Of course population level passivity in the end allows the adversary to win but it's hard to be the first to stand on the front line.
The gov will burn itself down to fight you in court. They generally don't like to settle because losing just means they may have to raise taxes or insurance premiums. No gov attorney is likely to actually lose their job because they fought too long or hard and lost.
For instance, my settlement had to go through the financial committee of the county. Which means the lawsuit was scheduled as a line item in a televised public debate. Also, you could at least FOIA the bank records to a degree and reverse-engineer any payouts.
They've been clearing out people who might resist before they get a chance to, and have made it clear that your life's gonna be messed up (your career's over, if nothing else, which is a pretty big deal for normal non-billionaires) if you rock the boat.
The only major, public resistance has been over dropping the prosecution of NY's mayor, and the first of the prosecutors to resign received a letter promising retaliation against other members of her office and that she'd have an investigation launched against her, which, even if it goes nowhere, is basically promising to make someone's life hell for the next year or so. They're looking to hurt people who don't play along, so others just shut up and do what they're told.
We haven't seen them going after political opponents (Democrats or Republicans who don't nod along to every single thing—and business leaders, this isn't limited to politicians) but nearly everyone in DC and in big business is a bit dirty and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing very selective investigations and prosecutions of things that everyone had kinda agreed to overlook up until now (and that may be far from the most-severe corruption going on), that they don't even pretend aren't aimed at getting everyone else to stay in line and go along with the agenda, legality be damned. They've got the access to do it and there are some indications DOGE and pals are starting to poke around in things like tax records.
In the US, there are just 3 branches. Unless you work for congress or the courts, you work for the executive branch.
These folks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_General_Act_of_197...
Also some not-quite-just-serving-at-the-president’s-pleasure folks (according to the law, anyway) directors & other positions, notably the director of OGE.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_Gove...
Lasting change for the better could happen only if it was possible to prosecute actual crimes that happen. As long as these are immune (which they are), things will only get worst.
And as long as half of Americans are determined to euphemism away and both side away and twist themselves into pretzels to enable and excuse, things wont get better. And then it will take massive amount of reforms to make things good again. And pretty much all the totally not pro-Trump people full off infinite benefit of the doubt towards him will suddenly loose it.