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A major difference between Trump’s first and second terms is our capacity for hope. In term one, there was a constant drumbeat of criminal probes and investigations that gave us faith that at any moment this grotesque man—who ascended to the presidency through an Electoral College fluke—would be dragged from the Oval Office in handcuffs.
This was always a fantasy, but the absence of any such drumbeat now shows just how far we’ve fallen. The Justice Department is fully subservient to the president, and the Supreme Court is ever ready to rubber-stamp Trump’s latest authoritarian offense. Worst of all, he won the popular vote.
This lack of hope is why so many liberal-minded folks have decided to disengage from politics. I have close friends who have deemed it all “too depressing,” choosing to tune out the news and focus only on their kids and careers. While I empathize with this view, I’ve also grown angry and resentful toward them because of it.
Greg Sargent wrote in The New Republic this week about how the White House is counting on disillusionment and complacency—from both lawmakers and citizens—to carry out its military incursions into Chicago and Portland, a scheme led by Trump henchman Stephen Miller.
“Miller plainly believes there’s a latent majority out in the country that can be sleepwalked into authoritarianism,” Sargent writes. “If Democrats sit this debate out, Miller has calculated, Trump’s deceptions can flood public information spaces, persuading low-info, low-attention voters that his autocratic encroachments constitute a proportional response to the civic unrest he keeps propagandizing about.”
The same goes for their efforts to vilify trans people under the guise of “protecting kids,” or to justify ICE violence as “immigration enforcement.” It’s okay to miss these things amid Target runs and Slack pings—but choosing not to see them is an abdication of civic responsibility.
I hate to once again cite Nazi Germany in this newsletter, but I’m reminded of the phrase “Good German,” referring to those who claimed never to have supported Hitler while also pleading ignorance about the Holocaust. They went to work, fed their families, and kept their heads down. There’s a troubling parallel between that choice and those who now cite “self-care” as a reason to tune out.
Ironically, by looking away from the horror, they miss the reasons to still have hope. Trump and the Republicans are more unpopular than ever. Most Americans reject ICE’s brutality. Yet for those not paying attention, a terrifying sense of authoritarian inevitability is all that breaks through.
There are glimmers of light—but we can only see them by leaning into the abyss. |
