I think light revolutions work. Stuff like what France does where they riot and start burning cars when the government tries to raise the retirement age. The kind of stuff that reminds the politicians that they could be dragged out into the streets by an angry mob, but that hasn't happened yet.

Actual revolutions where you do need to go that far, mostly fail as you said. Additionally, foreign meddling is common, so even if you can deal with everything else, outside actors are going to try to screw with you. And they'll typically succeed.

Without any sort of violence at all, you become a non-threat and we get what we currently have in America today. No one cares about the protests because they aren't going to do anything at all to the people they most need to affect.

Basically you need a sweet spot of minor levels of violence without fully going full revolution or being neutered into irrelevancy since they know you'll never fight back.