Can We Discuss What Trump Can't Do?

A Saturday Prompt

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

The Epstein files and the continuing coverup have provided one crack in the cruel machinery of the Trump regime. Yet on so many fronts, Donald Trump and his sycophantic band of miscreants have worked with fervor to make life in America meaner, poorer, less safe, less democratic, more fascistic.

But as “successful” as they’ve been so far, their grim march has been fueled by lies, hate and a gleefully sadistic hunger to cause pain to our fellow humans and destroy our democratic institutions and the progress of liberal government. That’s why we can take heart that their tyrannical trajectory will not last: Truth and the desire for human decency and self-governance will win out.

Four months ago, on March 21, I wrote the essay below as a reminder of some of the ways that Trump and his regime cannot touch us. As I noted about the the examples, “Making change requires rejecting a sense of powerlessness and recognizing our collective power and possibility.” Under the heading of “What Trump Can’t Do,” I offered the following list.

Trump can’t:

1. take away our anger

2. stop us from using our minds

3. stop us from reading and writing or consuming knowledge and beauty

4. hide his fraudulence

5. make us hate a free and democratic America

6. convince us that our allies are really our enemies

7. make us stop loving

8. stop us from realizing our collective power

9. last.

That was my list then, but I hope you can add to it now. Maybe you want to comment on one of these nine points explored in more detail below. Perhaps you’d like to expand the list resulting from your new insights since this one was originally created. Or maybe you’d like to share your more general observations about the ways that you have held onto your sanity, raised your voice and helped push back. It remains crucial to keep in mind this downward trajectory is breakable, but it takes commitment.

As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for this community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.

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“What Trump Can’t Do”

Every day, Donald Trump and his fascist regime are subjecting our country to wanton destruction. It’s hard to believe this hostile, hateful trashing of America has only been underway for two months. But let’s not minimize the impact of the attempts to dismantle and demolish America’s democratic institutions, alliances, values, principles and credibility: They are exhausting, sickening, stunning in their depth and breadth. Inevitably, there are many among us who are feeling overwhelmed and beaten by this cruel and full-on assault as they struggle with fear and despair.

But facing an enemy within we cannot afford to check out. Every day I’m exploring what we can do to minimize the damage—to confront this un-American collection of miscreants. These are people who reject the rule of law, free speech and due process, the separation of powers, democracy and justice itself, in their knee-bending fealty to a delusional sociopath hell-bent on ending the American democratic project and consolidating power to do whatever he wants.

Making change requires rejecting a sense of powerlessness and recognizing our collective power and possibility. While we may be horrified by what’s happening—what the Republicans and Democrats and the weaknesses in our system are letting him get away with—we also need to remember what Trump can’t do. Here are nine illustrations of what I mean.

1. Trump can’t take away our anger. You can see it rising at town halls as livid Americans confront and shout down GOP elected officials trying to defend the violations. The more this regime tries to strip away our democratic freedoms, the angrier we’ll become. Every day you see more transgressions, remember that our anger is our fuel.

2. He can’t stop us from using our minds. Trump can cut $400 million in funding from Columbia University as a showcase of the regime’s depraved plan to destroy higher education and silence dissent. They can undermine academic research—and drive a brain drain—but they can’t end our ability to study and learn and get smarter. They may seek an utterly uneducated citizenry, but they can’t take away our intelligence or our ability to comprehend the truth of their hateful agenda.

3. He can’t stop us from reading and writing or consuming knowledge and beauty. He and his enablers can ban the books they don’t like, but we’ll still find our way to them. He could try and shut down every credible media organization in the country, but writers and journalists will continue to write and still find ways to share what they are learning. The regime could ban poetry, end the distribution of film and TV that doesn’t match their fake patriotism, promote Trump’s favorite music at a Trump-ruined Kennedy Center as the only music we should hear. But not only would that not stop us, it would heighten our anger and our determination to demand freedom of choice.

4. He can’t hide his fraudulence. Canada should be the 51st state? The Canadians are nasty people? Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator? Russia didn’t invade Ukraine? Tariffs will make us richer? Elon Musk is making great sacrifices to make America better? The list of farce and fraud is endless. No matter how much chaos, conflict and violence he incites—no matter how much fear he induces—he will fail to convince the majority that up is down, bad is good and he’s not a lying conman.

5. He can’t make us hate a free and democratic America. Do the henchmen of this dictatorial regime really imagine the more they attack America and what it means to be a democracy—values and principles like equality and diversity, freedom of speech and self-governance—that most Americans will simply fall in line? They may think the adoration of their base, the obedience of spineless Republicans and craven billionaires, and the drumbeat of Fox propaganda ensures their ability to control what it means to be American, but they are sorely wrong.

6. He can’t convince us that our allies are really our enemies. Nor, for that matter, can he convince us that our enemies are really our allies. It’s not just eight decades of democratic alliance-building since World War II and the obvious hostility of Russia and other pro-Putin authoritarians to Western democracy. We have and will continue to hear the clarion call of opposition from our friends in Canada, Europe and beyond who are as horrified by Trump’s America as we are. This history and this current chorus of support will not be spat down some memory hole and quickly forgotten.

7. He can’t make us stop loving. We will keep loving who we love. We will keep acting with compassion toward people in need and people in danger. In the short-run, they can raise the threat levels of doing the right thing and showing mercy, compassion and kindness, but that remains a sick mission certain to fail. Love is love and no king, no dictator, no madman or his depraved sycophants, can make us stop loving.

8. He can’t stop us from realizing our collective power. Consider the rising anger, the refusal to accept the decimation of America, the mounting evidence of crimes and overreach, the prioritizing of tax cuts for billionaires over securing Social Security and Medicare for the rest of us, the intolerable fact that the world’s richest man is hastening this destruction. It’s only a question of time before millions of Americans decide they’ve had enough and take to the streets. This is not a pipe dream; this is inevitable. We are Americans after all and we’re not about to be ruled by a malignant dictator. We will decide our own future.

9. Trump cannot last. This all may seem overwhelming now. It might seem like this nightmare—just two months old—will never end. But the fraud and weakness, the cruelty and hate will catch up with them. This is no thousand-year Reich, just like the Nazi madness was no thousand-year Reich. Let’s not minimize the horror and the obstacles to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but don’t doubt the end will come. Think how lovely that dancing in the street will be when we emerge.

Try as they might, Trump and his regime can never steal what makes us human. I’m counting on us proving it in 2026 and 2028—and years to come.

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