February 21, 2025
All of it’s meant to disorient and overwhelm us. The query is: How are we to navigate all that excrement?
President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Vice President-elect JD Vance attend the a hundred and twenty fifth Military-Navy soccer recreation in Landover, Maryland, on December 14, 2024.
(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Pictures)
This text initially appeared at TomDispatch.com. To remain on prime of essential articles like these, signal as much as obtain the newest updates from TomDispatch.com.
This previous weekend my associate and I bought along with a bunch of buddies. We’ve been assembly each six weeks or so since 1982. Initially, this group of lesbians convened to speak about intercourse: what we had been doing, what we wished to do, what we fantasized about doing. However you understand how it’s with any relationship. Over time, it could come to embrace so many different issues. That’s the way it’s been with the group we name “Group” (or generally “A Closed Group with No Title”). We’ve seen one another by means of breakups, new lovers, job modifications, housing worries, illnesses, the deaths of lovers, caring for getting older and dying dad and mom, and now confronting our personal age and the nearness of our mortality.
We’ve been collectively by means of an earthquake, a number of wars (Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the remainder of the “International Struggle on Terror”), the appearance of the Web, and 7 presidents. Now, we’re going through the return of the worst of these seven. The Group’s newest assembly came about on the finish of the primary week of Donald Trump’s new time period. So many disturbing issues had occurred in simply seven days and none of us actually wished to speak about any of it.
Lastly, I believed: If I can’t speak about him with these girls I’ve recognized for greater than 40 years, who can I speak with? I watched them, sitting in that lounge nibbling on corn chips and guacamole, and at last requested, “Do you suppose we’ll look again on this time and know that it was the start of the tip?”
I didn’t even must say the tip of what: of American democracy, the rule of regulation, and the hopes of individuals of colour, girls, and queer people? “The top” alone signified all of that and a lot extra.
“Completely we’ll,” was my partner’s prompt response. The opposite girls agreed that Trump’s second time period represents a real break with the democratic historical past of this nation; that sure, it’s as severe as that. We sat for a second in overwhelmed silence.
It’s usually laborious to acknowledge the distinction between a change, nonetheless essential—say, the overturning of Roe v. Wade—and an precise break within the political construction of a nation. This nation might have seen only one such occasion within the nearly 250 years of its existence: the Civil Struggle that killed between 618,000 and 750,000 combatants (one thing like 2.5% of the total population) and almost divided the nation completely. On that event, nonetheless imperfect the motives and the liberation, the forces of freedom triumphed over these devoted to human enslavement. I hope that 100 years from now individuals will be capable to really feel the identical method about this second: that the forces of freedom triumphed.
A Paradigm Shift?
Present Subject
May the second Trump presidency actually symbolize as huge a risk to the continuity of American life because the Civil Struggle? It’s so laborious to acknowledge a paradigm shift while you’re in the midst of one. It’s simpler while you’ve been dumped out on the opposite aspect, however by then it may be too late. This was the expertise of many German Jewish victims of the Holocaust. For at the least a century, their forebears had been assimilated into German life. It took time to acknowledge the person levels of an extermination plan whose full horror solely got here into focus over a interval of years.
The expression “paradigm shift” derives from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn’s pioneering evaluation of the best way scientific disciplines change over time. As he noticed it, a paradigm is a shared basic understanding of how a posh phenomenon (physics, biology, a nation) works. A paradigm shift represents the abrupt alternative of 1 idea (like Newton’s idea of gravity) with one thing profoundly completely different (Einstein’s idea of relativity).
The purpose is {that a} paradigm shift on this nation wouldn’t simply be a tweak to enterprise as ordinary like a change in the best way the filibuster works within the Senate. It will be a wholesale upending of the constitutional stability of powers. On this case, it might probably imply relocating the facility to make, assess, and execute the regulation (powers now resting in three distinct branches of presidency) all within the individual of the president. It will be a change from democracy to autocracy, or as President Donald Trump has implied, to dictatorship. And it’s taking place now, in entrance of our very eyes.
Transferring towards dictatorial management is the basic goal of issuing a seemingly countless collection of govt orders that clearly violate present legal guidelines—for instance, these governing the firing of inspectors general. It’s actually true that Donald Trump doesn’t just like the very thought of inspectors normal. We must always remember that from his first time period. He needs a free hand to run all of the federal departments and businesses with out watchdogs getting in the best way. However much more importantly, that govt order violated the 2022 Inspector Common Act, as a former Pentagon inspector normal beneath Trump told Nationwide Public Radio:
“Effectively [Trump’s order] didn’t comply with the Inspector Common Act, which requires the president, if he needs to take away an inspector normal, which he’s allowed to do, however he should give Congress 30 days discover earlier than the elimination, and the substantive rationale with detailed and case-specific causes for every elimination.”
