Some worthy comments from an Australian:

[meadowlander]

30. For people having a knee jerk defensive reaction and asking for solutions, think of it this way.

Her point is that America is a body politic and there's no pretending you're not a part of it. Trump is the head of the most obvious giant festering pustule but he's not the beginning, the end or even the largest part of the problem.

The problem is that 69% of your body politic is too stupid to see what he is or too selfish to care. That's the percentage of voting age Americans that didn't vote for Kamala Harris. Some of those people are your family members, your neighbours, your coworkers, the people you go to church with or volunteer with or do sports or hobbies with or share an old college network group chat with. Talk to those people. Work on them. Don't let bullshit or intellectual laziness go unchallenged. You might not convince that person, but you might persuade other people listening. If you can't win over racist Uncle Joe, win over his kids and his wife. If you can't get him to vote for a Democrat, get him to give up on voting or at least shut up in public.

Reclaim every public space you enter. Do not tolerate cruelty, stupidity, bigotry or willful ignorance to get along with people. Do not throw your hands up and say "those people are impossible, I give up". Those people are your responsibility to manage. Make sure they are exposed to the truth and don't let them walk away from it. The right-wing propaganda machine runs on "62,400 repetitions make one truth". So it's boring and tedious but it's your responsibility that the people in your life are hearing the actual truth 62,401 times. The point of a society is to encourage its citizens into virtue. The right has spent decades corroding that. You have to be the opposite force. You can't wait for your elected representatives to do it for you.

What else can you do? Make sure the young people in your life are educated, can think critically, and can contextualise what they are being fed on social media. Be a good role-model. Support independent liberal media and amplify their voices everywhere you can. Boycott companies that are capitulating to or enabling Trump. Contribute to campaigns of politicians doing it right. Shut down anti-intellectual talking points and lazy attacks on social institutions from people who don't understand what they do.

Be shameless and brave. Get out of your comfort zone. Be inconvenienced. Expect the same from your representatives. They need to be out there every second of every day with a compelling counter-narrative and a plan to get back on track. Vocally support the actual solution to the actual problem - the need to tax the wealthy to support a functioning society.

You can't do anything about Trump? Really? Where are the general strikes? Where are the daily overwhelming protests that gum up the economy and demand attention right now? Not one big one every couple months where we dance around in silly costumes and then pat ourselves on the back and treat ourselves to Starbucks on the way home. Every single day. Where are the signs and the picketers on every single street corner saying this is not OK? He is a global four alarm fire and all the rest of the world is seeing from the American resistance is a couple mid- to low- tier Democratic reps or senators and some brave individuals in Minnesota running and throwing buckets of water at the edges.

There's a groundswell of resistance but it needs to be more visible, undeniable, relentless and absolute in its repudiation of the right wing anti-Democratic project in America. Figure out your part in making that happen instead of fighting with random Australians claiming you're just a victim in all this too. Because I guarantee you do have a role and so do most of the people you know. You may already be doing a lot of those things but ask yourself if it's really everything you could do? If you honestly do have more to give, then now is the time to be giving it.