We are approaching two grueling months of President Donald Trump’s administration– a period of time that has instead, felt more like a decade. Flurries of tyrannical executive orders, attacks on the press and the freedom to protest, along with plain cruelty, have made the past few weeks a time we will remember for all the wrong reasons.
The United States has gone from being, at the very least, a respected country, to an embarrassment at best and adversary at worst, considering Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and the pathetic tariff slap fights. To be honest, the Trump administration’s horrors have been so extensively covered that they hardly need any further direct mention in this column. Instead, I would like to examine the action, or lack thereof, from the other side of the proverbial aisle.
The Democrats have essentially been controlled opposition against the Trump administration. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies, for example, has expressed great frustration toward grassroots democratic organizations who dare ask Democratic leadership to develop a confrontational approach against the man they spent all 2024 branding as a fascist. While the Democratic Party’s leadership has been embarrassingly timid in the wake of the Republicans’ hostile government, they have been happy to shut down any genuine left-wing opposition any chance they get.
This is evident in the party’s voting to censure Al Green for berating Trump during the State Of The Union, publicly expressing their wish to abandon the progressive causes they have held electorally hostage for years and their utterly shameless capitulation to Republicans surrounding the threat of a government shutdown.
Clearly, for all of us who are at risk by the Trump administration, the tactic of hoping and praying the Democrats will care about these issues as much as we do is a failing strategy. For us to secure our futures and our freedoms, we must look elsewhere. We must look beyond the charade of electoral politics, which has so clearly been shown to be ineffective toward lasting solutions.
To achieve this, I believe we need to look toward our communities instead of elected representatives who give their word they will protect their constituents, but may not hold up their end of the deal. For example, queer folk should organize around their shared protection instead of putting their trust in politicians of either party. Similarly, rather than electing representatives who promise to raise the minimum wage, working people should organize and strike until their wages are raised according to their work.
When I think of the face of the Trump resistance, I don’t think of Democratic figures such as Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, John Fetterman or Gary Peters. Instead, I think of a photo I saw, in which an unnamed Cincinnati resident used a burning swastika flag to light their cigarette, following the takeover of an Ohio overpass by Neo-Nazis. The display of hatred was soon interrupted by a wave of armed and masked community members swarming the scene. It is important to remember this example of communal resistance if we are to push back against the Trump administration’s agenda.
