Stitch, or...

I'm keeping a log of perspectives that matter to the survival of the United States of America.  I can't just put my head in the sand.

 

2.4.25

Trump will overplay his hand. Be ready for when he does.

ROBERT REICH 2.5.25

I sometimes share with you perspectives about what we’re up against from non-American writers and journalists. Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and a former journalist, published this short essay recently in Politico Magazine. As we prepare for Trump’s regime, I thought you’d find her views useful.

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary.

Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance — the network of state and local governments — offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents.

Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbanization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

After a stunning electoral loss like this, there’s a natural impulse to shut off the news, log off social media and withdraw from public life. I’ve seen this with friends in Turkey and Hungary with opposition supporters retreating in disillusionment after Erdogan’s or Orbam’s victories. Understandably, people want to turn inwards.

Dancing, travel, meditation, book clubs — it’s all fine. But eventually, in Poland, Hungary and Turkey, opponents of autocracy have returned to the fight, driven by a belief in the possibility of change. So will Americans.

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too.

The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X — or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

3. Don’t Fear the Infighting

Donald Trump’s victory has understandably triggered infighting inside the Democratic Party and it looks ugly. But fear not. These recriminations and finger-pointing are necessary to move forward. In Turkey, Hungary and Poland, it was only after the opposition parties faced their strategic and ideological misalignment with society that they were able to begin to effectively fight back.

Trump has tapped into the widespread belief that the economic order, labor-capital relations, housing and the immigration system are broken. You may think he is a hypocrite, but there is no doubt that he has convinced a large cross-section of American society that he is actually the agent of change — a spokesman for their interests as opposed to “Democratic elites.” This is exactly what strongmen like Erdoğan and Orban have achieved.

For the Democratic Party to redefine itself as a force for change, and not just as the custodian of the status quo, it needs fundamental shifts in how it relates to working people in the U.S. There is time to do so before the midterms of 2026.

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent.

Trump was beatable in this election, but only with a more captivating candidate. For Democrats, the mistake after smartly pushing aside President Joe Biden was bypassing the primaries and handpicking a candidate. Future success for the party will hinge on identifying a candidate who can better connect with voters and channel their aspirations. It should not be too hard in a country of 350 million.

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. When Erdoğan finally lost his absolute predominance in Turkish politics in 2024, it was largely because of his mismanagement of the economy and the opposition’s growing competence in that area.

Trump’s appeal transcends traditional divides of race, gender and class. He has formed a new Republican coalition and to counteract this. Democrats too, must broaden their tent, even if means trying to appeal to conservatives on some issues. Opposition over the next four years must be strategic and broad-based.

Street protests and calls to defend democracy may be inspirational, but they repel conservatives and suburban America. Any grassroots action must be coupled with a clear, relatable economic message and showcase the leadership potential of Democratic mayors and governors. Identity politics alone won’t do it.

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world.

Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

2.4.25

For eight years, every time I've posted about the weaknesses and cracks and crevices in the Trump operation, every time I've suggested that the left has far more options and tools at his disposal than analogies to Nazi Germany or fascist Italy would suggest, every time I've suggested that those analogies were more confusing than they were revealing, every time I've pointed out the failures and missteps of Trump, every time I've showed that he's not in command of the American polity, every time I pointed out how Trump failed to get something through Congress and was forced to rely on executive powers that could be undone by the next person, every time that I've doubted that Trump 2.0 is so much more ready for prime time than Trump 1.0, every time I've insisted that overstating Trump's power is doing the work of fear that Trump wants and needs done, I've been accused of being an apologist, a minimizer, an enabler, complicitous, or worse. I've gotten these accusations—and some have been far nastier—from liberals, leftists, centrists, ex-conservative Never Trumpers, and more. 

I wonder how people are going to make sense of what seems to be a new line coming together from the discourse, as evidenced by three different kinds of voices of opposition to Trump in the last several weeks, voices that are fairly influential and will shape, I'm sure, how the rest of us talk and think about the next four years. 

Here's JAMELLE BOUIE, whom I'd describe as a strong left liberal, with the sharpest historical analysis of the intersections between racism and capitalism, and a deep awareness of how institutions affect politics: 

1. "It is very telling of these guys’ [Trump and his followers] conception of how power works that they see issuing a flurry of executive orders as evidence of presidential strength and vigor and not a sign that the president is too weak to pursue a serious legislative agenda." 

