Fridays in Trumpland 3.28.2025
Horror Show, or What's On the Line
This week has been occupied by horror.
A student kidnapped off the street by plain-clothesed thugs from ICE for writing an op-ed.
A Harvard researcher detained at Logan airport and then disappeared for being outspoken against Putin and the Ukraine war.
A filmshoot by a Rolex-wearing Krisi Noem in front of nearly naked, purposefully degraded concentration camp prisoners disappeared by Trump’s regime to El Salvador– despicable propaganda that would have made the Nazis proud– as Marco Rubio made comments about wanting to deport until “there’s no one left.”
Meanwhile, side by side with horror, protests movements grow daily. Saturday is a global day of action for TeslaTakedown. A week later is a mass mobilization sponsored by Indivisible and MoveOn. Bernie and AOC’s anti-oligarchy tour has had record turnouts everywhere.
And then, in the background: Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, the nation’s foremost experts on fascism and authoritarianism, have both decided to leave the country, departing Yale for the University of Toronto. Stanley is the grandson of a holocaust survivor who fled Germany in 1939, and who through a radical, secret and very dangerous plan, secured the release of 412 German jews from concentration camps from 1936 to 1938 before escaping the regime. The capitulation of Columbia to Trump’s demands, and the continuing assault on institutions of learning and the law, was enough for Stanley, who decided he didn’t want to try to raise his kids under fascism, much like his grandmother 86 years ago.
There are points of real clarity in time– moments where there is no denying that the events we are witnessing are defined along the same continuum as those that marked the worst of human history. This week was one of them.
But our version of the horror show is also marked by incompetence bordering on farce.
The revelations of Signalgate– the sheer stupidity of senior leaders carrying on planning to bomb civilians, including classified information, on a Signal chat where the Editor in Chief of the Atlantic was invited in– is a new low, and also a scandal that has all the markings of one with legs given that a mainstream newsguy is the hero of the story.
A poll released last night showed that 70% of Americans, including 60% of Republicans, disapprove of the Trump administration using Signal to discuss classified military maneuvers. We cannot let this story drop.
No one knows exactly what the future will bring here in America. We have to assume the worst and also invoke the will to fight because no one knows what the tipping point could be that would end this regime, and maybe even bring about something wholly better than what America has ever been.
As I have been saying a lot this week, this moment is one worthy of Antonio Gramsci’s famous quote: “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
The key challenge is how to move through the horror of it all to find ways to serve others and fight back. And also, to remember that if you are terrified, that is by design. If you are overwhelmed, that is by design. If you are frozen, that is by design.
All this exhaustion is designed to keep us hiding and not in the streets and not caring for our neighbors and not engaging in the work of defending the vulnerable.
There is a dire need right now for leaders to stay grounded, and for all of us to stay in community and in trusted relationship with people who are on the right side of history.
One final note this week, though: If you are one of those folks who is wondering aloud on social media “why isn’t everyone in the streets?”, I’d invite you to take this moment to find a way to get involved in something that matters to those in your community.
There are tens of thousands of people in the streets around the country, and more joining every day. There are also those who are silently working minute by minute to protect the marginalized and vulnerable in towns and cities across America.
The work has to be done by all of us. Rather than waiting for leaders and/or uprisings to arrive at your doorstep from behind a screen, this is your invitation to get in on the ground floor. One of those leaders you’re waiting for is you.
Real societal change requires sacrifice and getting your hands dirty. The Montgomery bus boycott, for instance, lasted 381 days. Folks walked everywhere in Montgomery, Alabama, everywhere, for more than a year, before bus segregation ended.
What is your investment of your time, talents, body, money, will to fight for a better future? If you haven’t yet put anything on the line, now is the time.
Our shared survival depends on all of us stepping up. It’s time to get on board.
Are you struggling on how to have an impact in these extremely challenging times? Here at the Gaia Leadership Project, and inside our new endeavor called The Ripple Effect Institute, we’ve designed a free guide on how to go from overwhelmed to impactful so you can make a difference.
Thank you Elizabeth. You’re just showing us we have choices and you’ve given the invitation. Now we have to come to the party.
Great summary! Thanks!