Not burning out is key to pushing back
This next period of American history is going to be more of slog than the first Trump administration. Pray it isn’t as deadly.
We’re all trying to summon an effective response to Trump 2.0, but the angst gets in the way, doesn’t it? Greg Sargent points to recommendations at Civic Texts, the blog website of technology journalist Alexander B. Howard.
In the wake of Trump pardoning violent Jan. 6 seditionists and portraying them as victims, Howard offers some suggestions for self-care and safety online. “If you want to hit the trifecta of intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry, however, post online about religion, immigration, and the First Amendment at the same time. (It’s like grabbing a third rail, but less fun.)”
Trump and his enablers in the states, in Congress, and in the Supreme Court represent “the worst crisis for the rule of law in my lifetime, paired with a muted response from American society,” Howard writes. “The flood of actions is intentionally designed to overwhelm, intimidate, and flood the zone with cruelty expressly designed to instill hopelessness and fear. The authoritarian playbook is being deployed against Americans at scale.” So far, reaction in Congress is “relatively muted.”
I don’t know where and when the line will be crossed that force Republican senators to check the presidency so clearly unbound by the constitution or rule of law. There is nothing practically to be done about President Trump or former President Biden’s pardons, as that power is near-absolute under our Constitution, checked only by the impeachment and removal from office that is currently unimaginable in this Congress.
For now, senators (including a few Democrats) have submitted to Trumpish humiliation. Not an auspicious sign for any nascent resistance.
Almost as unimaginable is how in an “I’ve got mine culture” where freedom is a worship-word, few seem alarmed that Trump and his Project 2025 allies mean to take theirs from them in a “concerted assault on truth, the rule of law, & the Constitution.”
Howard directs readers to Ben Raderstorf’s “If You Can Keep It” where the policy advocate for Protect Democracy offers advice on how to triage your responses to Trumpish actions and statements. Modulate your expenditure of intellectual and emotional responses to the flood of Trump 2.0 outrages “based on the likelihood and irreparability of the damage.”
It’s best not to burn yourselves out. “Numbing down” (pun intended) opponents is a deliberate component of the authoritarian plan for turning the United States into Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Or worse.
Authoritarianism thrives on despair. Trump aims to grind down critics by throwing so much at the media, civil society, and his political opponents that they can’t keep up. Every moment we collectively spend chasing outrages that don’t really matter makes it more likely that we lose heart or focus, and then some threat that truly matters slips through.
They mean to “flood the zone with shit,” as Steve Bannon put it. So prioritize.
A few key bullet points:
- Is the action tangible, actionable, and detailed? Or intangible, abstract, and vague?
- Does this thing cause irreparable harm to real people?
- Does this action target the opposition in a way that may cause anticipatory obedience?
- Does this entrench the authoritarian faction in power and make it more difficult to dislodge?
Raderstorf fleshes out those points in “How to pay attention.”
“We refuse to allow any of what we have created to be lost, says Kimberlé Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum. We are here because the forces behind the Confederacy never gave up after Reconstruction, or after Brown v. Board. Not in 150 years. “What are we gonna do to make sure that we don’t give up?”
First, don’t burn yourselves out chasing every shiny object Trump (and Musk) toss out to elicit an angry response. Be strategic.