has been successful. Against the backdrop of the anti-ICE and No Kings protests, the national guard deployment, and Donald Trump's birthday pageant, Chenoweth joins the show to break down the math of the 3.5 percent rule, explain why nonviolence is the key to meeting it, and to share the lessons the civil rights movement can teach us about staying unified, organized, and disciplined in the fight against authoritarianism.