I recently purchased a 2025 calendar from the local dollar store. I am marking each day on the calendar with a big “X” as I count down the next two weeks. This is my way of accepting that which I cannot change and not succumbing to the fantasies that will be sold, with increasing fervor and mania, by the hope-peddlers and hopium sellers to an increasingly afraid and desperate public. Donald Trump will take power for a second time on Jan. 20. Trump’s return to power and his election for a second time should have vanquished naïve beliefs in the fundamental decency of the American people and the eternal nature of American democracy. Alas, I doubt that it has. As Rebecca Solnit writes in her solemn election 2024 post-mortem essay at The Guardian, “Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do.”
During these next weeks, Americans who believe in real democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and human decency will experience a range of negative emotions. These emotions will be greatly amplified once Trump takes office and in the (at least) next four years while he is in power. These negative feelings and emotions may become so severe that numbness and learned helplessness take over; this is the outcome that pro-democracy and other Americans of honor and conscience must work very hard not to succumb to permanently during the long Trumpocene.
"We can no longer find solace in the fact that there are more of us than there are them. That’s the most frightening thing of all."
To that point, public opinion polls and other research in the aftermath of the 2024 election show a consistent pattern of frustration, a belief that the country is heading in the wrong direction, a crisis of faith in the country’s institutions and a significant number of (white) Americans who possess authoritarian values and endorse Trump’s strongman politics and personality cult.
"Trump will lead a nation very different from the one that booted him from office four years ago," Max Burns warns in a new essay at The Hill, noting that "since then, millions of Americans have told campaign pollsters that they place a personal allegiance to Trump above their belief in the Constitution":
The number of people willing to consider alternatives to democracy is at a level last seen during the crises of the 1930s….It doesn’t take a political science expert to realize that the America Trump has in mind can’t coexist with democracy — and that Trump’s most committed voters don’t actually want to coexist in a constitutional democracy
[….]
The frightening reality of 2025 isn’t that Trump might attempt some end-run around the democratic process. It’s that he may not need to. Both the MAGA faithful and Trump-leaning independents are still racing rightward in terms of what they’ll excuse from a Trump administration. If Democrats think they can rely on the same anti-Trump messaging that carried them in 2020, they are catastrophically wrong. That audience is gone, and it isn’t coming back. Democrats are quoting laws to people carrying swords.
In an attempt to make better sense of our collective emotions (and tumult and upset) in these weeks before Trump’s return to power, reflect on the previous year and the election and what may come next, I recently spoke to a range of experts.
This is part two of a four-part series.
Katherine Stewart is the author of the forthcoming book, “Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.”
It’s fine to acknowledge our feelings, but this is no time to retreat under the covers. We have to get out of our own heads and think about the battles ahead. After the election it was understandable to want to take a break, maybe disconnect for a few weeks or days and arm oneself with emotional/mental/spiritual tools for the challenges ahead. Now is the time for moral courage. We must figure out how to do better.
There are elections in 2026 and 2028; we should aim to be more committed and effective in turning out the base of voters who share democratic values, as well as reaching out to and earning the trust of low-propensity voters.
In the run-up to the election, I watched as the MAGA movement worked not only to turn out its base but to concentrate on low-propensity voters, on young people and on religious voters in swing states. I watched as they deployed misinformation and the politics of outrage to mobilize new voters as well as allow others to justify their vote for a patently corrupt and unfit candidate. I watched them campaign throughout the election cycle rather than toward the end of it. So while I can’t claim any powers of foresight, I am not all that surprised by Trump’s victory.
Unfortunately, as of yet, there is no substantial equivalent to the Christian nationalist movement on the other side of the political aisle. The authoritarian right is not bigger, but it is better organized, more integrated, more disciplined and more ruthless than anything on the side of democracy. So if we want to save democracy, we are going to have to organize back.
"We would not wish to emulate their most craven tactics, of course, but could learn something from their strategic resolve."
Funders need to get smarter about their political giving and we need to develop the organizational infrastructure for a parallel movement. The opposition to MAGA, broadly speaking, has a lot of catching up to do. But I continue to believe that there are more Americans who wish to preserve our democratic principles than abandon them for some sort of kleptocratic and despotic theocracy. If there is the broad political will to get it done, it can be done.
Remember, again, that Trump only won by a relatively small margin. There is no structural feature of the American political system, as of yet, that’s going to keep the MAGA movement in power indefinitely.
The fact remains that they have a president who won by less than two percent of the vote, along with slim majorities in the House and Senate. Consider their weaknesses: MAGA draws on multiple factions including oligarchic funders, the religious right, the New Right, libertarians, Q-Anoners and white nativists, “parent activists” radicalized by disinformation, health skeptics, a small sector of the far left and others, all of whom worked together to bring slim majorities of voters to their side. But the agendas and interests of these different groups are not always consistent, and the contradictions can and should be highlighted.
