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Courage and Hope
“Courage is fear faced with resolution.” It is time for all decent Americans, including natural wusses like me, to face the situation with courage, and to do what we can to prevent the Trumpublicans from ending our country’s experiment in constitutional government. Two and a half century old words about “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” written by men who were making themselves very much eligible for hanging, and many of whom did greatly suffer for their commitment, come to mind. I do not expect Trump’s opponents to be hanged, or to be imprisoned in prison hulks where starving inmates marinate in sewage, not at first, but Trump has promised retribution against his enemies, and for once I believe him. The Department of Justice and other agencies can be used to wage lawfare against Trump’s real or perceived enemies, and if a fascist administration is able to fully entrench itself, things may become worse.
Americans who wish to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity had better be prepared to exercise courage. I do not mean to be melodramatic, and the worse may not come to the worst, but there has certainly been tyranny and injustice in America — for example, in the Jim Crow South, or during Woodrow Wilson’s administration — and we had best be clear-eyed about the possibilities. As Edmund Burke said, there is no safety for good men, but in believing all possible evil of bad men.
I do see some grounds for hope, both in our better traditions, in our federalist system, which poses obstacles to a bad president consolidating power, and also in the problems which the new administration will face. I have not adapted Lenin’s ethos, that the worse things get, the better, but I do point out that various prospective calamities may at least have the benefit of discrediting Trump and his faction. We are likely headed for another Great Recession, as the eighteen year real estate cycle reaches the bust phase in about 2026. Then, there are the government’s huge deficits and growing national debt. If Trump succeeds in imposing huge tariffs, the ignoramuses who think he’s fighting for them may discover that “tariff” is not the most beautiful word in the dictionary. If Russia overruns Ukraine, or if China defeats the United States in a war in the Western Pacific, there may be a reaction against the fools and admirers of foreign tyrants responsible for our national shame and the severe erosion of our international standing.
I do not expect recovery to be easy, if it be even possible, but with Trump or Vance as President, a Republican majority in the Senate, and perhaps a Republican majority in the House as well, the GOP fully owns whatever may go wrong. That will not produce an ideal situation — I have plenty of disagreements with the Democrats as well — but defeat is a stern teacher, and we may hope to see some scoundrels driven from power and some bad ideas discredited.
Courage and hope, my countrymen.
Americans who wish to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity had better be prepared to exercise courage. I do not mean to be melodramatic, and the worse may not come to the worst, but there has certainly been tyranny and injustice in America — for example, in the Jim Crow South, or during Woodrow Wilson’s administration — and we had best be clear-eyed about the possibilities. As Edmund Burke said, there is no safety for good men, but in believing all possible evil of bad men.
I do see some grounds for hope, both in our better traditions, in our federalist system, which poses obstacles to a bad president consolidating power, and also in the problems which the new administration will face. I have not adapted Lenin’s ethos, that the worse things get, the better, but I do point out that various prospective calamities may at least have the benefit of discrediting Trump and his faction. We are likely headed for another Great Recession, as the eighteen year real estate cycle reaches the bust phase in about 2026. Then, there are the government’s huge deficits and growing national debt. If Trump succeeds in imposing huge tariffs, the ignoramuses who think he’s fighting for them may discover that “tariff” is not the most beautiful word in the dictionary. If Russia overruns Ukraine, or if China defeats the United States in a war in the Western Pacific, there may be a reaction against the fools and admirers of foreign tyrants responsible for our national shame and the severe erosion of our international standing.
I do not expect recovery to be easy, if it be even possible, but with Trump or Vance as President, a Republican majority in the Senate, and perhaps a Republican majority in the House as well, the GOP fully owns whatever may go wrong. That will not produce an ideal situation — I have plenty of disagreements with the Democrats as well — but defeat is a stern teacher, and we may hope to see some scoundrels driven from power and some bad ideas discredited.
Courage and hope, my countrymen.