When Silence Is Not the Absence of Resistance: A system-level reading of the fragmented – and often invisible – opposition in the U.S.

We recieved a question from a reader:

Best Weave! I'm curious about what's up with the opposition in the USA. Are the democrats totally passive? Saw some demonstrations on Instagram but unsure if the videos are real. Any trustworthy source from the US that can enlighten us in the Nordics?

In moments of political turbulence, the absence of unified resistance can feel like a void. But often, what appears as silence is not absence - it is transformation. The terrain of political agency is shifting. What once counted as “opposition” is being redefined, redistributed, and, at times, deliberately erased.

If we zoom out and observe the field through a systems lens, three distinct yet overlapping layers of resistance begin to emerge:

1. The institutional layer: Fractured, cautious and constrained

The Democratic Party, as a formal opposition force, appears hesitant and internally fragmented. President Biden speaks with deliberate caution, often avoiding direct confrontation. Vice President Kamala Harris, while recently more vocal, has not yet become the unifying figure many anticipated.

There are moments of clarity: Representative Hakeem Jeffries denouncing “chaos, cruelty and corruption,” Senator Cory Booker’s protests, Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s warnings of a constitutional emergency. But these interventions are isolated and seems to be lacking narrative cohesion or strategic orchestration.

Figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders continue to energize public discourse, yet are framed by media as peripheral rather than central. 

So if the Democratic Party is speaking, it’s doing so in fragments – a mix of outrage, caution, and exhaustion. It’s unclear whether this is strategic silence, internal disarray, or simply the absence of a clear narrative. Perhaps it’s all three.

Kamala Harris remains, for now, the most recognized national figure in the Democratic field – leading most recent polls among party voters, holding a significant margin over other potential candidates. However, her lead has been diminishing as figures like Pete Buttigieg and AOC gain traction among voters. But whether Kamala Harris becomes the focal point of a more energized, coherent opposition remains to be seen.

Another opposition worth the mention is former Republican Liz Cheney - expelled from her own party for defending democratic norms - who has emerged as a surprising symbol of cross-partisan dissent. Her clarity, while rare, speaks to the vacuum of moral leadership and she has become one of the most meme-friendly and often quoted voices about the political state in the US.

This institutional fragmentation reflects a system caught between performance and paralysis, navigating the tension between legacy structures and a rapidly mutating political ecosystem.

2. The cultural layer: Unofficial, dispersed and rapid

Outside formal politics, opposition takes root in the cultural sphere. Podcasters, essayists, comedians, TikTok creators, and Substack writers now shape large portions of the public imagination.

While traditional figures like Trevor Noah and Jon Stewart retain influence, new networks of meaning-making are emerging - decentralized, diverse, and unruly. These channels can bypass gatekeepers but also become incoherent, conspiratorial, or reactive. Anger is abundant; strategic coherence is not.

Some of this becomes chaotic. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s online outbursts against everything republican have turned him into a wildcard in the public eye – not a representative of the Democratic Party, but a symptom of a larger credibility crisis. Anger is widespread, but organized leadership is rare.

Still, these cultural spaces are not trivial. They represent a shift in where legitimacy is generated. Political resonance is now co-created through memes, microvideos, and murmurings from the margins. This is not the death of politics - but its migration.

3. The collective layer: People moving without permission

The most vital and least visible layer is that of mass mobilization. On April 5, 2025, over five million people across all 50 U.S. states took part in the Hands Off! protests - one of the largest coordinated acts of civil resistance in the country’s history. Yet it barely registered in mainstream media. No headlines. No analysis. 10 seconds on the Swedish major news show 'Rapport' – squeezed between Trump narratives and a much longer segment on egg farmers.

This is not a failure of messaging. It’s the effect of what media scholar Jonathan Smucker calls “soft censorship”: the systemic invisibilization of resistance that does not conform to electoral cycles or advertising logic. When resistance arises outside market-compatible channels, it becomes illegible. It’s not that people aren’t protesting - it’s that our systems no longer recognize their voice.

In the absence of institutional clarity, protest becomes not just expression, but substitution - a decentralized immune response to democratic erosion. These acts are not simply about opposition; they are attempts to reclaim agency where leadership has collapsed.

The systemic impasse

We are living in a time where the gap between knowing and doing has become excruciatingly visible.

• We know the signs of democratic decay.

• We know the consequences of climate breakdown.

• We know the structural inequities embedded in our economies.

But systemic overwhelm breeds cognitive fragmentation and emotional fatigue. The institutional, cultural, and collective bodies that once aligned into movements now often misfire, collapse, or compete.

This does not mean resistance is dead. It means it is metabolizing - beneath the surface, between the cracks, across unfamiliar lines.

Resistance as metabolic process

Rather than asking where the opposition is, we might ask: what forms of resistance are alive but unrecognized?

• What if resistance no longer looks like unity, but like distributed coherence?

• What if protest is no longer a moment, but a metabolic pulse of civic life?

• What if leadership is no longer embodied in individuals, but in relational fields of action?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are invitations to notice what systems prefer to ignore.

In lieu of a conclusion

So perhaps the most democratic act today is not to shout louder, but to listen differently. To attend to what flickers outside the spotlight. To see protest not just as noise, but as signal. To honor resistance not only when it’s strategic - but when it’s alive.

Maybe the US shouldn’t be waiting for the return of politics. Maybe we are witnessing its total reformation - in plural, unruly, and deeply human forms.