Holding Out a Little Bit of Hope

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A miasma of gloom has settled over our nation and it seems to get heavier and darker with every hit resulting from Donald Trump’s edicts and whims. We all seem to be caught up in his political death spiral. As Barack Obama opined at Jesse Jackson’s funeral last weekend, every day brings a new outrage.

I am not by nature a cheerleader. I’m as glum as the next decent person who only longs for this nightmare to end. But hopelessness is not a good place to be, neither for America nor for us personally. 

What I hear constantly from friends and family is the plaint, “What can we do?” To which I say — for the country and for our own morale and sanity — there are not only things we can do; there are also plenty of things we must do. For the very simple reason that the only people who can save America are its good citizens: us.

1.    Keep sounding the alarm. As a political journalist and engaged citizen, I think it is imperative that each of us sound the alarm and keep sounding it: on the danger that Trump and his fellow Republicans pose to our most vulnerable citizens; on the way they have tanked our economy; on their corruption; on their desire to divide the country; on their campaign to make this a white male Christian nation; on their war on science and medicine; on their belligerence, which right now has set the entire Middle East afire; and, perhaps above all, on their persistent attacks against our electoral system and on Trump’s promise to seize that system and take our votes away. 

Don’t just be afraid. Be aware, and make sure everyone you know is aware that Trump’s objective is to destroy democracy.

2.    Protest. Of course, I keep hearing that protests are futile, that Trump will do whatever he wants to do, that the Supreme Court has given him free rein, and that all the other institutional safeguards have largely failed to restrain him. 

Though Trump remains largely unrestrained, I can only imagine what he would have destroyed by now if millions upon millions of big-hearted Americans hadn’t taken to the streets to demonstrate their solidarity and show him what he is up against. 

Protests alone won’t stop him. But protests build our morale and erode that of Trump’s supporters. On my own “overpass brigade,” where we hold signs to show passing motorists, every time I get a honk, I feel heartened, and every time I get flipped off, unfailingly by folks burning red with rage, I am reminded of what I am fighting for.

3.    Get involved in local politics. For decades, while Republican foot soldiers were stocking state legislatures, municipal governments, and school boards, Democrats were oblivious. 

No longer. Politics begins locally. I know from my own experience that local government and local parties are eager for participants, and that this provides opportunities for you to shape the direction of your community and your party, not to mention the nation.

4.    Boycott. One of the most dispiriting features of our recent dispiriting politics is that Big Business has effectively become part of the Trump administration. One by one, the tech and industry chieftains genuflect before Trump, even showering him with tribute. 

But here is the good news. The one thing these big shots worship more than Trump is money, which means that they have a vulnerability you can exploit. 

Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at the NYU Stern Business School, has organized a boycott of major Trump supporters. You can find him and his targets at Resist and Unsubscribe.

We have already seen how Target and Tesla and Disney have suffered under the assault of civic-minded consumers. This is a way to make the other Trump enablers suffer — and if they suffer enough, change course.

5.    Reassert morality. Since Trump arrived on the political scene, I have said that our crisis is essentially moral: Trump has taken a wrecking ball to our long-standing moral architecture — values of decency, honesty, kindness, generosity, steadfastness, and yes, empathy. With constant lying, grifting, and fear-mongering, celebration of cruelty, racist rhetoric, and cold-hearted rejection cynical vilification of “the other,” he has turned far too many Americans into monsters. 

That said, the most powerful and enduring way to eradicate Trump and Trumpism, I believe, is to rebuild and reassert those familiar moral values. 

This is partly a matter of discourse — of talking about values and encouraging our fellow citizens to be their better selves and teaching our children good values. 

But it is also a matter of modeling behavior. We saw how effective this could be in Minneapolis, where neighbors protected neighbors, often by putting themselves in physical danger, because it was the right thing to do. We should insist on being compassionate, kind, generous, and empathetic. 

Republicans have called empathy “dangerous.” Elon Musk has called it a “fundamental weakness.” We know it is a fundamental strength. Now we have to show it.

I know this may sound Pollyannish — a bunch of sappy cliches. Hopelessness, warranted as it may feel, is easy. Hopefulness is much harder. 

But I am convinced of this: When the history of this terrible period is written, the heroes — and let’s hope the victors — are likely to be those people who arose from their despair to fight the disease in our country, not the people who succumbed to it.

So arise.

Neal Gabler is the recipient of two LA Times Book Prizes, USA Today’s biography of the year, Time Magazine’s book of the year, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Shorenstein Fellowship from Harvard. His substack is Farewell, America.