Punch Them In The Mouth

This second Trump Administration hates two things the most. They hate running into resistance to their actions and agenda. And they hate being punched in the mouth. That is, they really hate it when instead of mere resistance, institutions and individuals fight them back in courts and on the streets. Most people don’t like being punched in the mouth. But Trump II really, really hates it. We were all supposed to love Trump again. But we don’t.

2025 was a terrible year. The overall story of the year is that a resistance to Trump eventually developed. But before we resisted en masse, we gave Trump a chance to be legitimate and normal. And by “we” I mean the public and the mainstream news media. We really did sit there and take it for a few months. From January until April, Trump, DHS, ICE, and DOGE tore our nation apart, while Washington Post and New York Times ran dry headlines like, “Trump Brushes Aside Courts' Attempts To Limit His Power,” or ‘“Trump Remakes America As Leader Of The Brand.” The news media tried to treat Trump as mentally fit and normal. News originations, universities, and law firms all settled lawsuits that Trump would have lost at trial. Or worse, they just paid bribes to the Trump administration (and presumably, the Trump family). Trump, knowing he had less than 2 years to destroy the Federal government and restore his billionaire status, went into speedrun mode.

Donald Trump is too old and unpopular to start a lasting fascist regime. Francisco Franco was 46 when he started his rule. Augusto Pinochet was 59 year old when he took over Chile. Trump was barely at 47% approval when he started his second term. Now he is under 36% approval. He’s dropping. He doesn’t drop when you hand him your lunch money. Drops when you fight him.

Here’s ACLU director Ben Wizner explaining why it is crucial to fight Trump and his administration at every turn. Make fighting Trump a full-time job.

This regime can be beaten. It will. It requires coordinated attacks on big targets. Why not aim for the shadow president himself Stephen Miller? As the great Marcy Wheeler explains, Miller is not an unstoppable juggernaut. He can be stopped. Trump can be stopped. And no one likes JD Vance. Let’s topple this regime.