Six months ago, the New York Times told the righteous to grab their rifles and run to the frontlines of “a comprehensive national civic uprising” (see “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.” (April 17, 2025): “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising”)
How’s the uprising going? Have the revolutionaries managed to kill enough fascists to make a difference? Or are Bernie and AOC still our only hope?
So far, the only real hint of something larger — a mass countermovement — has been the rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But this, too, is an ineffective way to respond to Trump; those partisan rallies make this fight seem like a normal contest between Democrats and Republicans.
What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.
Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
The NYT said, in the above article, “We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust.” What could account for low levels of trust? The political science nerds in the 2020 paper, below, say “We find a statistically significant negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust across all studies.” (i.e., a random assemblage of humans via asylum-based immigration will result in a low-trust society).
Could AI perhaps update this classic “To the barricades” image to show young American progressives wearing Antifa T-shirts and carrying avocado toast?
How is the uprising going? I think we may get a glimpse of how tomorrow.
April was a long time ago. The negativism is easy to get sucked in to. However, there were some other gems of wisdom from the article.
“…over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.”
“Trumpism is threatening all of that.”
“The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power”.
Slowly, many of us are realizing that we need to band together.
We the people. The media. The courts. The institutions of higher learning. The law.
For the future of our country. For the world we leave our children.
I hope the uprising goes well.
> I think we may get a glimpse of how tomorrow.
I predict the “No Kings” rallies will be a smashing success. Come Sunday, there will be no kings in America, so 100% success achieved?
Maybe next we can do “No Sasquatch” rallies?