After President Donald Trump’s first two weeks in office, many changes have stirred up fear, confusion and panic across the United States. Attacks on DEI, Nazi salutes at the presidential inauguration, mass deportations, a pathetic attempt at a trade war with America’s neighbors and a proposition for a federal funding freeze, which was so clumsily handled that it was dead in the water before it ever went into effect. Truly, the actions of the Trump administration in its first weeks have been exhausting for anyone trying to follow, let alone everyone who stands to be affected by his agenda.
During times like these, it’s easy for many of us to feel despair, as the actions of this administration can affect every one of us. Despite this, I must caution against allowing fear and hopelessness to stifle our motivation to fight back against this administration.
The Trump administration’s choice to engage in a flurry of executive orders, ludicrous claims and disastrous decisions seems to be indicative of a strategy Steve Bannon, Trump’s old ally, laid out in 2019. Bannon saw the press as the Trump administration’s main enemy and strategized that for Trump to overcome them, he and his administration would have to “flood the zone” every day, making it difficult for the media to effectively focus on anything the administration is doing.
This is exactly the strategy Trump is employing. Every day, more shock value comes from the White House, making it difficult for any effective opposition to be organized against any one action. The daily confusion caused by this barrage of bad news looks to me like an integral part of Trump’s strategy.
However, there are already signs his strategy is far from perfect. Most of Trump’s executive orders have been swiftly blocked by federal judges, such as his order on transgender women being moved to men’s prisons, his axing of the constitutional right to birthright citizenship and most dramatically, his federal funding freeze. In fact, not only was the freeze blocked, but it also displayed the utter disorganization of the White House, revealing that parts of Trump’s own administration were out of the loop. I see this as a start to a term that will likely go down as one of Trump’s most embarrassing failures.
I know how terrible it can feel to watch this all happen, and I relate to those who feel powerless in stopping any of this or fighting back. However, no one person is truly powerless, just as any one person is not all-powerful. If a fight against not just Trump, but everything that empowers him and his movement is to be fought, it must be fought from within communities at the ground level.
We all got a chance to witness an example of this on Feb. 5, as protesters gathered to speak out against Project 2025 and Trump’s agenda all across the country. Instead of being called by the Democratic Party or any large organization, the movement was organized entirely online. This was done using the hashtag “#50501,” standing for 50 protests, 50 states and one day to gather attention across the U.S.
In my eyes, this is proof that no matter how hard the White House may try, it is simply unable to stop these mass actions of resistance when the public is not being served by its government. Considering how quickly and effectively these protests were organized, it isn’t hard to imagine such actions becoming even more targeted in the future, potentially being able to strike at the heart of the Trump administration.
Amid all of this chaos, it is important to keep a revolutionary optimism when confronting life under the Trump administration. We must remember that, despite how daunting this presidency is set to be, we have endured it before, and we can endure it once more with considerable resistance. Now is not the time to act as if Trump is untouchable. We the people have the power to stop him.
