Yet We Persist

Trump's hostile agenda may be exhausting, but he can't kill our hope or break our commitment to America's democratic project

(Illustration by Malte Mueller via Getty Images)

I think by this point you do not need me to tell you who Donald Trump is. He proves his utter indifference to the needs of most Americans and his capacity for corruption, criminality and cruelty on a daily basis as he bottomlessly pursues self-enrichment, power and vengeance. As a writer and observer, as a citizen and advocate of democracy, I feel obliged to confront the reality of his destruction and assess the consequences, particularly for the survival of an inclusive democracy, common decency and the most vulnerable among us.

Yet this pursuit comes at a price, not just for me, but for each of us. As the violations of the rule of law mount, the scale of corruption becomes too overwhelming to tally and the assault on our neighbors and basic human decency becomes increasingly intolerable, we struggle to pay attention and respond with the requisite outrage. The ongoing threat of exhaustion intensifies as each new attack forces us to try and absorb the shock.

All this may be part of the authoritarian playbook detailed in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, but it’s perversely entangled with one deranged man’s endless desire to do anything, no matter how depraved, harmful or illegal. He is not just Jesus in his mind, the Second Coming, he is God himself. Any thought that pops into his head is divine, even when it thoroughly contradicts the thought or action that precedes it. Forget the very notion of factual reality and truth because truth is whatever he deems it to be.

I have taken pains to insist that his removal is a necessity, even as our constitutional mechanisms and their dependence on responsible government officials convinces so many others of the impossibility of achieving this critical solution. That degrading sense that there’s nothing we can do about the situation exacerbates the fatigue, the cynicism and the growing difficulty of holding onto hope. Belief in accountability fades. Imagination of a better future shrinks.

If any of this resonates with you personally, I urge you to neither lose hope nor doubt our capacity to overcome this dark and grueling chapter. It may sound like a cliché to suggest that many Americans throughout our history have experienced worse, but it is true. Any student of the history of slavery, the blood-soaked battle fields of the Civil War, the terror faced by previously enslaved Blacks during Reconstruction and well into the 20th century can recite chapter and verse on the horrors of life in America. None of this makes our moment any less alarming or meaningful, especially because the terrors are being plotted and committed right from within our own White House.

Yes, the catastrophic dismantling—in service to one man’s broken ego and the extremist hunger to uplift the white race and burn liberal democracy to the ground—is mind-boggling. But we should not doubt that our foundational values of equality and justice, freedom and self-governance have not and cannot be eliminated by a sadistically reckless despot or his fascist regime bent on destroying centuries of progress. “These are times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine diagnosed in his political treatise The Rights of Man published in the 1790s, but he also wrote, “From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished.” Paine went on: “The strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it, and that, in order to be free, it is sufficient that [Man] wills it.”

It often feels like the resistance has brought a spoon to a knife fight, or worse, a small bucket of water to put out a wildfire that risks engulfing us all. It remains our duty to not overestimate the small wins nor underestimate our collective capacity to achieve the eventual demise of this certain-to-fail regime.

Rather, the daily task is to soberly acknowledge what’s happening without losing one’s sense of outrage or becoming consumed by it. So, too, the challenge is to not to forget the small sparks that ignited change throughout our history—and to recognize that they are still happening around us as determined Americans continue to courageously pursue a better, more progressive future.

It may sound naive to suggest that we are living in fortunate times. And, honestly, there are many days when such a thought said out loud sounds like the raving of a madman. But for the majority of us who still believe in Abraham Lincoln’s formation of the democratic idea—a nation of the people, for the people and by the people—this is our moment to prove that it is true. That requires defiance and a continuing sense of hope in the ideas and the ideals upon which this nation stands.

It’s exhausting to think so much must be built anew that so many others have worked so long and so hard to construct. But from the sad rubble of our cherished institutions, we will have the chance to move closer to the vision of a diverse, inclusive society where opportunity does not depend on the color of your skin or your access to wealth. That means recognizing the best of our shared inheritance dating back 250 years. That also requires finally learning from the tragic failures in our history that laid the foundation for an unfettered racist demagogue to act despotically—to feed on and be elevated by “the ruins of public liberty,” as George Washington warned—cheered on by his party and the extremist institutions and people that have abandoned the democratic project.

Every day I have wondered, as each new unjust act of destruction appeared, how much destruction would be enough for the opposition to reclaim its power to stop what we all know to be wrong, a violation of our core values. There have been many points of light in this mission, including both mass protests and individual acts of courage. This in the face of murderous masked men empowered by a hateful regime and righteous sycophants bent on fulfilling their leader’s hunger for retribution and utter indifference to the rule of law.

As much as the Republican party has served as a monolithic cheerleader and enforcer of these tragic impulses, recent days have seen cracks in that bulwark. Push back against his reckless, unauthorized, unsupported war of choice with Iran. Refusal to support a billion dollars in funding for his grotesque ballroom. Criticism of his beyond disgraceful slush fund of $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to stuff his own pockets and enrich convicted felons who violently attacked police officers on Jan. 6. Their numbers may still be small—courage and principle remain in tragically short supply—but they can be enough to sway the outcome of a senate vote and defeat some of the most appalling acts of corruption our nation has ever seen.

I found it useful to read President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first inaugural address in 1953, the deadly horrors of Nazism and fascism still fresh in the mind of this army general and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. One of the reasons I think we are in our current predicament is that far too many Americans have forgotten or never knew what work it took over the last eight decades to build democratic alliances and systems of trade and cooperation that have made relative peace, prosperity and stability possible.

At the core, Eisenhower’s humble and hopeful remarks centered on the belief in freedom. “We are called as a people to give testimony in the sight of the world to our faith that the future shall belong to the free,” he said. He asked his listeners to “summon all of our knowledge of the past” and to “scan all signs of the future” in order to address this question:

How far have we come in man’s long pilgrimage from darkness toward the light? Are we nearing the light—a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

Despite all of his reasons to worry about what the future holds, the newly elected president shared his faith. This included “the virtues most cherished by free people—love of truth, pride of work, devotion to country.” His faith also included his belief that “we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve.” He described the continuing struggle: “Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark.” And he forewarned against those who would lack this faith, that “any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites the mockery of the tyrant.”

It’s hard to overstate how loud the tyrant’s mockery is right now in America. Such a faithless man may be convinced that his ridicule of our values and laws can break the world order, leaving us with only his whims. Like so many tyrants and their sycophants that have come before, they may believe that their rule will last. But we should have the faith that they are the aberration, indeed the abomination, and their days are numbered. It’s up to all of us—clinging to hope, holding onto faith in the democratic project—to make it so.

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