Are We Doomed?

Quite possibly. But we’re not quite dead yet.

Image: Shoggoth by Nottsuo, CC

Elon Musk is currently rampaging through the federal government with a host of young racist techbros gobbling up sensitive data on the entire populace and freezing foreign health aid to ensure that babies across the globe contract HIV. Trump is announcing multiple genocides against immigrants and trans people at home and Palestinians abroad. Big companies like the NFL, Google, Meta, and the LA Times are rushing to see who can be more fashy than thou. The media, cowed by Trumpy threats and their own fecklessness, refuse to warn their readers of the stakes.

Things, in short, look bad for our democracy, for the American people, and for the world. Should we despair?

—
This would be a place for me to put a paywall. But, I would rather try to share my thoughts on our crisis with everyone, not just people who can pay. So, if you like my writing, and want to read past this point,and can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s a good time to do that now, because I’m having a sale; 40% off, $30/year.

—

Sort of! When the president and his billionaire boss are setting up concentration camps and murdering babies via horrific disease, some despair at least seems warranted.

But, it’s also worth noting, amidst the despair, that horrific naked fascist assault on democracy is not exactly a calibrated, thoughtful strategic chess game. Trump is speed-running a constitutional crisis in a way that is just about guaranteed to alienate allies and energize opposition. And while the US constitutional system may simply collapse without a fight, it’s also possible that asserting power in the clumsiest possible way may not end up being a winning strategy.

The most obvious locus of resistance right now is the courts. Judge after judge has slapped down Trump’s ridiculous effort to end birthright citizenship. Trump’s also been enjoined from his federal funding freezes and from shuttering federal agencies.

Trump has signaled that he may just refuse to follow judicial orders. But that escalation itself led to unprecedented pushback, as the American Bar Association rebuked Trump and called on all lawyers to uphold the rule of law. Preemptively claiming that the administration will simply ignore the courts also seems like a bad strategy for the inevitable Supreme Court appeal; Thomas and Alito will certainly do whatever Trump wants, but Barrett and Roberts, and to some extent Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, do seem to have some interest in maintaining a veneer of judicial independence. Trump is doing everything he possibly can—from lazy lawyering to open insults—to get them to rule against him.

Similarly, the Democratic party wandered gormlessly into the second Trump era babbling about bipartisanship as they rushed to vote for absolutely vile fascist bullshit. But Trump has been so quick to rush to lawlessness, and so quick to cede authority to Elon Musk, that even Democrats have been forced to show some signs of life, rallying against Musk and pushing them to make at least gestures at using their power in the minority to slow down legislation. More, the blatant overreach gives Democrats a very straightforward argument for withholding vital votes in the narrowly divided House for must pass budget items. As per journalist Josh Marshall:

To every BS question White House press staff feeds to MSM interviewers abt whether Dems ‘want a shutdown’, ‘are gonna vote for a shutdown’. Of course not. We just need the criminal conduct to stop before we can negotiate if the White House is asking for our votes. Who could disagree with that?

Trump may also be harming the GOP brand in elections too. His current polling is around 47% approval, which sounds decent all things considered—until you put it in historic context. Trump’s the only president to ever have sub-50% approval ratings at the beginning of his term. Will that harm Republicans in the crucial upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which could determine whether the state gets to continue to have fair elections or whether it gets gerrymandered back into permanent fascism? Again, we don’t know—though so far indications are that Republicans aren’t poised for great things in local elections under Trump 2.

Finally, Trump’s rabid first month has galvanized an initially muted protest movement. This has put pressure on Democrats. It’s also created bracing spectacles like the one in Cincinnati where local residents confronted and drove off a bunch of neo-Nazis. It’s not always clear how to turn people power into political power, but mass protests are often the line of last resort against authoritarian takeover, so it’s hopeful that Trump is clumsily working on creating the incentive and infrastructure for mass resistance.

To be clear, I’m not saying all is well. All is absolutely not well. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the Christofascist Supreme Court cosigns all Trump’s lawlessness; in which a supine Democratic party joins a supine Republican party in ceding all legislative authority to Elon Musk; in which billionaire cash overcomes Trump’s unpopularity in local elections; in which state security forces crush protest with little pushback from media or even from the often determinedly anti-protest Democrats. Great new independent journalists like Marisa Kabas may simply lack the resources to take up the slack left by billionaire bootlickers at outlets like the LA Times and Washington Post.

Trump has a lot of power and a lot of allies. He could win; democracy could end; we could enter a new era combining some of the worst aspects of McCarthy and Jim Crow. The US could never again be as democratic or as antiracist as it was in 2015. (And yes, I know it was not all that democratic or antiracist in 2015.)

Trump is acting confident and reckless, and he wants us to believe that means his victory is inevitable. But the truth is he always acts confident and reckless because he’s a big narcissistic baby who has no idea how to court allies or restrain himself strategically in any way. Musk is the same, and the two of them build on their own worst impulses. Again, it’s easy to see how they win. But it’s not hard to see how they lose, either. Don’t give up.