Only six months into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has already wrought unprecedented chaos upon the government and society of the United States. He issued more than 20 executive orders (EOs) on his inauguration day alone, bypassing Congress and seeking to impose what many have called a fascist agenda. Among the most radical were EO 14158, which established the now infamous Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and EO 14169, which froze virtually all U.S. foreign aid.
I am one of the many in Washington who have lost their job as a result of EO 14169. Until recently, I worked for a high-profile organization, implementing projects that advanced and defended human rights in Ukraine. As we reeled from the executive order’s fallout, one of the questions that I heard time and time again from Ukrainians was: “Why aren’t Americans doing anything?”
It’s not a surprising sentiment. Since the final years of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has witnessed three impressive mass protest movements. The first was the Revolution on Granite in 1990, in which students occupied what would become Kyiv’s Independence Square to demand early parliamentary elections, reject a proposed Union Treaty with Moscow, and call for the nationalization of Communist Party property. Tens of thousands marched in solidarity with the students.
The second was the Orange Revolution of 2004, in which more than 500,000 people gathered in the square to protest rigged presidential elections. The third and likely the most well-known to an international audience is the 2013-2014 Euromaidan, in which hundreds of thousands occupied the square in response to then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the long-awaited Association Agreement with the European Union. While the most striking images were from Kyiv, cities across Ukraine—including Lviv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Odesa, and Kharkiv—also saw significant protests, as well as the storming of government buildings.
Notably, all three movements got results. The first resulted in the capitulation of the Soviet state to many of the protesters’ demands, the second in the annulment of the fraudulent election results, and the third in the toppling of Yanukovych. Ukrainians have also recently been on the streets again, successfully protesting against the abolition of independent anti-corruption institutions.
There have been serious protest demonstrations in the United States. On April 19, there were anti-Trump actions in 12,000 locations across all 50 states, which was later followed by the nationwide “No Kings” protests on June 14. But nothing has been comparable in scope, duration, or success to the three aforementioned Ukrainian examples. To find out why there’s been no American Maidan, I spoke with four Ukrainians: Alya Shandra, founder of Euromaidan Press; Kateryna Butko, founder of the activist group Auto Maidan; Romeo Kokriatski, a Ukrainian American journalist who has lived in Ukraine since 2014; and Dmytro Zhmailo, an expert on Ukraine’s recent history and the co-founder of the Ukrainian Security & Cooperation Center. Both Shandra and Butko participated in the 2014 revolution.
In each of the three revolutions, Ukrainians were confronting governments perceived as illegitimate. In 1990, it was the unelected Soviet state. In 2004, it was the fraudulently elected Yanukovych. And in 2013-2014, it was Yanukovych once again—illegitimate this time not because of election fraud but because of his capture of state institutions, refusal of the Euro-Atlantic path, and flagrant violence against protesters. By contrast, even Trump’s staunchest opponents do not dispute the legitimacy of the 2024 presidential election results.
Regardless of the anti-democratic nature of Trump’s policies, the fact remains that he has the genuine support of almost 50 percent of the country and that he won 2.2 million more individual votes than Kamala Harris. “There is a large part of the U.S. populace that wants fascism,” Kokriatski said. “In Ukraine, one of the things that made [Euro]maidan successful is that everyone fucking hated Yanukovych.” Butko echoed this view, saying, “We had only one goal … make Yanukovych run away, nobody wants a president like that. We united for this one goal, and that’s why we had so many people.”
The fight for national independence and identity has been another galvanizing factor in Ukraine’s mass protests. “All three Ukrainian revolutions … had a common ground: the defense of national interests, the establishment of statehood, and the right of Ukrainians to live in their own independent state,” Zhmailo said. Shandra had the same perspective, framing Ukraine’s revolutions as different iterations of a “liberation war from the Russian Empire.” Those who oppose Trump lack an external foil to mobilize resistance against.
While centuries of colonial oppression mean that Ukrainians perceive alignment with Russia as a fundamental attack upon their sovereignty and national identity, there is no comparable historical resonance in the United States. Americans must fight a homegrown phenomenon that has significant domestic legitimacy.
