Yes, it’s Shocking and Awful. But it’s Early Days — We’ve only Just Begun to Fight!

Resistance is Fertile!

We’re in the midst of a shocking and awful second inauguration of the reign of Trump. The foundations of our Republic, as we know it, are being attacked. We’re being swarmed by the locust-like “crack-bots and Donny-drones” of Project 2025 — the project to devour and devolve the Neoliberal America of 2025 back into something like the Reconstruction-era America of 1875.

And, of course, first things first: It is starting with executive actions to root out, round-up, and put down the subversive institutions and woke ideas of We, The Elite — we the uppity “negros mascogos” (yes, do look that up) of modern American liberalism.

Now, admittedly, there is a lot wrong in our nation. Our country — our body politic — is terribly unwell. And internationally too, our world is plagued by extraordinarily deadly conflicts, with more threatened.

Donald Trump is the worst possible cure for what ails us. During his first failed presidency he repeatedly demonstrated that his cure is and always will be worse than the disease — as when he prescribed Ivermectin and Clorox to treat COVID 19.

But, to put it bluntly: This is on us. In this era of Neoliberalism, we Democrats managed to reap great success for our own well-educated, increasingly elite demographic; but we failed to sow the seeds of similar success for vast swathes of the American people. We got the American Dream. They got screwed.

They warned us of the consequences in 2016.

But we f**ked around; and so we found out. In 2024, a plurality of American voters, and an increasingly diverse array of them, chose Trump — again.

Water under the bridge? Only if you didn’t notice that the bridge has been swept away too.

Our path forward is complicated. We must both resist the dark forces now unleashed and we must build new bridges to a better future WITH all of our people..

Trump clearly is moving quickly, not to build bridges, but to build a garrisoned monocracy — Mar-a-Lago writ large — from which he can ‘lord it’ over us.

And he can. In the four years since he was last president, the Supreme Court vastly expanded the scope of Constitutional cover for unlawful and unconstitutional acts by the president. And our country’s long-festering shadow right-wing oligarchy went into overdrive to draw-up the extensive Project 2025 plans to impose upon us an outright monocracy. The result is the array of autocratic forces now being launched against our democratic Republic.

Unfortunately, this early going is going to be painful for many and even deadly for some.

Trump has actually named names of many prominent officials and others for persecution. He has launched assaults on our governing institutions, our civil servants and many others in the neoliberal and managerial elite. We, our families, our friends and colleagues will certainly be targeted and/or affected.

But, in reality, Trump will be targeting and doing the most harm to the more vulnerable among us. By virtue of our commitment to democratic values, we have a special duty to support them.

Already lawsuits are functioning as our front-line defense system, working to shoot down the attacks on basic institutions, laws, and the people who implement them. And the Democrats in Congress and throughout the states are now feverishly strategizing on what sorts of resistance can be most fertile, while the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is about to choose the new leadership needed to further build a grass-roots, coordinated resistance.

Additionally, many, many organizations nationally and locally are quickly taking stock of where they can get into the fight with the greatest impact.

There is room for every one of us to stand-up and step forward into the resistance. Some of that work will involve dealing with immediate individual, group, and/or institutional crises. Some of it will involve helping to amass the new resources and approaches necessary to broader and more systematic initiatives.

All of this must be done with an eye towards not simply resisting — but to reclaiming lost ground with voters with which we can and must build new bridges and a brighter future.

Thankfully, the Achilles heel of Trumpism is Trump himself. His serial lying and grifting, his casual cruelty and indifference to anyone’s wellbeing but his own, his ignorance and arrogance — these characteristics and so much more mean that there will be continuous infighting and back-biting within his reactionary electoral coalition. He will quickly and continuously create popular division, incredulity, disgust, anger, outrage — and opposition.

Many will be the opportunities to do better and to be better in support of our neighbors and communities with basic decency, respect, and democratic values.

But we cannot win this fight without reestablishing solidarity with, and the trust of, The People we left behind for decades in the neoliberal Reagan Revolution and its Free-Trade, financially deregulated, Trickle-down, soul-of-America-crushing economics.

The Democratic Party must take the lead in this. We cannot effectively fight or hope to win without its networks and resources. But the Democratic Party must re-commit itself to being the party of The People. And all of us, who currently identify or vote with the Democratic Party, have to commit to finding common ground, making connections, and together building the bridges to our future.

So many in our nation — and the world — are at risk of being be done-in by this diseased man: his horse pills and his horse sh*t.

It’s on us to be on the front lines fighting this scourge.

Our path forward is challenging and complicated. We must both resist the dark forces now unleashed and we must also avoid demonizing fellow citizens looking for lifelines and life paths that they can trust. It is with them that we can build the new bridges to a better future for ALL of our people.