Beautiful and inspirational. Now for some pessimism.
“ If Democrats have a chance to rebuild in 2029, …..They will thus surely see the value in making a clean and explicit break with the way we used to do things.”
And yet the policies being floated by Democratic hopefuls (covered in yesterday’s AMA) are warmed over Reaganisms straight out of 1981.
I absolutely agree with you. But, I'm discouraged that this didn't really happen in 2021. I held my breath for months, years, expecting some structural reforms or a dramatic reckoning of some sort in response to the humiliation of the first Trump term. Yes, 2029 can be an opportunity, I just hope the Democrats give us someone (or several someones) who will seize it.
Thank you, Brian: Uplifting and inspirational. The optimist in me (which is a big chunk of me) loves the idea that things COULD get better. The realist in me has been saying since Nov 2024 that the damage this guy (and his minions - or puppetmasters, whichever you prefer) is doing will take 25 years to get over - and I'll long since be dead. The emergency physician in me (another big chunk) is more concerned with paying attention to the bad possible outcomes, whether or not I think they're likely, and protecting against that.
So my question is, are there smart policy wonk types who are now several years into a clear-eyed, hard-assed, first hundred days type of project, so on Jan 20, 2029 (hopefully!) we're not in the mindset of "It's time to get started!" or "Let's let bygones be bygones..." or "Let's focus on bringing down the price of eggs..." Project 2025 was not written in a weekend, and not by people who care about fancy prose. Or the price of eggs.
There are so many deep structural problems that need to be addressed! Are there people doing the work now?
Thanks. I really needed this today. I got off social media ages ago so I’m not as subject to the garbage that happens there. But even just getting information from more traditional sources has finally started to grind me down. The truth is pretty grim these days.
I share your optimism, Brian. A new generation of Democrats is coming into politics, and they are ready to make changes to the good faith rules the Senate and House used to work under. The Trump Humiliation needs to hang on the GOP. The US is not Trump. Isreal is not Bibi. Russia is not Putin. Collectively, average people will make a big difference in the power structure of the world. Look at what Minneapolis did to fight back against the Trump regime. We can do this.
Thank you Brian. Even Paul Krugman this morning wrote, blah, I think I will pull the covers over my head and stay in bed a little longer.
You:"Even small actions can open huge founts of optimism, because they help remind us: All the forces of deception and mythmaking in the world can’t break the demand for truth."
I believe this thought is the way to see it through. Having been at the bottom of a well figuratively where I have had to pull my way out. Small baby steps, little easy things which bring joy, donate to a cause you believe in even if it is two dollars and know somehow we are going to get out of this pile of sh*t which trump and his cohorts have created. It won't be the same as before, we will have the memory of being injured and we will know the world will know we lived in the country that hasn't fought hard enough from the start to fight this regime, but will will get out of this.. eventually.
Thank you. The every-day horror of this administration is so atrocious it’s easy to think it’s enough to wipe out any thing of value. Your beautifully written piece is a timely reminder that good is still out there, and that we can rebuild a better and more durable democracy.
"But imagine a particularly bleak scenario: The dollar has lost its value. Breadlines run through every community. America is a pariah state. The pro-democracy movement has regained power, but must more or less start from scratch." - that is not a bleak scenario. This scenario internalizes that there will consequences to Trump's actions visible to the common people. But recent history of populism , especially in rich countries does not show it to be the case. Breaking democracy is not "punished" by effects visible to those who don't want to see it. One waits for a breaking point, for a moment of clarity, for something that is a visible negative effect, but it won't come to most voters.
Putin could take his resource rich, advanced, nearly first world country, throw it into a war with hundreds of thousands of dead and for most of the country its acceptable. Their lives did not change that much. There is no mass mobilization of labour, no blackouts, no food rationing. Life goes on, but from time to time you hear of your neighbors or family members going to war or dying. Most of population simply tries not to listen to war news, to live in their small world and hope things will turn out good.
