Seven Slivers of Optimism

These are dark and heartbreaking times, but let's not miss the bright spots

(Illustration by Gearstd via Getty Images.)

It’s hard not to get swallowed up by all the transgressions of Donald Trump and his regime. They’re real, they’re painful, they’re ugly and they’re doing genuine damage. There are plenty of tough times ahead.

So I won’t sugarcoat this period or pretend—as I see some media types who know better doing—that any of the small victories can overcome Trump’s lunacy or stop his demolition of our government. The Supreme Court unleashed him with their disastrous immunity ruling. The Senate has empowered him by confirming his reckless miscreants who refuse to say no to his every whim. The Republican Party and the billionaire class has chosen to bow down to him—democracy and the good of the American people be damned.

We have a tough fight ahead that will take millions of engaged Americans.

But for this day, let’s not be swept up by all that besets us and clouds our vision of a more positive future. Let’s not be overwhelmed or riven with doubt and negativity. Let’s take a look at seven slivers of optimism.

1. The stock market has turned on Trump. But it’s not just investors who know that Trump is screwing up royally on the economic front. Consumers are furious about the rising price of eggs and other household staples. American companies abhor the tariffs and fear this escalating, unnecessary trade war. The only ones expressing happiness about the economy right now are sycophants like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said on Tuesday the disastrous tariffs on our closest allies will be “worth it” even if they lead us into recession. In the twisted Trumpian world, down is up, bad news is good news—and they actually believe the emperor is wearing clothes.
   
   I worry particularly about the many people who are struggling to pay their rent, utility bills and food. While they suffer the consequences of his careless incompetence, Trump—the same guy who promised lower prices and a flourishing economy on day one—is now openly indifferent to their pain. “There’ll be a little disruption,” Trump said in the Oval Office yesterday. Meanwhile, CNBC economics reporter Steve Liesman—someone who knows—said it plainly: “What President Trump is doing [on tariffs] is insane. It is absolutely insane.” Tragically, Liesman worried that speaking truth to power could cost him his job at CNBC. But he is an example of the honesty needed now. But as the economy worsens and the pain spreads, we can expect many more Americans will be motivated to speak out and take action.

2. Trump’s hypocrisy was right out in the open this week when he turned the grounds of our White House into a Tesla showroom. His top priority? Bumping up the price of Tesla stock to support the world’s richest man, his top donor. The Trump cultists may applaud this because Elon Musk reportedly responded with a plan to give Trump-controlled PACs $100 million—quid pro quos look like genius to this bunch. But don’t doubt there are plenty of Americans who are paying attention and infuriated by this oligarchic power-playing that’s all about stuffing their own pockets and screwing the little guy. (Thousands and thousands of riled-up people have been showing up for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Stop Oligarchy” rallies.) This was a week when Trump exposed his utter contempt for everyday Americans—and more people are seeing it.

3. Americans are getting angrier and they’re not hiding it. You could see it in the town halls, enough to convince GOP leadership that they needed to shut down these public sessions with real people to protect their Republican representatives as they struggle to advocate for a hostile agenda. You can also see it in the rising number of protests at Tesla dealerships, sometimes including vandalism, as well as in a growing number of demonstrations on a wide variety of grievances around the country.
   
   Yesterday that included protests about the arrest and planned deportation of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil. “Fight Nazis, not students,” a crowd chanted in New York’s Trump Tower lobby, the very same place Trump descended the golden elevator in 2015 and lied that Mexico was sending rapists and criminals. In the coming weeks, as spring weather arrives and the fury mounts, we can expect more and larger demonstrations. At the top of the agenda: the necessary removal of the self-serving Elon Musk and his twenty-something DOGE operatives from our government operations and punishment for their illegal actions.

4. The Oval Office ambush of Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky and the betrayal of our democratic ally may be the most disgraceful and demeaning public behavior of any American president and vice president in our history. It also caused fury across Europe as democratic leaders saw a White House abandoning the Western alliance that has created security, stability and prosperity over the last eight decades since WWII.
   
