This won’t hurt a bit
Well, only if you resist
Trump has begun his second term with a lightening round of executive orders and actions that have left his opponents stunned and unsure how to respond. Most of the orders were not especially surprising, but the sheer volume along with their scope and breadth were designed to overwhelm his opposition, leaving them “dazed, disoriented, and defeated,” David Frum wrote in The Atlantic.
From blanket pardons of all J6 convicted criminals and defendants to his order to end birthright citizenship, liberals have been left reeling. Some orders were intended to immediately reinstate actions from Trump’s first administration that Biden had revoked. In a strongman flex for his America First worldview, Trump promptly withdrew from the Paris climate treaty and the World Health Organization, both symbols of diminished American sovereignty. Other orders have been petty — like declaring that all flags shall fly at full staff on Inauguration Day, so as not to be eclipsed by the death of a former President or any other national figure the country may be mourning — or purely for vanity, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Equally significant to his campaign is the assault on “gender extremism.” Trump moved swiftly to “recognize two sexes, male and female” and dismantle DEI initiatives and policy directives protecting the transgender population. It’s one thing to neutralize policies to recruit and promote a diverse workforce, but it is something else entirely to enshrine practices that, in fact, discriminate against specific classes of individuals, including many in the LGBTQ+ community.
Trump also enacted regulatory, hiring, and spending freezes to ensure that all federal resources align with Trump’s agenda, although the spending freeze was subsequently paused by a federal judge and then rescinded by the White House. When Trump’s actions haven’t been focused his policy aims, they have been directed at individuals in the form of personal retribution — firing DOJ prosecutors who investigated him or removing secret service protections from disloyal former officials.
Trump’s second term has also been characterized by his distinctive brand of self-dealing and promotion. Days before his inauguration, Trump unveiled his own cryptocurrency called $TRUMP, trading not only on his name but his office. $TRUMP is a “meme coin,” meaning that the coin’s purpose is purely for speculation on the market.
The total market capitalization of $TRUMP sits at about $5.5 billion, but earlier in January, it nearly hit $15 billion. Trump’s entire net worth, prior to the release of his meme coins, was estimated at $6.1 billion as of December 2024. Like so many Trump business endeavors, the scheme seems poised to enrich friends, family, and other insiders at the expense of late entrants and regular investors.
Again, in so many ways, this second term is like déja vu all over again, but it also feels different.
The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire, and others have noted that, in contrast to Trump’s first term, team Trump 2.0 is better prepared for the fight. Despite not having read Project 2025, Trump appears well-versed in its strategy prescriptions. The flood of executive actions and policy directives is intentionally designed to shock and awe the liberal opposition. Steve Bannon told PBS’s Frontline in 2019:
Steve Bannon: The opposition party is the media. And the media can only, because they’re dumb and they’re lazy, they can only focus on one thing at a time.…
All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never — will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity. So it’s got to start, and it’s got to hammer, and it’s got to —
Michael Kirk: What was the word?
Bannon: Muzzle velocity.
It seems to be working. Trump’s actions have been distinctly more aggressive, while the public and political reaction has been decidedly more muted. The resistance to Trump’s first term ranged from vocal anger and protest in the streets to more subdued caution and skepticism among the business establishment. This time around, billionaires have lined up to kiss the ring.
In addition to long-time supporters like Miriam Adelson, Woody Johnson, Linda McMahon, and others, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook all donated $1M to the Trump inauguration, buying a certain amount of goodwill — and atoning for past resistance. Ahead of the inauguration, Bannon said, “They’re not there because they support Trump. They’re there because the Trump movement and President Trump broke them.”
During a sit-down with Joe Rogan, despite becoming a “wife guy” last year, Zuckerberg leaned into the manosphere bro culture, declaring that more corporations should embrace their masculine energy. “It’s one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and I think it’s another to basically say that ‘masculinity is bad,’” he told Rogan. In discussing his experience with martial arts, Zuckerberg said hanging out with his male friends while they “beat each other” has been a “positive experience.” Hmm, okay.
Trump bestie Elon Musk, who invested heavily in Trump, will be expecting big returns. Scott Galloway has argued that Musk’s $119 million investment in the campaign was one of the best investments ever made. “He made it over approximately 3 or 6 months, and in exchange, his net worth has gone up $15 billion just from his Tesla shares, which skyrocketed on news that Trump was retaking the White House.” Musk has seen his returns fall since Trump has taken office, as have many of us, but he remains poised to profit spectacularly from this administration, which eschews conflict pledges or corruption curbs.
Klein views Trump’s strategic gaslighting, the way in which he makes things true simply by asserting them to be, as the Achilles’ heel that opponents must focus on. While Trump does have the power to deny security protections to Anthony Fauci and John Bolton, as reckless or callous as it may be, he cannot rewrite the Constitution from the Oval Office. Klein claims, “The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness.” Trump’s disapproval rating at inauguration (48%) has already set a new record, besting his own low from eight years ago (45%).