The sad, but realistic course of actions will be that Democrats will win Congress this autumn, but not because of Trump or the war, but due to the simple effects of anti-incumbency and their edge among voters voting in midterms and special elections. If Trump or his successor loses in 2029, it will be because of high fuel prices, or higher taxes, or simply because overexposure to Trump will make him boring and cringe to median voter in Wisconsin, as opposed to philosophical rejection of MAGA.
And then Democratic president will have to rule knowing that the same forces that forced out Trump in 2020, Biden in 2024 (and hopefully Trump in 2028) will work against him in 2032, and to advantage of Vance, Tucker Carson or another idol of the right. Will elected democrats try to rock the boat in such situation?
In my less anxious moments, I have had many of the same thoughts as you have so eloquently written about in this piece. It is comforting to know that there are others that have a cautious optimism about our future as a country and a democracy. We have the advantage of having recent memories of all that has been available to us that have truly made the world a better place. Even a large number of MAGA's can't deny that. Although I wish it didn't have to be this way, I think that many more people are going to have to feel truly disrupted in their daily lives from lack of services, lack of supplies, lack of food, higher costs of transportation of any sort, and lack of decent medical care. We all must have the courage and the will to survive with less convenience and "stuff" by using prolonged economic boycotts to get our message across about wealth inequalities and a government owned by billionaires that serves only to exacerbate our problems. If we can increase numbers of discontent with the current state of affairs; and continue to resist and persist, I too can be more optimistic of the future built on total reform of how we do politics. As an older American, I am hoping that I will be around long enough to see our resistance get more powerful until we can turn in a direction beneficial to all humanity.
Blocking out the daily chaos is necessary to let us see quiet needs— of people, communities, organizations, world. Being a helper is a readymade, essential quality and action that really does address solvable local problems, provide positive modeling, and foster optimism. Let’s not neglect all the people and needs that still exist and may be less visible because of current governmental chaos.
Brian, sometimes your essays are quite a bit for me to swallow or grasp.
Today you are spot on. You have lifted my spirits immensely. Hope is a very important factor now.
In the wake of trumps destruction of everything meaningful in our society we need more of what you were talking about today. Thank you for that. Sincerely, Connie
America more than any country is the country where we exist in the gap between expectations and reality. Real corn-fed grown-ass-man patriotism is accepting this, and then learning that we are also the country that should be most willing to grow into our best selves as a people and most willing to admit our failures, so that we can conquer them.
In a way, we are living in the real America for the first time in our lives which is a burden but also a privilege. The inconvenient fight over whether or not we can model a system of freedom and not elites running our lives and world for us is once again here. America is ground zero of this battle. Not for freedom itself, but to prove that the project can work. Right now we are proving the opposite!
That's not my idea, it's an idea every major figure in the history of the country believed. Here's Theodore Parker who had a lot of influence on Lincoln, who says it way better than me:
"The great political idea of America, the idea of the Declaration of Independence, is a composite idea made up of three simple ones.
1.) Each man is endowed with certain unalienable rights.
2.) In respect of these rights all men are equal.
3.) A government is to protect each man in the entire and actual enjoyment of all the unalienable rights.
Now the first two ideas represent the ontological facts, facts of human consciousness; they are facts of necessity. The third idea is an idea derived from the two others, is a synthetic judgment a priori; it was not learned from sensational experience; there never was a government which did this, nor is there now.
Each of the other ideas transcended history; every unalienable right has been alienated, still is; no two men have been actually equal in actual rights. Yet the idea is true, capable of proof by human nature, not of verification by experience, as true as the proposition that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but no more capable of a sensational proof [based on the physical senses] than that. The American Revolution, with American history since, is an attempt to prove by experience this transcendental proposition, to organize the transcendental idea of politics. The idea demands for its organization a democracy-- a government of all, for all, and by all...."
Beautiful and inspirational. Now for some pessimism.
“ If Democrats have a chance to rebuild in 2029, …..They will thus surely see the value in making a clean and explicit break with the way we used to do things.”
