The Resistance After Trump
The 2016 election of Donald Trump enraged and inspired millions of Americans to get involved in politics. A day after he was inaugurated, 4.2 million people took to the streets. The 2017 Women’s March became the largest recorded protest in US history. With Trump, a new type of politics ascended to the White House — one that was unabashedly determined to undo Barack Obama’s legacy and left any semblance of political correctness and open-mindedness at the door. Democrats felt a sense of anger and disillusionment that they had not felt before and were determined not to sit idle. #Notmypresident started trending on Twitter and millions of people became part of a new social movement called the Resistance, hellbent on defying the forces of Trump and everything his rise to power stood for. As his first term in office comes to an end, Democrats are chasing the opportunity to reclaim the White House. It’s unclear, however, what will happen to the mass outrage Trump provokes if he loses reelection. With Trump out of office, what remains to inspire liberals to remain politically engaged? If civic engagement does decline in a post-Trump world, it will expose the lack of conviction of those who have led the movement: the affluent.
After Trump became president, the Resistance grew rapidly. Around the country, organizations like Indivisible, which has brought together thousands activist groups focused on resisting Trump, formed. On the internet, people joined forces to track Trump’s damaging rhetoric and policies through coordinated social media campaigns and to battle it out on Twitter against MAGA-heads. The media landscape adapted too, with podcasts emerging entirely dedicated to ridiculing Trump and cable news responding to the immense entertainment value created by the president, catering perfectly to the cravings of those consumed by Trump hysteria.
In the Trump-era, abnormal has become the new normal and the Resistance has been determined in their opposition to it. Everyday there is a new lie that can’t be ignored, another scandal that has to be addressed, and harmful policies that need to be protested. All the while, liberals hold a strong shared desire for a return to sanity in Washington. With Trump’s removal from office, we can have grace back in the White House, and other countries can respect us again– or so we hope. Maybe, we can eventually even return to the way things were under President Obama.
For eight years, liberals felt largely protected under Obama. The former president was well-mannered, respected Washington’s institutions, cherished traditions, and mostly governed as a middle-of-the-road, establishment Democrat. In other words, he was presidential. To be sure, during his tenure many liberals were already opposed to the obstructionist Republican legislature and did display some concern over the emergence of the Tea Party (in many ways the precursors to Trumpism). Yet it is undeniable that the volume of opposition to the right-wing and the levels of hysteria over Republican actions have compounded many times over since Trump became the face of it.
A large portion of Americans who have joined rallies or protests since Trump was elected are wealthy, white and college-educated, a study by the Washington Post shows. In fact, over a third earn more than $100,000 annually. While the poll includes people who have rallied in favor of Trump as well, the anti-Trump resistance make up the majority of protestors in the country and the results provide a useful snapshot into the composition of the Resistance. If it is true that political engagement sees a decline in a post-Trump world, it will demonstrate that in many ways components of the Trump resistance, made up largely of the affluent, became active because Trump’s presidency offended them, while the consequences of his actions — which will outlast his time his office — are of lesser or no importance. Put bluntly, the wealthy are relatively protected from Trump’s policies and, in many ways, benefit from the Republican economic agenda. For those who are interested in protesting the veneer of Trump rather than the conditions he has both created and exacerbated, the Resistance never has never been anything more than virtue signaling.
Ultimately, the best framework to understand the Resistance, and their responses to particular brands of politics, is to adjudicate whether they diagnose Trump as the symptom or the cause of America’s problems. This divergence in interpretation was on full display during the Democratic primary election, where on the one hand, Bernie Sanders and the left contended that the fundamental issues in American society are structural in nature, which implies that Trump is a symptom of the problem, albeit a particularly destructive one. Those closer to the establishment, however — chief among them Joe Biden — believe that Trump presents an aberration in American politics, and that once he is defeated, the country can return to being great. It is this view that appears to dominate among those in the Resistance and that explains why their political activism was less visible and intense during the previous era, when American presidents did not offend the decorum of the office.
It is, therefore, telling that the Resistance appears to have different reactions to similar issues depending on whether Trump is involved. When it was uncovered that the Trump administration was separating families of undocumented immigrants at the border for example, the anti-Trump factions were rightfully outraged. They shared stories of the abhorrent conditions in the detention camps and circulated pictures of the caged human beings. Many of these cages, however, were built during the Obama years, and uproar about them, as well as the-record levels of deportations, were muted before Trump. Of course, Trump greatly exacerbated problems at the border and became responsible for a grave humanitarian crisis, but he didn’t start them all.
One way to tell if affiliates of the Resistance are really interested in standing up for what’s right, or are simply in it because they despise Trump’s demeanor and lack of respect for their cherished institutions, is to see how they will scrutinize wrongful policies and politics after Trump.
If the Democrats win the White House this November, it will take a lot to undo the damage inflicted by the Trump administration and even more to erase the polarized political climate it created. Republicans — who will likely retain control of the Senate and who have stacked the courts with favorable judges — will remain a powerful force to be reckoned with even if Trump leaves office. Moreover, a Biden administration will take charge of an abundance of daunting challenges. Notwithstanding the impending global health crisis and perhaps the greatest economic downturn in modern history, they will face a multitude of other critical problems; many created and exacerbated by Trump, others more deep-rooted and structural in nature. Therefore, even if Democrats win back the presidency, there should be plenty to be engaged about and lots of Republican wrongdoings to resist. In addition, the Biden campaign has already signalled that it will not reverse all of Trump’s actions if he is elected. Last month the presumptive Democratic nominee said he will keep the American embassy in Jerusalem, where Trump made the controversial decision to move it last year from Tel Aviv.
As president, Trump has been front and center of nearly every political controversy over the last four years and has played the part of villainous ruler so well for the democrats that it has consumed many of their lives. It is unclear if as many Americans would pay attention to politics if it weren’t for Trump. With a Democrat back in the Oval Office, there is a chance that a large chunk of the political activism Trump inspired will dissipate. It seems likely that the surge in activism that began in 2016 will be in need of serious recalibration. With so much of the Resistance’s attacks targeted at Trump’s cult of personality, which, in many ways, is irreplaceable, they will need to find new ways to channel their anger. While there should, in theory, be plenty to be angry about, it is much easier to pick a single enemy to blame. In addition, many will see a Democratic presidential win as victory itself: feeling that the most urgent threat has been defeated, these people will hang up their placards, logout of Twitter and move on with their lives. After all, placing Obama’s vice president at the helm is precisely the kind of return to leadership people have longed for.
In many ways, the outlets for political engagement that give a platform to the Trump resistance will decline in relevancy without him as president too. For example, Pod Save America, a popular podcast created by three former Obama officials shortly after the 2016 election, has had its success largely defined by their ability to ridicule the Trump administration. Their credentials as members of the inner circle from a bygone era that their listeners yearn for adds to their supposed credibility. In the case that the White House is re-occupied with their Democrat friends and former colleagues, they will inevitably lose a great source of content. On television, too, Trump has provided shows, from cable news to late night, with plentiful material. With political polarization at an all time high and the emergence of Trump-inspired characters popping up in all corners of political life, there should be more than enough to focus on after he leaves office. However, the void left by the man who captured the attention of so many viewers and listeners may not easily be replaced.
The past four years with Trump in the White House has been underscored by constant chaos and uncertainty. During this time, people appalled by his presidency have at least had a clear objective: to remove Trump from office. If successful, his departure will present a new set of uncertainties for this cohort. One is how they will adjust their political activism to a new set of realities. If engagement slows, it will show that, in large part, the activism of the affluent is really about optics not policy.