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The most challenging aspect of this battle is the information war. Last month I attended Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona. Speaker after speaker told us that “RINOs” and Democrats are communists, “barbarians,” and satanic agents of evil who wish to “destroy the American family.” We were told that public schools basically exist to change children’s gender and were assured that a government run by and for the pleasure of ultrarich donors is going to improve the economic fortunes of the working and middle classes. None of this is remotely true, of course, and there are plenty of Americans who have not been drawn into these fact-free conspiracy holes. We need to start working now to reach them with the truth before the other side influences them with pernicious lies.
We should certainly prepare ourselves for four years of buffoonery and incompetence. We can expect the raiding of our public resources by Trump cronies and some effort, on their part, to intimidate, if not persecute, his political enemies. But we need to stay focused now on strategy, organizational infrastructure and voter turnout going forward.
When they lost in 2020, the MAGA movement didn’t roll over. They simply resolved to fight harder. In addition to spreading lies, including the lie that the election was stolen, and backing a disgraceful insurrection, they hired large numbers of ballot chasers. They committed to early voting and ballot harvesting. They organized conservative faith leaders and gave them sophisticated tools for turning out their congregations and followers to vote for their preferred candidates. They tasked trusted voices within communities to court voters over the long term, hosting (for example) voter-awareness barbecues in March, well in advance of the November election.
Above all, they found new populations to evangelize with untruths and mobilize the vote with the politics of outrage. We would not wish to emulate their most craven tactics, of course, but could learn something from their strategic resolve.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters." His website is Enough Already.
I am feeling profound disappointment in my country, but this latest nightmare was not wholly unexpected after the blast in November of 2016. I typed this off to my readers in the wee hours following Trump’s win: “I have absolutely no regrets. This time, I fully knew what my country was capable of and I did everything I could to work toward a better outcome. If the majority of my country is OK with an America-attacking, vulgar racist, whose only true talent is the ability to somehow always go lower, I find it terribly, terribly sad and wildly dangerous. This does not make me a better or worse person than anyone else, it just makes me, me, and I am very proud and comfortable with that. And if you stood for what is good ... and right … and decent, you should be plenty proud of yourselves, too.”
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Again, I am surprised only by how little respect Americans have for the office of the President of the United States and our country. I thought Kamala Harris would win, and in hindsight, it does seem foolish. I believe I told you in a conversation in the weeks before the election that I feared millions of America’s white men were gearing up to do the worst possible thing. Turns out, it was even worse than that. The traitor who attacked us didn't win a mandate, but he did win convincingly. We can no longer find solace in the fact that there are more of us than there are them. That’s the most frightening thing of all.
Looking to Inauguration Day, I suppose I have been handling this the same way I did pre-election. Back then (feels like years ago now), I would not allow myself to consider the terrible ramifications of a Trump win. I was solely focused on getting Harris across the finish line. I have not listened to a word the America-attacker has said since, nor do I plan to. He and his enablers make me sick. I plan to fight back and hope that the opposition has learned some hard lessons in defeat — namely the need to sharpen our messaging and take it everywhere. The notion that anti-union, pro-oligarch Republicans led by a tax-cheating clown somehow care about the working class more than Democrats is absolutely absurd and proof of the magic of nuclear-powered propaganda.
I am dubious that it will be as bad as everybody thinks. Until Republicans show me that they understand how to govern and build instead of destroy, there is hope for a Democratic resurgence. It’s always easier to attack than defend. That's as optimistic as I can get because the alternative is gruesome. Keep a close eye on what Trump does in relationship to the military and how the Department of Defense reacts to his incursion. If nothing else remember this: NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America. EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America. Military leadership must push back, or the consequences will be dire.
Federico Finchelstein is a professor of history at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York. His most recent book is "A Brief History of Fascist Lies."
I am not surprised about the outcome of the election. Sadly, demagoguery, manipulation and lies work with unhappy citizens in modern democracies. Complex realities and facts are always more difficult to represent than fake statements and repetitions. In hindsight, I don’t think Democrats were able to convey an interest in problems that concern many people, especially regarding economic and cultural issues. I am not surprised about that. And I also think they did not give themselves time to focus on the best candidate and the best proposals to make this country more equal and fair. I am worried about the risk to democratic institutions that Trumpism represents. In short, dark times are coming but Trumpism like any apocalyptic cult is worse in defeat. Eventually, it will fail as its fascist and populist predecessors did, but first, the country will suffer.
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