2. "We have a president with a tenuous grip on small legislative majorities who is out of the gate with a flurry of dramatically unpopular orders and who has just demonstrated his weakness on the international stage. if i were an elected member of his domestic opposition, i might try to draw real blood." 

3. "i think this should be factored into how states, counties, localities and hospitals respond to these executive orders. 'we will investigate you if you teach DEl.' okay, with what agents, specifically? with what state capacity?" 

4. "not to downplay the seriousness of any of this but i think a lot of you are imagining the united states as a country of 30 million people and not a country of 330 million people. 'he'll enforce this with proud boys!' okay, there are > 13,000 public school districts in the US. there are roughly 100,000 primary and secondary schools. trump pardoned 1500 people."

Here's EZRA KLEIN, whom I'd describe as a mainstream liberal, bordering on the centrist, who often sets the pace of more respectable commentary:

"Donald Trump’s first two weeks in the White House have followed Bannon’s strategy like a script. The flood is the point. The overwhelm is the point. The message wasn’t in any one executive order or announcement. It was in the cumulative effect of all of them. The sense that this is Trump’s country now. This is his government now. It follows his will. It does what he wants. If Trump tells the state to stop spending money, the money stops. If he says that birthright citizenship is over, it’s over.

"Or so he wants you to think. In Trump’s first term, we were told: Don’t normalize him. In his second, the task is different: Don’t believe him."

...

"There is a reason Trump is doing all of this through executive orders rather than submitting these same directives as legislation to pass through Congress. A more powerful executive could persuade Congress to eliminate the spending he opposes or reform the civil service to give himself the powers of hiring and firing that he seeks. To write these changes into legislation would make them more durable and allow him to argue their merits in a more strategic way....But Republicans have a three-seat edge in the House and a 53-seat majority in the Senate. Trump has done nothing to reach out to Democrats. If Trump tried to pass this agenda as legislation, it would most likely fail in the House, and it would certainly die before the filibuster in the Senate. And that would make Trump look weak.

...

"That is the tension at the heart of Trump’s whole strategy: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hoping that perception then becomes reality. That can only happen if we believe him.

"The flurry of activity is meant to suggest the existence of a plan. The Trump team wants it known that they’re ready this time. They will control events rather than be controlled by them. The closer you look, the less true that seems. They are scrambling and flailing already. They are leaking against one another already. We’ve learned, already, that the O.M.B. directive was drafted, reportedly, without the input or oversight of key Trump officials — 'it didn’t go through the proper approval process,' an administration official told The Washington Post. For this to be the process and product of a signature initiative in the second week of a president’s second term is embarrassing."

...

"What Trump wants you to see in all this activity is command. What is really in all this activity is chaos. They do not have some secret reservoir of focus and attention the rest of us do not. They have convinced themselves that speed and force is a strategy unto itself — that it is, in a sense, a replacement for a real strategy. Don’t believe them."

And here's REBECCA SOLNIT, one of the preeminent voices of The Resistance, whose politics I can't always figure out but whom no one would accuse of downplaying threat of Trump:

"I found this really insightful and encouraging analysis," she writes, referring to the following statements from Timothy Noah, a solid liberal journalist who keeps a close eye on things related to workers and unions, and Greg Sargent, another solid liberal journalist, statements that she posts on her page.

1. Noah: "Trump is, I have argued, not a strong president. He is a weak president. He has authoritarian tendencies, but he’s weak. He’s mentally weak. He is subject vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation by his aides. He tries to do all sorts of contradictory things. He is not competent. And on the evidence of this particular example, neither are his enablers....These are all signs of a weak presidency."

2. Sargent: "I want to get at your point about weakness and failure here. An interesting thing is how this contrasts with Trump/MAGA propaganda right now. That propaganda is relentlessly pushing the idea that Trump and his allies are ruthlessly forging ahead with his agenda. You see it all over Twitter. All of MAGA’s tweeting immense congratulations to Trump, he’s crushing the libs, he’s doing this, he’s doing that. ... The real story here is that they’re actually screwing up already....I don’t want to be too optimistic here. They’re going to do a lot of damage—already are doing a lot of damage. But clearly what we’re seeing now is that they’re not going to be able to roll over the bureaucracy and our institutions, as easily as they thought, as easily as John Harris thinks, as easily as that credulous New York Times piece portrayed, right?"

