Stop Feeling Stunned and Wounded, Liberals. It’s Time to Fight Back.

Opinion|Stop Feeling Stunned and Wounded, Liberals. It’s Time to Fight Back.

The first week of President Trump’s return to power was a flurry of provocations, of attacks on the rule of law and raw exertions of power.

Part of the point, it seemed, was to bury his opposition in the blizzard, to rapidly follow each assault with another, often greater, affront to democratic norms. The effect was that many people, including many politicians, were left too stunned and disoriented to begin forming a cogent opposition.

But Trump’s pace of dictatorial executive actions probably can’t be sustained. At some point things will slow down, and in the lull the damage will be assessed. Terror and destruction produce evidence, and his actions against immigrants and transgender individuals, among others, will eventually manifest as cruelty meant to inflict suffering.

Then, I suspect, outrage will bubble and build as more citizens’ moral opposition to Trump’s methods gains clarity and purpose. People, especially young people, are simply not built to passively absorb oppression. At some point they inevitably react and resist.

We don’t know exactly how that resistance will be expressed, especially at this moment in which many Americans are still engaged in a “You touched the stove and now you’re learning what a burn is” kind of self-righteousness, as some members of demographic groups that shifted toward Trump reap the devastating dividends of their choices.

We had a way to prevent Trump’s return, but not enough voters acted to ensure it. Too many ignored the warnings and the signs. Too many fell for the false equivalencies. Too many were drawn in, like the woman in one of Trump’s favorite songs, “The Snake.”