These Times Demand Courage

We are already learning who will stand up to Trump and his reckless enablers and who will kowtow out of fear

Who will have the courage to stand up for America? (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

“These are the times that try men's souls,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776 in Common Sense, his 47-page polemic confronting the unjust rule of a king. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.”

Paine’s proposition offers a useful frame for our own moment that is testing our souls, our principles and the seriousness of our commitment. Who will have the courage to stand up and assert their patriotic dedication to our democratic way of life? Who will shrink from this service and allow themselves to be overtaken by fear—fear of a man fueled by grievance, vengeance and bloodlust, fear of cruel and reckless sycophants determined to serve their master rather than justice, the rule of law and the Constitution?

We are quickly learning who is shrinking and who is rising, who is kowtowing to the wannabe king and who is lighting the way to our democratic future, who is looking ahead to Americans acting with optimism and confidence, not hopelessness and fear. We are learning this now, even while the transfer of power won’t happen for another 44 days.

In recent days, I have been encouraged by election lawyer Marc Elias and former advisor to VP Mike Pence Olivia Troye, both dedicated pro-democracy advocates who have shown in word and deed that they are not willing to submit to the threats. Their early acts of opposition are a source of nourishment for all of us who wonder how these coming months will play out.

Both have been targeted by Kash Patel, Trump’s henchman and preferred weapon to run the FBI. Patel has called Elias, who won in 64 out of 65 legal cases in which Trump sought to overturn the 2020 results, “an enemy of the Republican Party.” Rather than lay low, Elias—who publishes Democracy Docket—has asserted his convictions and commitment with clarity and confidence. It’s not that he is fearless, of course. As Mark Twain noted, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

Here’s how Elias put it on MSNBC’s Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday, referencing Patel’s attention:

Right now there are a lot of people who are quietly scared and there are a lot of people who are publicly scared. There are a lot of people engaging in anticipatory obedience…I’m proud of the fact that I stand up for democracy and that I win. And we need everyone to be a little bit courageous. It’s OK to be scared. It’s OK to be nervous. I’m nervous, I’m scared at some level. But you know, everyone needs to be a happy warrior in this fight. Everyone needs to have a little bit of courage in this fight.

For Elias, that includes increasing his own efforts to advocate for democracy. “The success of our democracy rests on an effective opposition movement,” he wrote yesterday. “We all must play a part in offering additional ideas and approaches and not being afraid to take risks.”

Also on Wednesday, Olivia Troye posted the letter sent by Patel’s attorney threatening a defamation lawsuit and demanding her to retract her statements about Patel’s lack of fitness to serve as FBI director. Several days earlier on MSNBC, she said, “Kash Patel is a delusional liar. Let me be very clear about that. And he would lie about intel, he would make things up about operations….I know this because at some point I realized I needed to double-check Kash’s work to make sure I wasn’t misinforming Mike Pence by relying on his word. So I had to go around him.”

Troye is not backing down. “This follows his threats against media & political opponents, showing how he might act if confirmed,” Troye posted on Bluesky. “I stand by my statements.” Responding to CNN anchor Jim Acosta about what Patel’s threats portend, Troye said, “I think it’s a very clear sign of what’s to come should he become the director of the FBI and how he’s going to conduct himself…By sending that letter to me, it was an attempt to bully me, silence me, intimidate me. But it’s also a signal to others.”

Yes, I’m keeping my eyes on those who stand up for principle, for democracy and decency, and who don’t act out of fear. Courage is not “the absence of fear,” Nelson Mandela said, “but the triumph over it.” And, as Marc Elias told me yesterday, “I don’t allow it [fear] to prevent me from standing up for what is right. Trump wants us to be paralyzed by worry. I refuse to give him that power over me.”

They stand in stark contrast to the weak-kneed among us who are already bowing down to Trump’s threats of retribution, even when they try to dress it up as something else. In recent days, that particularly includes media types like Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough and the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

You may have already heard that Atlantic writer David Frum was asked during a break to leave Morning Joe after making a joke about Pete Hegseth’s drinking and Fox News’ tolerance of this bad behavior. (“If you’re too drunk for Fox News,” Frum said, “you’re very, very drunk indeed.”) After he exited, Brzezinski apologized for their guest’s joke: “The comment was a little too flippant for this moment we’re in.” The clip has the squirmy feel of a hostage video. While Scarborough looks on without expression, Brzezinski seems to be speaking to “someone,” to make it clear that they won’t cross a line and please, please don’t retaliate.

In a follow-up article in The Atlantic, titled “The Sound of Fear on Air,” Frum described his “unsettling experience” when he was warned by a producer not to repeat any comments about Fox. He concluded his essay like this: “I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too.”

That’s the opposite of the lesson that Patrick Soon-Shiong, billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times is delivering. After rejecting the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election, Soon-Shiong is now adding right-wing CNN commentator Scott Jennings to his editorial board, has introduced an artificial intelligence-powered meter to counteract signs of bias in the paper’s news coverage by delivering “both sides,” and reportedly is now reviewing the headlines of every opinion piece before it publishes.

As Oliver Darcy noted in his media newsletter Status on Tuesday, “Since Trump’s victory in November, Soon-Shiong has turned to X to criticize the news media, praise Trump’s cabinet picks, and appeal to a MAGA audience. The change in behavior has confounded his journalists, who wonder what happened to the Soon-Shiong whose newspaper enforced strict Covid restrictions and emphasized its support for social justice causes.”

Let’s give the last word to legal analyst Harry Litman, who has resigned as a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons,” he wrote on his new Substack newsletter, adding, “Soon-Shiong has made several moves to force the paper, over the forceful objections of his staff, into a posture more sympathetic to Donald Trump...Given the existential stakes for our democracy that I believe Trump’s second term poses, and the evidence that Soon-Shiong is currying favor with the President-elect, they are repugnant and dangerous.”

These are times that try our souls. These are times that demand courage.

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