Years ago, I was locked in a court battle with an ex-literary agent who had stolen the royalties from my first three books. It became a complicated case because the agent died during the proceedings, and there were questions about paying me back. I can’t remember a lot of the details but one thing I do remember is this: at a certain point a judge ruled in my favor and issued a court order directing that I be paid. Previously bickering lawyers put down their swords at that point, as once a judge issued a court order that was it. Case closed.
That’s why I’m gobsmacked these days every time the Trump administration ignores a court order. Us regular folks don’t get to do that. On a movie set, the director gets to call “Cut.” In a healthy family, a parent gets to say “No.” And in a court case, a judge’s ruling is meant to have some modicum of finality.
Not to Trump and his cohorts, however. And that’s how you know we’re in trouble. He not only ignores the law, but has others in his administration do so as well. A judge says, “Turn that plane around;” they simply don’t. A judge says detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” have a right to use phones and access their lawyers; the guards cut off access to the phones, then beat and pepper spray the detainees. Congress allocates money as the Constitution gives them the authority to do; OMB Director Russ Vought impounds whatever funds he feels aren’t “consistent with our agenda.”
Vought is a perfect example of the problem we have on our hands these days. He is a Christian nationalist with no respect for religious pluralism or ethnic diversity. He is one of the main authors of Project 2025, which is a veritable blueprint for a basic dismantling of our democratic freedoms. He is one of many, in and out of government, who have no problem with Trump as king, dictator, or whatever else you want to call someone leading a charge against the Constitution.
Oh come on, Marianne. Isn’t it a bit hyperbolic to say that? Um, no. Not only are they doing it, but they know they’re doing it, and they think that what they’re doing is a good idea. Democracy is not convenient to their purposes.
When during his swearing-in for a second term President Trump took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, he declined to put his hand on the Bible. As they say these days, the body doesn’t lie.
On any given day, the news is filled with more ways in which our world has been turned upside down. It’s not so much anymore that we can’t believe what’s happening. We get that it’s happening, but we’re shocked by how ineffective they have rendered any genuine opposition. Turning on the news, there’s hardly an article that doesn’t describe the President’s antics. He does something nuts, and someone reports it. He does something else nuts, and someone reports that too. He does something possibly even more nuts, and someone reports that as well. The only break in the action seems to come from Congresspeople with no control of either House or Senate, yelling, “He can’t do that! He can’t do that!” But yes he can. He has done an extraordinary job of purging the government of people and positions that might hold him to account.
We’re checkmated at this point, and there’s a generalized depression in the air because we see that. Obviously the “we” here doesn’t include his fans, some of whom still tell me, “Take him seriously, but don’t take him literally,” as though everything’s fine and I should just calm down. They are the ones with the Trump Derangement Syndrome, by the way. We might be hysterical, furious, and depressed, but we’re not deranged. He is doing what he’s doing and we can see it.
On the material plane, we all know what it is we have to do. We have to win the midterms, and we have to win them big. We can be encouraged by Hungary’s example, where authoritarian strongman Viktor Orban - one of Trump’s role models - was finally defeated after sixteen years of steadily increasing dictatorial power. Orban did everything he could to rig that election, and still he was defeated by millions of Hungarians who had simply had enough.
Such rigging is happening here as well, of course. From suggesting the U.S. shouldn’t even have an election to suggesting that elections should be federalized, Trump is already waging war against a fair election in November. He knows there’s a good chance Democrats could sweep both houses of Congress, and he and his allies are working hard to undermine such a possibility. He’s laying the groundwork for claims of a rigged election already, even though he’s the one doing the rigging. He is focused on an anti-voting bill called the SAVE Act, which would require strict voter identification and proof of citizenship to register. While that doesn’t sound so sinister, the way it’s worded would create an administrative burden for married women who changed their name when they got married. While our government should be doing everything it can to make voting easier, it’s doing everything it can to make it harder.
So that’s where you and I come in. These are not normal times, and we shouldn’t expect the voter registration process to be the same as in past years. In many cases there could be weird requirements, barriers, delays, or hassles intended to be so frustrating that we’ll just give up. Yet we must not. We should all get registered now, dotting every i and crossing every t just to make double, triple sure that our vote will be counted. It doesn’t matter where you live or whether or not you think your vote would even matter. Anything can happen this year. There needs to be a rush on the polls in 2026 that is nothing short of historic. If Hungarians could push back Orban, we can push back Trump.
And there’s more to the story than just that. The Dalai Lama said that “in order to save the world we must have a plan, but no plan will work unless we meditate.” Trump doesn’t just mess with our laws, he messes with our head. He doesn’t just assault our institutions, he assaults our nervous system. There is a lot we need to do to deal with this menace in our midst, but in order to do so effectively we have to become very, very strong people. Think of yourself as a spiritual-political athlete this year. When you get depressed about what’s happening, just remember that we all do. Give yourself a couple of hours to feel it - neither drugs, alcohol, nor sugar are your friends at such a time, by the way - but then pull yourself up by your emotional bootstraps and get back in the game. We need to do that because it’s not a game. It is, quite possibly, the world as we know it that’s at stake.
There are millions and millions of people, here and all over the world, who know that we are better than this. At a 2020 Democratic Presidential debate, I told President Trump that he had harnessed fear for political purposes but that we would harness love - and love would win. A lot has happened since then: the problem has gotten worse, but the solution is the same. We will harness love. And love will win.
It is during moments such as these that I hold firm to your words. “Out of all this chaos will emerge something new and beautiful.”
Great essay