There’s extensive research on how people choose to protest and why, and historical precedent plays a key role. When Ukrainians flooded Independence Square during the Euromaidan revolution, they only had to look back 10 years for a successful example of mass mobilization. Americans lack this kind of recent example. While there have been nationwide protest movements, such as the 2003 marches against the Iraq War and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, they did not result in major political change. Arguably, the most recent examples of American mass protests resulting in concrete change are the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s and ’70s—nearly half a century ago.
In recent history, Americans—especially the white majority—have had the luxury of taking their rights for granted. Kokriatski explained that “Ukrainians have never been a powerful nation or a powerful people.” Centuries of colonial oppression by Russia mean that “Ukrainians know that if you do not attempt at least to fight for your own rights … those rights … will be taken away from you,” he said. “There is nothing comparable to this for the U.S. The heyday of the civil rights era was a long time ago … you don’t have that sustained living memory that if you do not stand up right now, you will be disappeared.”
Zhmailo underscored that point, stating, “The words ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘equality’ are not hollow for us.” Shandra also highlighted Ukrainians’ readiness to put their lives on the line by saying, “I think we succeeded [in the Euromaidan] because there were young men who were willing to die for their ideals.” Referring to the protesters murdered by riot police, she said, “We couldn’t step back because we had these martyrs now.”
Another critical difference between the United States and Ukraine is the salience of ideological differences. “American society seems to be much more polarized than Ukraine along ideological camps,” Shandra said. Euromaidan saw Ukrainians from across the political spectrum unite for a single goal. While the movement did little to change societal prejudices, LGBTQ+ activists stood on Kyiv’s central square alongside far-right groups such as Right Sector to oppose Yanukovych.
Referring to the armed self-defense groups that emerged among protesters, Kokriatski said, “You had anarchist sotnyas fighting alongside far-right sotnyas.” Zhamilo reinforced this view, stating, “At a critical moment, we put aside all internal contradictions to unite to defend the state. … Only in harmony and unity can we achieve results, and this is what we are showing the world. We want the world to learn from us.”
By contrast, deep ideological differences fragment the anti-Trump opposition. That was visible well before the 2024 presidential election, with the divide between liberals and leftists over core issues such as the United States’ stance regarding Israel’s war on Gaza.
Both Shandra and Butko stressed that mass protests like Euromaidan are a last resort. “All of our revolutions, they were because we can’t [effect change] during the elections. … In Ukraine, we did not have any options, only to go to the streets” Butko said.
“Your democracy is healthier … than ours, I’m not sure that it can be dismantled in one day,” Shandra said. “It was easier for [Yanukovych] because democracy had not taken deep root yet.”
The Trump administration may be attacking the United States’ democratic foundations but Americans still have institutional means of dissent, with the courts being a key avenue. At the time of writing, the Trump administration is facing more than 150 lawsuits challenging every aspect of Trump’s agenda, from federal agency cuts to the persecution of migrants and asylum-seekers.
As of June 4, judges in 188 of these cases have called on the administration to at least temporarily pause the policies in question. In the federal district courts, both Democratic and Republican-appointed judges have ruled against Trump in the vast majority of cases even as the Supreme Court has repeatedly gone to bat for him. Resistance through litigation has a long-established precedent in the United States: The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s often played out in the courts.
The 2026 midterm elections will offer Americans a crucial opportunity to overturn Trump’s fragile majorities in the House and Senate, making it much more difficult for his administration to push through its controversial policies. Butko underscored Americans’ access to alternative means of protest, saying, “You will have elections to Congress and maybe something will change after that. Americans have many more options how to do it … not only through protest.”
What remains to be seen is how effective these other options will be with an administration whose identity is predicated upon the denigration of the institutions that make these options possible. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reject EO 14169 back in March, but the Trump administration has made no move to fall in line. Officials such as U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance have refused to rule out defying court orders and dismissed district courts’ authority.
Jan. 6, 2021, was a warning shot, showing the willingness of Trump supporters to endorse violence and overturn the United States’ democratic processes. Those who stand for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law may soon find that the institutional pathways upon which they have hitherto relied are no longer effective. In this scenario, Americans could do worse than to look to the Ukrainians’ bravery for inspiration.
“When you hit rock bottom, that’s when it erupts,” Shandra said.
As U.S. citizens stare down the barrel of three more years of Trump, they find themselves confronting an even more pressing question: Just what will America’s rock bottom be?