Grounded hope as the Trump regime begins
Hard political realities face the incoming president. What happens next is up to us.
By Judah Freed
I want to be proven mistaken about the expected despotic autocracy of the incoming Trump regime. If President Trump attempts even a fraction of what he's promised to do, I qual at such a dismal future. Trump will try to get away with as much as he can, yet he faces big hurdles that could hinder or halt him from becoming the king he evidently wants to be. Hard political realities give me hope.
In Congress, dysfunction may check Trump’s power. Republicans by a thin majority held the U.S. House, which last term was like a race car with a bad engine that made a lot of noise but couldn't pass a thing. Will the new term be similar? Republicans by a thin majority retook the Senate. They’ll generally need Democrats to confirm Trump’s appointments and pass his laws. Legislative compromises and deadlocks may slow or stop Trump’s worst impulses. That gives me hope. Also giving me hope are the 2026 and 2028 Congressional elections when Americans can repudiate Trumpism.
When Trump bypasses Congress with executive orders, I expect lawsuits up the wazoo. For instance, Trump vowed he'll issue an executive order to abolish "birthright citizenship," a provision in the U.S. Constitution that anyone born here is automatically an American citizen. Birthright citizenship is partly why my ancestors immigrated here and began families more than a hundred years ago, as have millions of others from around the world. Statue of Liberty stuff. A president cannot legally change the Constitution with the stroke of a pen. Three-fourths of the states must ratify the amendment. Anything else is illegal. This fact gives me hope.
Trump's unconstitutional executive orders will garner court injunctions,. The cases will wind up before the federalist-majority U.S. Supreme Court. I worry because they already did the unthinkable by making the president immune from prosecution, above the law. Could they uphold Trump’s blatantly undemocratic measures? I hope not, not if conscience rules the rulings. I worry more, quite frankly, about Trump's brilliance at shaping public opinion to normalize his corruptions of democracy.
I feel the strongest hope, actually, that if and when the expected Trumpian tyranny adversely affects our daily lives, more and more of us will get up, show up for freedom and democracy. I picture massive nonviolent public demonstrations, best if playful, for humor opens hearts and minds. Granted, civil disobedience may be risky for us, especially for an old fart like me if the regime retaliates. Still, I trust the power of our united peaceful voices. I trust global sense in action.
I'm also looking outside the USA for hope. Boosting my optimism are 2024 elections worldwide where majority voters rejected autocratic leadership. This happened in the United Kingdom, France, Iran, India, South Korea, Venezuela, Mexico, and other countries. Perhaps the same will happen in upcoming U.S. elections
The big news this week is the second-generation dictator in Syria fleeing the country as rebels seized control in Syria's long civil war, which began in the Arab Spring. I'm sad that violence deposed the despot, yet I'm glad Russia and Iran lost a regional ally. How this shift will affect Israel is unknown. The rebels have past ties to an Islamist group branded as terrorists. Will Syria’s new government be democratic or autocratic? I hope the liberated Syrian people do not go from the frying pan into the fire.
The good news is that the flame of freedom still burns in human hearts on earth. This fact alone offers me more solid hope than anything. Yet I dare not be complacent.
I recall Mercy Otis Warren’s 1788 warning about the “federalists papers.” which influenced the new U.S. Constitution, such as the powers vested in the executive branch. She wrote, “It is to be feared when America has consolidated its despotism, the world will witness the truth of the assertion.”
I recall Thomas Paine’s 1802 “Letter to the Citizens of the United States.” He’d returned from the French Revolution to find autocratic federalist fighting to regain power after Adams lost the presidency to Jefferson. "While I beheld with pleasure the dawn of liberty rising in Europe, I saw, with regret the lustre of it fading in America.” Regarding “the papers called federal,” Paine wrote, “I know not why they are called so, for they are in their principles anti-federal and despotic.” He warned, ‘Those who abuse liberty when they possess it, would abuse power could they obtain it.”
If we think tyranny can’t happen here in the USA or in any free nation, I’m reminded that a hundred years ago, Hitler went to jail in 1923 for a failed putsch (coup). Elected Nazis ruled Germany by 1933 and Europe by 1940. Today in the 2020s, given America’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” will brainy Trump try to take over the world?
That's really up to us, isn’t it?
Excepted from my book, Making Global Sense: Grounded hope for democracy and the earth, inspired by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (GlobalSense.com)