Most of America is reeling in shock from Donald Trump’s first days back in power. It began with a blitz of executive orders to depress, disorient, and intimidate Blue America, civil servants, and any world leaders who stood in his way. It ended with a bizarrely incompetent and wildly irresponsible freeze of most federal spending, followed by a flippant offer to buy out and end the employment of all two million federal workers and blaming the passenger jet crash in Washington D.C. on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The orders, combined with bizarre threats against allies and illegal firings of anti-corruption officials, were an avalanche of unchecked hatred and greed so over the top as to be more of a psychological operation than a series of policy initiatives.
Americans of all stripes and people around the world feel shocked into a dystopian nightmare by design. Stories already abound of MAGA voters shocked that Trump’s and his buddy Elon Musk’s cruelty and disdain toward marginalized groups, from non-whites to LGBT people, also apply to them now that their votes are already cast.
Bullies, abusers, cult leaders, and disaster capitalists alike are famous for using shock and disorientation to keep their targets off balance and afraid but also dependent on the hand that abuses. They offer carrots for the obedient and sticks for the resisters.
But Trump and his friends are making a big mistake.
They fail to understand the ephemeral reasons why they barely won the 2024 election. They underestimate the damage their policies will do to the economy as persuadable voters experience it. They drastically underappreciate how unpopular their actions are and the backlash they are triggering.
Persuadable and swing voters switched to Trump because they hoped he would bring down grocery prices and maybe deport more violent criminals. Many millions of Joe Biden voters stayed home in apparent frustration over issues from housing and inflation to the crisis in Gaza. No one but a tiny ultra-right MAGA minority voted for the profoundly unpopular Project 2025 agenda, which the White House is now explicitly attempting to enact after the septuagenarian denied any knowledge of it during the campaign.
During the campaign, undecided voters in focus groups and surveys were famous for projecting their wish lists onto Trump. They assumed Trump would do things he never promised (such as protecting abortion rights) and discounted what he did promise. When presented with the unpopular parts of his agenda, they refused to believe he would do those things, or they assumed that others would keep him mainly in check as they did during Trump’s first term.
Now the reality is poking through. The unpopularity of Trump’s actions in a recent Reuters poll is staggering: 80 percent oppose ending anti-corruption requirements for government officials; 70 percent oppose renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”; 62 percent oppose pardoning January 6 rioters and new taxes on goods from Canada; 59 percent oppose ending birthright citizens and ending federal efforts to hire women and minorities; 56 percent oppose withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. And this is all before the impacts of his proposed tariffs and immigration crackdowns begin.
Support for freezing federal spending and reducing the federal workforce is higher in theory, but that will drop when Americans, even in MAGA world, understand how deeply those cuts will impact them and their jobs and communities, and not just some despised liberal or minority.
National Democratic leaders (with some bright exceptions like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and governors like Gavin Newsom of California and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois) were initially adopting a conciliatory approach to Trump—partly an acknowledgment of Trump’s popular vote win and partly running the standard political playbook of looking reasonable before standing in opposition. Rank and file Democrats and activists have been subdued compared to Trump’s first days in 2016, feeling powerless to stop what is coming.
This combination of hopelessness and appeasement must be cast aside. Trump and his allies are running a coup against democracy, committing illegal actions against anti-corruption oversight and Congress’ power of the purse. History shows immediate resistance is the best antidote to the poison of would-be tyrants.
More importantly, fierce opposition to Trump’s profoundly unpopular shock and awe agenda will be rewarded by energizing the deflated anti-MAGA coalition and reminding stunned and irresponsible single-issue voters who stayed home that there are indeed massive differences between the two parties. It will also offer a home to voters who realize they made a big mistake in backing Trump for a second term because they thought he would lower grocery prices without wrecking the country.
Trump won power by promising voters a mirage. He uses that authority to assume dictatorial powers while delivering tax cuts to his billionaire friends at the expense of the rest of America. Voters already hate it, and the time for forceful opposition by Democratic leaders is now, not later.
Democrats in Washington began the second Trump era with conciliatory tones, offering to work with Trump and his nominees on mutual priorities from mergers to healthy food to cutting waste in government. Criticism of the administration from most quarters has been muted and far short of what is necessary given the full-scale assault on American values and competent governance. Democrats should unite to oppose every one of Trump’s unqualified nominees. They should loudly proclaim the illegality of Trump’s attempts to impound duly Congressionally approved spending priorities he doesn’t like and urge federal employees to resist illegal firings. House Democrats should retaliate by holding up Republican budget priorities in the House, and Senate Democrats should consider grinding the chamber’s business to a halt in every way possible.
This is not a typical partisan squabble. It is a fight for the preservation of America as we know it. Trump and Musk are enacting a vicious, irresponsible, and deeply unpopular agenda, and Democrats must act like it’s the national emergency that it is.