And yet the policies being floated by Democratic hopefuls (covered in yesterday’s AMA) are warmed over Reaganisms straight out of 1981.
I absolutely agree with you. But, I'm discouraged that this didn't really happen in 2021. I held my breath for months, years, expecting some structural reforms or a dramatic reckoning of some sort in response to the humiliation of the first Trump term. Yes, 2029 can be an opportunity, I just hope the Democrats give us someone (or several someones) who will seize it.
Thank you, Brian: Uplifting and inspirational. The optimist in me (which is a big chunk of me) loves the idea that things COULD get better. The realist in me has been saying since Nov 2024 that the damage this guy (and his minions - or puppetmasters, whichever you prefer) is doing will take 25 years to get over - and I'll long since be dead. The emergency physician in me (another big chunk) is more concerned with paying attention to the bad possible outcomes, whether or not I think they're likely, and protecting against that.
So my question is, are there smart policy wonk types who are now several years into a clear-eyed, hard-assed, first hundred days type of project, so on Jan 20, 2029 (hopefully!) we're not in the mindset of "It's time to get started!" or "Let's let bygones be bygones..." or "Let's focus on bringing down the price of eggs..." Project 2025 was not written in a weekend, and not by people who care about fancy prose. Or the price of eggs.
There are so many deep structural problems that need to be addressed! Are there people doing the work now?
Thanks.
Thanks. I really needed this today. I got off social media ages ago so I’m not as subject to the garbage that happens there. But even just getting information from more traditional sources has finally started to grind me down. The truth is pretty grim these days.
Brilliant pick me up, thank you, Brian. Just what the doctor ordered.
I share your optimism, Brian. A new generation of Democrats is coming into politics, and they are ready to make changes to the good faith rules the Senate and House used to work under. The Trump Humiliation needs to hang on the GOP. The US is not Trump. Isreal is not Bibi. Russia is not Putin. Collectively, average people will make a big difference in the power structure of the world. Look at what Minneapolis did to fight back against the Trump regime. We can do this.
Thank you Brian. Even Paul Krugman this morning wrote, blah, I think I will pull the covers over my head and stay in bed a little longer.
You:"Even small actions can open huge founts of optimism, because they help remind us: All the forces of deception and mythmaking in the world can’t break the demand for truth."
I believe this thought is the way to see it through. Having been at the bottom of a well figuratively where I have had to pull my way out. Small baby steps, little easy things which bring joy, donate to a cause you believe in even if it is two dollars and know somehow we are going to get out of this pile of sh*t which trump and his cohorts have created. It won't be the same as before, we will have the memory of being injured and we will know the world will know we lived in the country that hasn't fought hard enough from the start to fight this regime, but will will get out of this.. eventually.
Beautifully written piece, Brian. Conveys an appropriate sense of perspective as well as being a grounded but uplifting call to arms. Fantastic
Thank you. The every-day horror of this administration is so atrocious it’s easy to think it’s enough to wipe out any thing of value. Your beautifully written piece is a timely reminder that good is still out there, and that we can rebuild a better and more durable democracy.
"But imagine a particularly bleak scenario: The dollar has lost its value. Breadlines run through every community. America is a pariah state. The pro-democracy movement has regained power, but must more or less start from scratch." - that is not a bleak scenario. This scenario internalizes that there will consequences to Trump's actions visible to the common people. But recent history of populism , especially in rich countries does not show it to be the case. Breaking democracy is not "punished" by effects visible to those who don't want to see it. One waits for a breaking point, for a moment of clarity, for something that is a visible negative effect, but it won't come to most voters.
Putin could take his resource rich, advanced, nearly first world country, throw it into a war with hundreds of thousands of dead and for most of the country its acceptable. Their lives did not change that much. There is no mass mobilization of labour, no blackouts, no food rationing. Life goes on, but from time to time you hear of your neighbors or family members going to war or dying. Most of population simply tries not to listen to war news, to live in their small world and hope things will turn out good.
