QOTD -- The Tide Is Turned

 

"... Trump ends the year weak and unpopular, his coalition dispirited and riven by infighting. Democrats dominated in the November elections. During Joe Biden’s administration, far-right victories in school board races were an early indication of the cultural backlash that would carry Trump to office. Now, however, Democrats are flipping school board seats nationwide.

"Much of the credit for the reinvigoration of the resistance belongs to Trump himself. Had he focused his deportation campaign on criminals or refrained from injuring the economy with haphazard tariffs while mocking concerns about affordability, he would probably have remained a more formidable figure. He’s still a supremely dangerous one, especially as he comes to feel increasingly cornered and aggrieved. After all, by the time you read this, we could well be at war with Venezuela, though no one in the administration has bothered to articulate a plausible rationale for the escalating conflict.

"But it’s become, over the past year, easier to imagine the moment when his mystique finally evaporates, when few want to defend him anymore or admit that they ever did. 'I think it’s going to be a rocky period, but I no longer think that Trump is going to pull an Orban and fundamentally consolidate authoritarian control of this country the way that it looked like he was going to do in March or April, said [Protect Democracy Executive Director Ian] Bassin, referring to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. If Bassin is right, it will be because a critical mass of Americans refused to be either cowed or complicit." -- Michelle Goldberg, NYT, in "Resistance Is Getting Stronger" (gift link).  We've seen the movement in the electorate in less than a year, delivering victories across the country and at all levels of government, thanks to over- performing Democratic and anti- Trump turnout.  We saw the two "No Kings" demonstrations, the second growing even bigger than the first.  We saw some of the Malignant Fascist's maleficent agenda and projects shot down or delayed by courts.  It's becoming clearer to us every day that he sees his time coming to an end (the speed at which he's attempting to burnish his "legacy" via slapping his name everywhere).  His increasingly manic, desperate attempts to divert the public's attention from his scandals are failing.  The tide is turned.