   While this devolving turn of events is a tragedy, it has also illuminated the continuing and deep commitment of Europeans to the democratic project and its defining values and principles of justice, freedom and independence. While Trump’s America may abandon these allies, every American who remains committed to democracy and freedom can look to them for support. We can take nourishment each time our allies speak out clearly about the dangers of the Trump regime that sides with the murderous dictator Vladimir Putin. As French Senator Claude Malhuret succinctly put it: “Never before has a President of the United States supported an aggressor against an ally.” We can expect more of this from our friends in Europe.

5. Trump promised immediate and mass deportations once he took office. So far, at least, he has failed to fulfill that pledge, even though he has succeeded in striking fear into immigrant communities across America as thousands of undocumented refugees have been deported. But while the anti-immigrant regime made a show of sending 290 migrants to the military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba—at a reported cost of $16 million and employing a staff of 1,000 security forces and civilian contractors—all the migrants taken there have been moved out. Forty men have been flown back to the U.S., according to The New York Times. No one should throw a party that this hateful plan won’t rev up into a much bigger operation, but at least for now the combination of informed community pushback and legal opposition is restricting their action.

6. The threat of Trump and his enablers refusing to accept court rulings is a real thing and a clear expression of a constitutional crisis. But we can be encouraged by well over a hundred lawsuits seeking to stop the regime’s illegal actions. That includes at least 30 related to Trump’s immigration policies and 20 challenging Musk and his DOGE activities. Just yesterday a federal judge, ruling on a suit brought by federal employee unions, ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers at the Departments of Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and the Interior. Judge William H. Alsup called the firings ginned up by DOGE “a scam” and “a gimmick” and said he might expand his order to other agencies. “It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” the judge said.
   
   And he was not the only one recognizing and ruling against the regime’s illegal behavior. On Wednesday, federal judge Beryl Howell blocked Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie which sought to remove its lawyers’ security clearances, block access to government buildings and terminate their federal contracts. Judge Howell’s response to Trump seeking retribution against a firm that represented Hillary Clinton is bracing. “It sends little chills down my spine,” she said, adding, “To the extent that this executive order appears to be an instance of president Trump using taxpayer dollars in government resources, to pursue what is a wholly personal vendetta, advancing such political payback is not something which the government has a cognizable interest.”

7. And then there’s Canada, Oh, Canada, our good and decent neighbor to the north. Yes, Trump is continuing his shameful lunacy of tariffs and trash talk, as he imagines that he can pressure the proud Canadians into forsaking their independent nation with a trade war, merging with the United States and becoming what Trump idiotically envisions as America’s 51st state. “Americans should make no mistake,” newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney said. "In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
   
   As humiliating as Trump’s abusive and foolish imperialism is, it has inspired great unity within Canada and a fierce dedication to opposing the Trump regime. That’s good for the real America, which recognizes Trump’s hostility and cheers for our Canadian friends. It also might convince more of us to plan our next vacation there to thank our neighbors and savor the beauty of this vast and remarkable land.

In the weeks ahead, pro-democracy Americans will be called upon to raise their voices and take to the streets. This means recognizing and using our collective power to confront the corruption and criminality, the degradations and desecrations, of the unfettered Donald Trump and his marauding band of oligarchs and kleptocrats, miscreants and incompetents. But I hope on this day and in the weeks to come, you won’t lose sight of the future we’re fighting for and the reasons for optimism that can help light the path forward.

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One last note: As of this writing, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he will support the GOP-written bill to avoid a government shutdown. In other words, he wants to avoid a government shutdown so Trump and Musk can continue to shut down our government and bypass Congress. Take this cowardly act as a reminder that we can’t sit back and rely on elected officials like Chuck Schumer to save our democracy. It’s up to us, gang.

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