Pessimism and Hope

It’s been more than a month since my last post. I am no more confident than I was on March 1 about how the ongoing national crisis will turn out, but I feel like the least (as well as the most) that I can do is to articulate reasons to be skeptical of anyone who DOES seem to be sure about where it is going.

You’ve probably seen most or all of these points before, but perhaps it will be helpful to have them collected in one place. At least, I think that it will be for me. So:

Reasons to be pessimistic

1) Our Constitution makes it exceptionally difficult to remove a sitting President, even one who is clearly dangerous and incompetent. It will be nearly impossible to remove Trump by a Constitutional process as long as he retains the support of most of his political party, since at least 20 Republican Senators would have to support his removal via the impeachment process, or alternatively a majority of his Cabinet would have to agree that he was unable to serve before he could be sidelined by the 25^th Amendment.

2) Trump won the popular vote last year, not by a lot, but by enough for his victory to be clear-cut. This makes it more difficult to challenge the legitimacy of his Presidency, even if he is doing things that are far outside the bounds of normal or even legal governance.

3) The history of the last 10 years suggests that there are worldwide forces encouraging widespread support for authoritarian and nationalistic leaders among voters in countries that have been functional democracies. This can be seen in countries around the world – Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, the Philippines, Brazil. While we have our own particular challenges, this vulnerability is not peculiarly American or even peculiar to the “West.”

4) In our country, many of those who continue to support Trump rely on news sources that either filter out news that reflects poorly on him or spin it in a way to make it look like a plus. This increases the likelihood that he retains the support of a solid majority of Republicans, which will make it difficult for Republican officeholders to distance themselves from him.

5) We see that many powerful institutions—law firms, corporations, media, universities – are accommodating Trump. This validates his intimidating tactics and contributes to an environment in which his false claims receive wider support.

6) In most scenarios where either health or other reasons compel him to leave office before the end of his term, his likely successor is his Vice President, J.D. Vance, and opinions differ on whether he is to be feared more or less than Trump himself (he appears to be more clear-minded and less erratic, although also less gifted at intimidation and less “charismatic”, with no personal following remotely comparable to Trump’s.)

Reasons to be hopeful

1) Despite what many of us have feared and expected, so far we have NOT seen open defiance of the courts from the Trump Administration. Weasel-like attempts to get around court rulings or to act before they can go into effect, yes, but despite rhetoric from the Administration, we have not seen them follow through on the suggestion that the President can legitimately just ignore court rulings. It may happen, but it hasn’t yet.

2) The Trump Administration is making stunningly bad policy decisions that are alienating many people who might have no objection to his authoritarian inclinations. His tariff policies are the most obvious example, but it is also noteworthy that he has enabled sharp funding and personnel cuts not only for “liberal” programs, but also those that provide services rarely seen as controversial, such as FEMA and the National Weather Service; these cuts are likely to likely to lead to serious failures in the face of challenging weather or other disasters.

3) At the same time, his response to the massive outcry in the business community against his tariff package tells us that he WILL back off under pressure, even on an issue about which he feels strongly.

4) While attention has been focused on those institutions that are “bending the knee” to Trump, there are many others that are taking a stand against his policies or against his attempts to blackmail them—news media such as the AP, businesses such as Costco, law firms such as Perkins Cole and WilmerHale, State governors such as Janet Mills of Maine and JB Pritzker of Illinois.

5) His favorable ratings are strikingly low for a newly elected President, and seem likely to fall further. While I have not researched this myself, I have heard from a knowledgeable source that leaders who have successfully replaced democracy with authoritarian rule have generally started out with high levels of popularity that make it difficult to oppose them effectively; that is clearly not Trump’s situation.

6) Trump himself appears to be in continuing physical and cognitive decline. Despite the hopes of many of his supporters and the fears of many of his adversaries, he is unlikely to be in any shape to remain as President beyond the end of his term in 2029, and indeed, he may well become too incapacitated to serve well before then.

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So, we go forward into the unknown. May we all find ways to contribute to the possibility of a good outcome, ways to support those who are being victimized by this Administration, ways to protect those closest to us from at least some of the ill winds that may be ahead, and ways to care for ourselves in these difficult times.