A democracy, if you can bother

Johnathan Bernstein correctly points out that one of the biggest things that has changed under Trump 2.0 is the amount of preemptive capitulation:

It’s not surprising that he’s easy to defeat. Trump remains terrible at the actual job of presidenting. He doesn’t work at developing his professional reputation, and he constantly undermines any chance of being popular among anyone but his strongest supporters. Richard Neustadt tells presidents that their greatest advantage is their ability to access information, but Trump shuts out any possibility of learning things that he could exploit.

Indeed, one of the reasons some still don’t see Trump as dangerous is because so much of what he does is obviously pathetic. There’s no master plan, or even much of any kind of plan. Just impulses. We’re not dealing with a Richard Nixon, who worked harder than anyone else. Or a Dick Cheney, who mastered the art of bureaucratic infighting.2 Let alone someone really good at the job. Such as Dwight Eisenhower, who was brilliant at knowing which battles to pick and also how to stay popular and how to use that popularity in his favor.

Trump displays none of those skills. He basically has one move: Bully his way around, bull in a china shop style. It “works”if no one fights back or if more clever allies rescue him; it doesn’t work the rest of the time; and either way there’s plenty of damage and nothing worthwhile happens.

Which gets to the last part. Those who have fought Trump’s autocratic power-grabs stand a good chance to win…but too many have just surrendered.

Why? I do think that Perry Bacon is correct that at least some institutions are going along because they’re perfectly happy with what’s happening. Indeed, I think in some cases they may be reasonably happy about an autocracy. It’s easy for many to see the risks to themselves from democracy without realizing its advantages.

But I think plenty of others sincerely think that Trump’s authoritarianism – as obvious as it is to some of us – is not a real worry, and that therefore there’s no particularly reason to oppose him as long as he appears to be a route to policies they seek. Or figure that someone else will take care of it.

And still others presumably are quite aware of what Trump is – and are frightened to fight back. It’s understandable; even defeating a normal President of the United States often has very real costs, and this one is capable of all sorts of things. Even if they entail very damage to himself, his party, and the nation.

I can’t say much to those who are happy undermining the republic. For everyone else, however, I’d just emphasize that Trump’s buffoonery make him very possible to defeat…but also that if enough people surrender to him, he could wind up fully destroying the republic, incompetence and all. And the history of autocracy is full of those who regretted failing to stand up and fight when they still could.

I’ll remind everyone that plenty of people and institutions have fought him and seem to have done just fine. Consider the law firms that refused to be bullied, or Wesleyan University and its president, Michael Roth. Or George Mason, of all places, and its president, Gregory Washington. Plenty of media outlets haven’t backed down. And while Trump’s attacks on his enemies, including some politicians, are threatening, most of those who oppose him, from Democratic state attorneys general to the millions who have joined public protests and demonstrations, are doing just fine so far.

The future of the country hinges on substantial measure on how many people in a position to resist hold up like Wesleyan, or fold like Columbia.