If Trump were a stronger president or one with an actual mandate, he would codify these cultural and policy changes in legislation. He would create a more durable shift in direction. But when push comes to shove, he fears he lacks the votes in Congress, even from his own party, to accomplish much of his agenda. Losses there would make him look weak. He hasn’t forgotten the humiliating defeat he suffered on the Senate floor at the hands of John McCain — actually, at the thumb of John McCain.
In Klein’s view, Trump may want us to see strength, but what we really see is chaos. I also see insecurity. While the blitz of executive orders has been impressive, the administration has also had losses and certainly faces others ahead. So far, Trump has been laughed out of the courtroom defending the abolition of birthright citizenship and the spending freeze. Matt Gaetz stepped aside in humiliation to avoid the release of a scathing Congressional ethics report that was ultimately released anyway. And at the moment, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy, Jr. face their own precarious confirmation votes.
Other actions will certainly confront legal challenges. The administration has a stated goal of 1,200 to 1,500 daily migrant arrests, resulting in 20 million deportations. Marco Rubio has stated that there are 25 or 30 million migrants living in the US illegally, while most immigration groups agree that the number is closer to 11 or 12 million. To hit his targets, Trump will either need to start increasing the number of illegal immigrants — by removing existing legal protections — or simply deporting legal immigrants. The former is already underway; the latter may only be a matter of time. Both will draw legal challenges.
Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, told Bill Maher that “Democracy is based on trust, whereas dictatorship is based on terror.” Democracy cannot survive without trust in its institutions. If trust in institutions is destroyed, only a dictatorship can function. That’s why would-be dictators first work to destroy trust, to create the fertile ground necessary for the dictatorship to take hold. “I alone can fix it,” as Trump told convention delegates in 2016.
Now, it’s not appropriate for me to argue that I’m being terrorized by Trump, but for many in this dystopian new world, it must feel a lot like terror. For those who rely on government support or federal protections. For those who rely on banned or restricted medical treatment or care. For those who rely on the protection not the harassment of the police. For those who suffer from prejudice and discrimination at school or work. And even more pointedly, for those who are in the racist crosshairs of the newly-pardoned, reinvigorated Proud Boys or Oath Keepers.
While Trump doesn’t have the mandate he claims, it’s still true that circumstances are different this time. The landscape is altered. Trump 2.0 is angrier, more emboldened, and no longer isolated in his party. This time, Trump won the popular vote — not a majority, but a plurality, nonetheless. Lastly, Democrats feel the weight of the unforced errors that cost them the presidency, including Biden’s refusal to step aside sooner, the party’s focus on too many unpopular niche issues, and waiting too long to recognize the significance of what was happening at the border. The sum of these factors has left us licking our wounds and unable to quite get our footing.
Trump’s message is, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but either way, he’s going to get what he wants. He is counting on us giving up, acquiescing, and staying quiet. Speaking for myself, it’s taken me several weeks to collect my own thoughts, to figure out what there is to say that would matter. What else can we say about Donald Trump that we don’t already know? What else is there to say?
According to Charles Blow, people are simply not built to passively absorb oppression. At some point they inevitably react and resist. I predict that Trump himself, as he always has, will trigger that moment, brought on by his own ego and hubris.
We’ve already seen glimpses of it. Blaming DEI for the deaths of 67 people in the DC collision involving an American Airlines flight and US Army helicopter — deaths of everyday people, including a young civil rights attorney, an engineering student, hunting buddies, a group of young figure skaters, their families and coaches, the airline crew, and three US soldiers. He can’t help himself.
Similarly, in surveying hurricane damage in North Carolina, Trump proposed eliminating FEMA, prompting concerns from many states, including red states, who rely on FEMA in times of need and do not have the wherewithal to manage disaster recovery without federal resources. His lack of genuine human empathy always shows itself. He can’t help himself.
Perhaps most important, in Trump’s flurry of executive orders and proclamations, he’s given no indication of any plan to help the country’s most economically vulnerable. Harris’ plan to tackle price gouging, provide subsidies for first-time home buyers, and limit drug costs failed to meet the moment, but Trump has yet to put any concrete economic agenda for middle-class people on the table.
The coming round of tax cuts will certainly do nothing for the middle class. Tariffs and ballooning deficits will keep interest rates high. Immigration crackdowns will overreach and sow fear across the country. The “concepts of a plan” for health care will never materialize. The antagonism of our allies will leave Trump isolated on the world stage, just as he was in his first term. His success will rely on relationships with the likes of Putin and Xi.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe there isn’t anything new to say. We need to fight for all the things that matter, just like we did eight years ago. It might actually hurt, but we’re not going to give up. Let’s go!