Back to me: I'm less interested in crowing or scoring points with my critics (though I'd be less than honest if I didn't say it hurt to be called these things publicly by people who've known me personally and worked with me for a long time, sometimes as far back as graduate school) than in pointing out something I noticed about a month or so ago. During Trump 1.0, people found it useful, for reasons I remain unclear about, to say that we were living under a fascist regime, even though the very fact that they could say that publicly suggested otherwise, and to warn of fascism as a way, I guess, of mobilizing people to vote or act. 

Now that it's become clear that yelling fascism won't make it— whatever "it" is—go away, now that people realize that a constant state of alarm imposes genuine political costs, people are looking for different kinds of analysis that show all the ways in which the familiar tools of politics are the tools we have to fight with, that a lot of the Trump power performance is just that, performance, that a lot of what we consider democracy still exists, and that we're all going to have to look harder at institutions and actions and cracks and crevices—and less to the courts or revelations about Russia and pee (remember that one?) or to the passing street demonstration.

I'll be interested to see how this commentary develops further.

_______

I wrote this out so that I will be prepared when I call my senators and representative this morning re: Musk's illegal takeover of USAID this weekend and Musk's illegal break in and data breach at the Treasury Dept and OPM.

I thought I would share in case anyone would like to use or modify it as they make their own phone calls. 

(I'll put the links to the senate and house phone numbers in comments. I'm calling both their DC and local offices. I've also emailed through their contacts on the federal website.)

Introduction:

"Hello, my name is [name], and I am a constituent from zip code [zip code]. I am calling to express my concerns about the recent reports regarding Elon Musk's authority and illegal actions regarding breaking in, accessing and copying confidential information at USAID, the Treasury and the OPM. He and his cohorts have no authority to access that information or to copy it. That they are using unsecured hard drives is a further security risk as well as a breach of America's trust. 

Furthermore, I understand that he misrepresented himself and his cohorts by saying he was backed by the US Marshal's Office. 

State the Issue:

"I am greatly troubled and more than a little bit angry that Elon Musk has been given this significant authority by the president and that he is abusing this power, particularly this weekend. I believe it is essential for elected officials to ensure that checks and balances are in place to prevent any potential misuse of authority. The president has made up a government position for Musk and is now allowing Musk to dismantle congress-approved departments, ie USAID. Musk has also orchestrated, and carried out, a data breach at the US Treasury and at OPM. 

Express Your Position:

"I strongly oppose any individual, including Elon Musk, having unchecked authority and potentially abusing that power for personal or political gain. It is crucial for our democracy that oversight mechanisms are in place to hold individuals accountable for their actions and to stop further abuse. Furthermore, I believe in the checks and balances of our government. With our Congress allowing the President to usurp their powers of authority, we no longer have the checks and balances our constitution provides. When Senator/Representative [name] gives away his own authority by doing nothing, or worse, supporting this usurping of his own authority, he is acting against the protection of his constituents and against the protection of our nation as a whole. Provide Supporting Information:

"Not only does Elon Musk have no security clearance, he has known ties to nations who are not our allies, including China and Russia. With these ties, he should not have access to any information that requires a security clearance. He should not be in our White House and he should not have the ear of the president. 

Allowing Elon Musk to continue, unchecked and with the president's cooperation is endangering our national security. This is a matter of great importance to me as a constituent."

Ask for a Response:

"I would like to know where Senator/Representative [Name] stands on this issue and what actions he plans to take to address these illegal abuses of power. I urge [him/her] to consider the implications of allowing individuals to wield excessive authority without proper oversight."

Thank Them:

"Thank you for taking the time to listen to my concerns on this matter. I hope that Senator/Representative [Name] will take this issue seriously and work to ensure accountability and transparency in government actions."

***

Note that the USAID break in is now being carried on reputable news sources. So far, I've found very little about the Treasury and OPM data breach. I have found this article by Wired Magazine.

Link in comments.

Wired is a reputable news organization. Here is one of the articles I found that refers to the Treasury and OPM data breach.