What I’m wondering is... would we protest here?
Would we go out en masse armed only with signs?
Or would we do something more coordinated and... substantial?
Depends on the pain and threat level to the citizens.
Every citizenry has a breaking point. Your latter scenario will surely come to pass if the people's pain threshold is exceeded in this country. Just looking at the direction and pace of events, I can't see how we're going to avoid it. The little monsters in the regime are hell bent on creating their Socialist utopia, and nothing's slowing them down. Something's going to break at some point.
Now, that latter scenario may only involve widespread protests and civil disobedience. Perhaps we'll see millions of Americans show up and camp out in DC until we get some redress of grievances. Then again, maybe the people will stand motionless, waiting for someone else to make the first move, and conditions will worsen even further.
If that happens, we're talking the worst result possible. It means that the people will be forced to exercise the only solution left for them to restore their country.
And that's a very dangerous thing for any wanna-be Nazis who are running a country filled with millions of armed citizens.
I wonder if we'd do anything at all.