The sad, but realistic course of actions will be that Democrats will win Congress this autumn, but not because of Trump or the war, but due to the simple effects of anti-incumbency and their edge among voters voting in midterms and special elections. If Trump or his successor loses in 2029, it will be because of high fuel prices, or higher taxes, or simply because overexposure to Trump will make him boring and cringe to median voter in Wisconsin, as opposed to philosophical rejection of MAGA.
And then Democratic president will have to rule knowing that the same forces that forced out Trump in 2020, Biden in 2024 (and hopefully Trump in 2028) will work against him in 2032, and to advantage of Vance, Tucker Carson or another idol of the right. Will elected democrats try to rock the boat in such situation?
In my less anxious moments, I have had many of the same thoughts as you have so eloquently written about in this piece. It is comforting to know that there are others that have a cautious optimism about our future as a country and a democracy. We have the advantage of having recent memories of all that has been available to us that have truly made the world a better place. Even a large number of MAGA's can't deny that. Although I wish it didn't have to be this way, I think that many more people are going to have to feel truly disrupted in their daily lives from lack of services, lack of supplies, lack of food, higher costs of transportation of any sort, and lack of decent medical care. We all must have the courage and the will to survive with less convenience and "stuff" by using prolonged economic boycotts to get our message across about wealth inequalities and a government owned by billionaires that serves only to exacerbate our problems. If we can increase numbers of discontent with the current state of affairs; and continue to resist and persist, I too can be more optimistic of the future built on total reform of how we do politics. As an older American, I am hoping that I will be around long enough to see our resistance get more powerful until we can turn in a direction beneficial to all humanity.
Others have defined what you describe as “struggle”. Ta-Nehisi Coates has always stuck with me on this point.
https://www.afyabaltimore.org/blog/1612597/struggle-and-hope
Blocking out the daily chaos is necessary to let us see quiet needs— of people, communities, organizations, world. Being a helper is a readymade, essential quality and action that really does address solvable local problems, provide positive modeling, and foster optimism. Let’s not neglect all the people and needs that still exist and may be less visible because of current governmental chaos.
I can't love these words and thoughts enough. Thanks.
Brian, sometimes your essays are quite a bit for me to swallow or grasp.
Today you are spot on. You have lifted my spirits immensely. Hope is a very important factor now.
In the wake of trumps destruction of everything meaningful in our society we need more of what you were talking about today. Thank you for that. Sincerely, Connie
America more than any country is the country where we exist in the gap between expectations and reality. Real corn-fed grown-ass-man patriotism is accepting this, and then learning that we are also the country that should be most willing to grow into our best selves as a people and most willing to admit our failures, so that we can conquer them.
In a way, we are living in the real America for the first time in our lives which is a burden but also a privilege. The inconvenient fight over whether or not we can model a system of freedom and not elites running our lives and world for us is once again here. America is ground zero of this battle. Not for freedom itself, but to prove that the project can work. Right now we are proving the opposite!
That's not my idea, it's an idea every major figure in the history of the country believed. Here's Theodore Parker who had a lot of influence on Lincoln, who says it way better than me:
"The great political idea of America, the idea of the Declaration of Independence, is a composite idea made up of three simple ones.
1.) Each man is endowed with certain unalienable rights.
2.) In respect of these rights all men are equal.
3.) A government is to protect each man in the entire and actual enjoyment of all the unalienable rights.
Now the first two ideas represent the ontological facts, facts of human consciousness; they are facts of necessity. The third idea is an idea derived from the two others, is a synthetic judgment a priori; it was not learned from sensational experience; there never was a government which did this, nor is there now.
Each of the other ideas transcended history; every unalienable right has been alienated, still is; no two men have been actually equal in actual rights. Yet the idea is true, capable of proof by human nature, not of verification by experience, as true as the proposition that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but no more capable of a sensational proof [based on the physical senses] than that. The American Revolution, with American history since, is an attempt to prove by experience this transcendental proposition, to organize the transcendental idea of politics. The idea demands for its organization a democracy-- a government of all, for all, and by all...."