We must be one people

Resisting tyranny is our only option

Donald Trump's demolition of the East Wing of the White House to build his golden ballroom is too obvious a metaphor. But then subtlety is not his thing.

He thinks he can smash anything or anyone in his way. But as is becoming increasingly evident, you cannot steal or fake the consent of the governed. If you try, those you claim to rule will not stand for it. Your power will never be secure because it will be built on sand.

I believe we will eventually defeat Trump and his minions; but their defeat will not be easy. Far too much damage has been done to turn a page and have the nightmare magically end. By the time America can be repaired, a great many people who spent our lives embracing America's constitutional separation of powers will be gone.

The new authoritarian climate of lawlessness, rapacity, lies, brazen stupidity and astonishing cruelty is causing a lot of wreckage. We will be a long time recovering.

How will that be possible with a large portion of the population determined to thwart us? The aggressive Republican slanders will not abruptly stop. We have to make them pay politically. The longer we take, the likelier it is that a bloody civil war will be unavoidable. And wars do not build; they destroy.

Pardoned January Sixer Christopher Moynihan has been charged with a felony count of making a terroristic threat against House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. This echoed Jan. 6 inciter Trump, whose constant lies and trash talk have accomplished what another Moynihan, former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), called "defining deviancy down."

We need to define it right back up, in a way that recognizes America's thriving diversity, including LGBTQ people, as the norm and not a threat to it. So-called Secretary of War Pete Hegseth denies that our diversity is our strength. We must prove him wrong.

Trump's attacks on universities, museums, law firms, science, and journalism are an attempt to rewrite our history to suit one shrinking part of the population.

It will take a mighty, sustained battle to prevent the GOP from fatally interfering with the 2026 midterms. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders too often run away from portions of the Democratic base. At least Jeffries has finally, if belatedly, endorsed Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.

Republicans have already called Mamdani a communist. Challenger Andrew Cuomo obscenely chuckled at the suggestion that Mamdani would celebrate another 9/11 terrorist attack. It should be clear by now that the proper response to such smears is not to run in fear but to push back.

We handicap ourselves if we try to reason with people who continue clinging or pandering to Trump and the alternate reality that justifies and glorifies him.

Whether or not the Supreme Court allows Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law, there is no insurrection. Our cities are not on fire. Trump's chaos is not making America great. Tariffs do not work. A No Kings rally is not a Hate America rally. A university that caters to a tyrant's demands is no longer a university, regardless of what it calls itself. White fragility is not a thing.

We are not just fighting for power. We are fighting to regain our nation's collective grip on reality. If we fail in that, roll the closing credits.

Trump's idea of elegance is tacky. His economic ideas are delusional. His idea of a peace deal is a deadly fraud. His idea of American power relies on bullying and makes America hated and mocked around the world.

We must restore the consent of the governed. Posting federal troops at voting places to intimidate them is designed to undermine that consent and steal power. Calling black and brown people vermin goes directly against the egalitarian principles on which our nation was founded but has struggled to make real.

Letting ourselves be hostage to the toxic brew of bigotries exploited by the GOP cannot be the Democratic path to victory. Either we resist fascism however we can, or we lose.

America risks declining into a feudal state of warring factions and a vanished middle class. Tucker Carlson, as it happens, defends feudalism. Those who long for such a miserable past tend to imagine themselves on top. But life expectancy even for kings back then was very short.

We must be one people, with policies to match, or we lose more than the East Wing; we demolish ourselves.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2025 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.