Resistance

Resistance is the only thing preventing America from backsliding into full-blown autocracy.

Through the actions his regime has taken in just 100 days, Trump has signaled that he wants as much – to impose his ideology on others by forcing academic institutions to adopt his beliefs, to sanitize our history by controlling cultural centers, and to silence free speech by weaponizing the government against individual Americans who dare to challenge his power. These are not the actions of someone that values democracy. With unprecedented speed and force, the Trump regime has abandoned democratic norms that protected everyday Americans and adopted strategies right out of autocratic playbooks throughout history to consolidate as much power as possible.

From my view, what’s been missing in this moment is a clear vision for the future—and a roadmap to play offense against these dictatorial tactics. I am not ready to give up on the vision of America that we aspire to, the vision that built America to be the most prosperous and powerful nation in history – a place where people can live freely and prosper. A place where poverty and hunger aren’t inevitable. A place where economic and social mobility is attainable for all, irrespective of their sex, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. There’s enough prosperity to go around for everyone, we need a revolutionary change to make it happen.

Americans are at a crossroads. Either we fight to preserve a country built on democracy—where power is derived from the people and we can exercise our freedoms without fear of retribution by the government—or we allow Trump, Republicans, and his allies to reshape America into an illiberal democracy or outright autocracy where only the Trump’s opinions and values matter. Trump and his enablers’ have one objective: bend the structures of society to Trump’s will and destroy anyone who challenges him. They’ve been successful so far by employing methods that divide and demonize other Americans, distracting everyone from what they’re doing. If we let that continue, if we fail to unite and fight back, if we normalize the outrageous, hateful, and undemocratic actions of this regime, we all lose.

Harvard, WilmerHale, and others like them have illuminated a path forward – fight back and protect free speech. But that alone is not enough. We need to support those that are targeted and we must raise our voices and call bullshit when necessary, warning others of the lies, corruption, and harm Trump and his cadre of sycophants traffic in daily. More importantly, we must devise a message to mobilize citizens of this country to protect the ideals that have made America what it is today.

During Trump’s first term, unified resistance succeeded. Everyday Americans rejected his hateful rhetoric and authoritarian actions to unseat him in 2020. Trump tried to make working- and middle-class Americans poorer, sicker, and less mobile. He quite literally stole from the poor to give to the rich in the form of tax cuts for billionaires and corporations while doing little to benefit the average American household. He used tear gas on non-violent protesters exercising their Constitutional free speech rights to clear a path for him to take a photo-op in front of a church to spread hateful and divisive rhetoric at a time when the US needed an empathetic and unifying leader. He planned to use the military against protestors all because his ego couldn’t handle the discontent with his presidency. Unified resistance publicly rejected these actions, constraining his administration from its authoritarian impulses and persuading the Republican Congress to reject adopting some of the worst proposals into law – most notably with the rejection of his bid to deny healthcare to tens of millions. Our voices mattered.

The media played a critical role in elevating these voices and holding his administration to account, exposing their corruption and incompetence and elevating it to the public conscience. By doing so, Americans were mobilized to act collectively to oppose their harmful policies, and managed to influence Congress to reject harmful proposals such as eliminating the Affordable Care Act or stop the administration from separating children from their parents and imprisoning them in cages. Although the media never quite learned how to handle Trump and often homed in on the wrong things, they kept the abuses of the administration top of mind. Unfortunately, it was this failure to learn how to adapt that likely paved the way to a second Trump administration.

This time, the media feels absent—muzzled, self-restrained. Even worse, it seems like the media learned the wrong lessons from covering Trump and, instead of criticizing the administration for taking abhorrent actions like denying due process to people before sending them to a foreign gulag paid for and supported by American tax payers, they curry favor with the administration by doing things like settling lawsuits to avoid being targeted by Trump’s rage. But the truth is, Trump will target them irrespective of their coverage because Trump doesn’t want a free press. Moreover, acquiescing gives Trump a strong talking point – that he was right all along. Trump wears it as a badge of honor, lining up these moments like trophies as proof of his “genius” and validation of his world view. The net effect of this is a loss of free speech and the elimination of a critical source of information for the public.

Now more than ever, we need a relentless press that is going to call bullshit. That shows the Americans people that these Brave New World- or 1984- style executive orders are total farces that are designed to harm Amrericans and don’t have the effect of law. They need to make sure Americans know each and every day that Trump’s reign of terror potentially irreparably weakens America’s standing in the world and harms Americans, like setting up a cryptocurrency scheme designed to accept bribes without a trace or eliminating critical services that help veterans, research cures for diseases, or eliminate child hunger. That he rewards those that pledge loyalty handouts in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, and insider information. That Project 2025 – a radical proposal rejected by Americans early in the 2024 election – is being implemented to a level of success even the architects of the vision could only dream of. In fact, the architect of Project 2025 was confirmed by the Senate and is currently leading the Office of Management and Budget. This is not a government for designed to uplift the average American. It’s one long con.

As dire as this moment seems, we still have voices and our voices still give us power —at least until Trump decides martial law is “required.” While we still can, we must speak truth to power and hold this administration accountable. My goal with this Substack is to give myself a voice that stands up for American freedoms and ideals, to present a positive vision of what we can achieve when we unite, to give a voice to others and encourage others to stand up and fight back, and to call bullshit as loud and as often as necessary. Because silence is surrender.