A very powerful perform of Trump’s first week as president was to flaunt his energy to make—and break—the regulation by fiat. Equally, he has used govt orders to aim to freeze funds already permitted by Congress beneath the Biden administration’s Inflation Discount Act and Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act. Because the Senate Committee on Appropriations has pointed out, it’s Congress, not the president, that holds the facility of the purse beneath the Structure. In its 1975 choice in Prepare v. Metropolis of New York, the Supreme Court docket denied presidents the facility to impound funds Congress has appropriated.
The identical logic applies to Trump’s order, by means of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to impose a 90-day halt to all U.S. overseas support, civilian and navy, besides to Israel and Egypt. Once more, that is an arrogation of congressional energy by the president, and its level was undoubtedly as a lot to say presidential energy as to impact some as-yet-undefined overseas coverage aim.
And that logic will undoubtedly apply to a flood of different beforehand unimaginable actions Trump will most definitely take between the writing and the publication of this text.
The Nice Trumpian Litany
The Episcopal Church’s Guide of Widespread Prayer comprises an extended prayer referred to as the Great Litany. A litany is a ritual petition to God, a listing of actions congregants “beseech” God to take. The Nice Litany is most frequently recited throughout Lent, a 40-day interval of reflection main as much as Easter. Should you’re standing or kneeling, it could appear to go on ceaselessly. And simply while you suppose you may be nearing the tip, alongside comes a complete new part requiring a complete new response. As time passes, you might end up covertly glancing at your watch. It’s laborious to remain centered by means of all of it.
English audio system additionally use “litany” in a secular sense, as a metaphor for an extended record of something, particularly when recited or recorded. We converse of “a litany of grievances,” “a litany of excuses,” and even “a litany of gripes and grudges,” which was how Vainness Honest described a few of Trump’s Inauguration Day remarks.
Within the single week since that inauguration, observers have already produced excellent litanies of his many distressing actions. Though lists of those can be found on-line, there isn’t any house to catalog all of them right here. In reality, I couldn’t, even when I wished to, as a result of the record grows by the day, even the hour. Since I sat down at my desk this morning, Trump or his appointees have fired attorneys who labored with Particular Prosecutor Jack Smith on prison instances in opposition to him, rescinded job gives to 200 financial institution examiners who had been to have been employed by the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company (the FDIC, which insures our financial institution accounts), and launched an investigation into the prosecution of the January sixth rioters. And that’s simply within the final six hours.
The Episcopal Nice Litany, an extended record of human considerations, leaps from subject to subject, petitioning for benedictions starting from safety from “lightning and tempest; from earthquake, hearth, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine” to a request that God “illumine all bishops, clergymen, and deacons with true data and understanding of thy Phrase; and that each by their preaching and residing, they could set it forth, and present it accordingly.”
Some would possibly argue that this final request was at the least partially fulfilled within the sermon of Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the primary girl elected to her place, who, on the ecumenical service held on the event of Donald Trump’s inauguration, had the effrontery to deal with the brand new president in these phrases:
“Thousands and thousands have put their belief in you. As you advised the nation yesterday, you’ve gotten felt the providential hand of a loving God. Within the identify of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the individuals in our nation who’re scared now. There are homosexual, lesbian, and transgender youngsters in Democratic, Republican, and impartial households who concern for his or her lives.
And the individuals who choose our crops and clear our workplace buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing crops; who wash the dishes after we eat in eating places and work the evening shift in hospitals—they might not be residents or have the correct documentation, however the overwhelming majority of immigrants usually are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They’re trustworthy members of our church buildings, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
Trump, after all, immediately demanded an apology.
In one other little bit of the Nice Litany that appears notably apt for the time being, supplicants plead with the Divine, “so to rule the hearts of thy servants, the President of the USA, and all others in authority, that they could do justice, and love mercy, and stroll within the methods of fact.”
If solely.
Flooding the Zone
The record of Trump’s postelection actions is its personal form of litany—not of benediction, after all, however of horror. Just like the Nice Litany, it, too, leaps from subject to subject. To call just some:
- The nominations to positions of energy of the manifestly unfit (keep in mind Matt Gaetz, the ethically-challenged), or the frankly vicious (Kristi Noem, the puppy-killer), or certainly of candidates combining each qualities (Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabard).
