The sore loser’s sequel: How to defend the Congress voters elect

January 6 didn’t start with the riot. It started with a lie about a stolen election, aimed at real people, until a mob believed it. The next attempt may not look like a crowd breaking through doors. It may look like a president claiming foreign interference, directing federal law enforcement at members of Congress, and demanding that a new majority be treated as illegitimate.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home was searched on October 12, 2026, by Homeland Security Investigations and the Justice Department under a warrant in a yearslong immigration-fraud inquiry into her citizenship paperwork; she has not been charged. Omar called it “an outrageous abuse of power” and said, “I will not be silenced.” President Trump said he had “nothing to do with” the search and that it was “really up to the DOJ”; a federal judge later limited the Justice Department’s access to the seized records because Omar is a sitting member of Congress. CNN reported the search fits a broader pattern of federal investigative steps involving Democratic lawmakers.

Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss already know what happens when a false election claim lands on real people. Trump pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a recorded January 2, 2021, phone call to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.” Freeman said, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?” Moss described “a lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother.” Freeman testified that the FBI told her it was unsafe to stay in her home, forcing her out of the house where she had lived for 21 years.

The warning is already on the record. Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “We start with the premise that [the president is going to do that]. It would be irresponsible not to, speaking as somebody who was in the chamber on January 6, 2021.” Sen. Mark R. Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “What we can demand is, [what is the basis of this intelligence]? What is the source of this intelligence?” Warner and Himes wrote in a joint letter that “a statement noting the absence of indications of significant foreign interference efforts is just as important as a statement exposing any such activities.”

What you can do

• Mass protest in Washington. A demonstration in the capital is a proven lever. The 1963 March on Washington drew more than 200,000 people and helped build pressure for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. On August 28, 2026, a “Defend the Vote” March on Washington drew thousands to the National Mall and explicitly invoked the 1963 march while pressing voting-rights, redistricting, and racial-justice demands. Large, sustained numbers have moved decisions before, and the form is available again.

• National strike. A general strike is a coordinated work stoppage across multiple industries. The United States has never had an organized nationwide general strike, but shorter one-day work stoppages have been attempted in various places. A labor expert told a California outlet that short stoppages can be absorbed by employers. The tactic has not yet been tried at national scale in this country, but its history elsewhere shows that coordinated labor action can force attention even when it does not win every demand.

• Withholding tax payments. Withholding federal income tax is a direct financial lever, though it carries serious legal consequences. The IRS treats filing and payment as mandatory, and refusal can trigger failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties, liens, levies, and possible criminal prosecution. Henry David Thoreau declined to pay a poll tax in 1846 to protest slavery and the Mexican-American War and was briefly jailed. Tax refusal has been used before as an act of conscience, but it remains a personal risk rather than a coordinated mechanism for changing an election outcome.

• Targeted economic and professional pressure. Consumer boycotts, shareholder resolutions, donor pressure, and withdrawal of voluntary professional services work best as organized campaigns with identifiable decision-makers, specific demands, and clear conditions for ending the action. A one-day consumer boycott in the UK, “We’re Not Buying It,” organized around a specific demand for an essential-goods price cap. Rep. Greg Casar urged Democrats to reject donations from AI-industry billionaires, and shareholder campaigns often resolve through private settlement before a proxy vote. The common thread is that the action names a decision-maker and states an off-ramp.

• Practical support that lets people sustain resistance. Legal-defense funds, childcare, transportation, independent journalism, and assistance for people facing retaliation make continued participation possible. The ACLU Foundation has sued the State of Georgia in ACLU Foundation v. State of Georgia to let organizations provide pro bono legal representation to Georgia election officials and poll workers, arguing that state law broadly bars election workers from accepting donations, services, or other things of value in support of their duties. Before giving to any legal-defense fund, check its filings: Rudy Giuliani’s legal-defense fund spent about $1.2 million during the 2026 election cycle, with most of the money going to fundraising consultants rather than legal fees.

The point of all these levers is to keep people standing long enough for accountability to arrive. In October 2026 a federal judge ordered Giuliani to surrender his Manhattan apartment, a car, cash, watches, jewelry, and sports memorabilia to Freeman and Moss toward the defamation judgment. That took years, legal funding, and witnesses who stayed public under threat. The sustaining work—the lawyer, the driver, the person watching a child, the outlet checking the claim—is what let the targets stand long enough for the judgment to be enforced at all.