I have errands to run this morning, so the timing of posts will be a little iffy. And there won’t be a Sift next week, but for a good reason rather than a bad one: Friends in Hawaii have invited me to visit.
The featured post this week will examine where we are in the struggle to avoid autocracy. In general, I’ve noticed this last month that I’ve been calmer about the Trump administration than most of my friends, and this post is an attempt to explain why. There are three very different reasons, only one of which relates to optimism.
First, dealing with a personal disaster — my wife’s unexpected death in December — has put the more abstract problem of national autocracy in perspective. I realize this is a very self-centered, maybe even selfish, perspective. But there it is.
Second, I had my political depression after the election. If you took Project 2025 seriously during the campaign (which I did), nothing that has happened these last five weeks has been all that surprising. Of course there was going to be a shock-and-awe campaign to claim power unauthorized by the Constitution. Of course the guardrails of American democracy were going to face a severe test.
But third, we really don’t know yet how that test is going to come out, so defeatism is unwarranted. The scenario for getting through this is still intact. (My definition of “getting through this” is that we have meaningful elections in 2026 and 2028, and restore people to power who believe in the Constitution.) Here’s how it goes: Public opinion shifts against Trump, making his support in Congress waver enough that the slim Republican majorities in the House and Senate can’t stay together well enough to rubber-stamp his actions. Courts rule against his most illegal actions, and the Supreme Court refuses to overrule them. Trump feels the pressure of unpopularity and Republican defections enough that he doesn’t defy those rulings. Republicans get clobbered in the 2025 Virginia elections in November, sending shockwaves through the party. Democrats retake at least one house of Congress in 2026.
That scenario is still possible, but fragile. The Supreme Court might decide democracy has run its course. Trump might defy court orders and rely on a full call-out-the-troops response to put down mass public demonstrations. And the military chain of command might hold, so that American troops slaughter their countrymen and herd them into prison camps. That’s still possible too.
We’re going to find out a lot in the next month or two, as the American people realize that Trump’s “temporary” actions aren’t that temporary and aren’t solving the problems Trump campaigned on; Congress deals with the budget; and cases work their way up to the Supreme Court. Everything could still go south, but it also might not.
As I said, I don’t know when either that or the weekly summary will post.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Thank you for your excellent perspective. No doubt the first parish in Bedford is a help!
Here’s a thought: There will be not elections as t-rump will find a way to declare martial law and elections will be suspended, etc, etc. That’s my (not so) cynical thinking. I do believe sentiment is already beginning to shift, but it might be too late…. Thank you again, Paul Wanta
I’m so sorry you lost your wife recently and glad you get to take some time in HI. I agree with your picture of where we’re at. People are resisting, complaining to their Congress person, and the polls are dropping.
Like you, I believe it’s too early to tell if the Project 2025 coup will succeed. Like you, I expected this blitzkrieg of unconstitutional edicts per Project 2025.
I guess what rankles me most is the slow pace of response in comparison to the lightning pace of executive transgressions.
By now, we all know that the judicial system will never be quick enough on its feet to avoid being bypassed by those bent on oligarchy.
Yet, I am newly encouraged that some heat is finally bubbling to the surface at recent Congressional town hall meetings, and I am anxiously waiting to see if it becomes hot enough back home to move some cowering GOP representatives to take shelter with other defenders of the Constitution when they take the floor to speak.
Perhaps they can enlarge the Solutions Caucuse or even form their own Constitution-defending wing of this hobbled GOP, and get it back to the business of governing again.
After 20 years of culture war and obstruction, maybe the excesses of the oligarchs and their right wing alater native facts machine will finally create a woke faction of the GOP and we can get back to being the light in sea of darkness that our democracy has always been.
There aren’t going to be midterms in 2026, especially with the supplicant MAGA party in what used to be the Article I branch of our ‘Constitutional’ government facing a backlash from all the cult members who had their faces eaten by the leopards.
The Faux Noise Ken doll currently holding the title of SecDef made the reason for firing the top three military JAGs clear: they don’t want anyone getting in the way of what they intend to do, and what they intend to do is activate the Insurrection Act, declare martial law and a suspension of the Constitution, and employ our nation’s military against any citizens that object.
Your posts have meant so much to me during Trump’s last term and now this debacle. You seem to cut to the chase and put things in perspective which allows me to sleep a whole lot better. I can’t believe you’ve carried on through your recent loss which must have been so hard for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Enjoy some peace and healing in Hawaii.
Linda O