- A spate of govt feedback, orders, or presidential decrees displaying an imperial greed for territory that may have appeared like so many jokes just some weeks in the past. (Be careful, Panama, Canada, and Greenland!)
- The success of the Israeli fascist right-wing’s dearest want: a proposal to cleanse Gaza of its greater than two million Palestinian inhabitants, with the intention to make method for the event of what Trump has labeled “an outstanding location,” the place “some stunning issues may be achieved.”
- First steps in holding his vow to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants residing in the USA, together with a Chicago Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, operation, which included an “embedded” Dr. Phil—additional proof, ought to we want it, that the technique is to implement the authority of any decree, irrespective of how weird.
- Elon Musk’s seizure of access to the records of all federal staff and control of the Treasury Division’s disbursement course of
Common
“swipe left under to view extra authors”Swipe →
Any a kind of actions would have been enough to gas a complete information cycle by itself. However that’s now inconceivable as a result of earlier than we, or the media, can concentrate on one Trump absurdity, one other takes its place within the battle for our consideration. To wit: within the final quarter-hour (whereas I used to be scripting this), the Washington Submit reported that Trump’s Workplace of Administration and Funds (OMB) has ordered a freeze on all federal grants, “together with, however not restricted to, monetary help for overseas support, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the inexperienced new deal.” And now, in a head-snapping twist, the OMB seems to have rescinded the order—for the second.
The Cambridge Dictionary offers an extra definition of litany: “an extended record spoken or given to somebody, esp. to somebody who has heard or seen it earlier than or finds it boring.” Taken collectively, this apparently countless flood of outrages displays the notorious observation of Trump’s advisor (and exoneree) Steve Bannon throughout his first administration: “The Democrats don’t matter. The actual opposition is the media. And the best way to cope with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
And certainly, the litany of Trump’s autocratic actions has already flooded the zone with shit. The query is: How are we to navigate all that excrement? Can we do greater than merely hope to remain afloat? Is there any method we will really dam the floodtide? Or will we sigh and say we’ve seen all of it earlier than and discover it boring?
Fools for Freedom
At the very least we will attempt to construct that dam. A couple of weeks in the past, I wrote about some nationwide organizing we may be a part of or help, efforts which are essential as a result of—sure!—we’ve to suppose huge. However we additionally should suppose small. I’ve been shocked by what number of writers have responded to Trump’s reelection by urging individuals to strengthen their very own native connections with buddies, neighbors, and household, whereas specializing in these amongst us who’re most in want of safety from instant assaults. In a method, that’s precisely what the members of my group of lesbians have achieved for one another all these years. It’s what the members of my very own family of chosen household do for one another every day, once we depart items of meals or books, once we plan collectively to guard immigrant buddies vulnerable to being scooped up on the best way to work.
All of that effort, huge and small, should be sustained by hope. How can we hold hope alive as soon as we’ve really grasped the hazard(s) we face?
I now ponder that query every day. This morning, one reply arrived in a e-newsletter by e-mail, from a bunch known as the Faithful Fools. The Fools reside in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, the place they accompany the opposite residents of their every day lives in a uncared for and despised neighborhood. Being Silly, they don’t ask whether or not they are often of any use or acknowledge the puniness of their efforts in comparison with the edicts of a president who could be king. This morning’s e-newsletter introduced me these phrases:
Loads of individuals have requested the query, “In any case these years, what retains you going?” And we are saying, “Effectively, we hold going as a result of we’re Fools, after all.” This isn’t to say that our work is ridiculous or with out basis. It’s to say that we perceive how unsure the longer term is and we will’t lose our method when the street will get rocky and tiresome.…
We aren’t silly sufficient to imagine that hope alone carries the day or soothes the soul. No, we imagine it’s the opposite method round; we imagine that actions pushed by justice, solidarity, and compassion are what maintain hope. Small gusts of fine will are acts pushed by justice and compassion and solidarity, and they’re what soothes our damaged hearts.
In brief, within the age of would-be-King Donald Trump, we maintain our personal hope by doing the small, important issues that maintain the hope of others.
Extra from The Nation
A latest order geared toward destroying impartial regulatory businesses isn’t nearly taking management of the state—it’s an enormous cash-grab in disguise.
The president is more and more hated, however so is an opposition occasion that fails to oppose.
Shock, shock: Former consultant Lori Chavez-DeRemer helps anti-union “proper to work” legal guidelines and rejects a nationwide minimum-wage hike.
Every day, one other ethics scandal unfolds—and every day, it will get misplaced within the white noise.
