That Thing With Feathers

In recent weeks many news reports have hinted at the possibility that our long national nightmare brought on by Donald Trump’s presidency may finally be coming to an end. Only in the past few days a court has ordered Trump to take his name off the Kennedy Center and enjoined the closure of the center. Another judge has reopened Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS which he voluntarily dismissed in clear collusion with Acting Attorney General Blanche to create the 1.776-billion dollar slush fund for “victims” of Biden’s alleged weaponization of the government. Yet another judge has temporarily enjoined payment of any money out of the fund. Republican senators are said to be furious at Trump for backing challengers to incumbents he deems insufficiently loyal. And Trump’s poll numbers keep sinking.

Some political analysts are now saying that Trump is losing, or has already lost, his iron grip on the Republican Party. But we have seen this movie before, many times, so let’s not sit through another showing. Instead of complacency, we should be ready with more drastic measures than those we have taken so far because the danger we face is greater than it has ever been before.

Ever since Trump graduated from being a mere birther and entered politics, we have been waiting for some event or some knight in shining armor to liberate us from the incubus of a Trump presidency. We have been disappointed each time, and each time we have waited for the next sure thing just coming down the pike. Often our collective behavior has been like that of a drunk lurching forward to grab something, anything, to hold on to.

We have known from the start who Trump was, we knew how he stiffed contractors, we knew about Trump University; we told ourselves that this man cannot possibly be nominated for president. When he was, we pinned our hopes on the Access Hollywood tapes and told ourselves that a crass, vulgar misogynist like him cannot possibly be elected. After he was, we waited for Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the election, possible conspiracy, and possible obstruction of justice (remember how “Mueller Time” was coming to end Trump’s political career?) What we got was a report whose conclusions, called “flaccid,” and overly legalistic, were further distorted by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, enabling Trump to shout repeatedly and falsely “No collusion, complete exoneration!” Trump also beat two impeachment trials, despite the fact that the corruption involved in his “perfect” phone call with Zelensky was in plain view during the first one and despite the lurid details of his misbehavior came out in the second. He also beat the rap for appropriating and exposing classified documents and the one for inciting insurrection on January 6, 2021. And his conviction on eight felony counts in New York State and his loss of two defamation actions are all still moving through our motion and appellate process at a glacial pace.

We have lived in a state of disbelief that so much misbehavior can even exist on the national scene, and we have fed on hope, the hope described by Emily Dickinson in her charming poem:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the Gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.”

I’m grateful to that little bird for perching in my soul and for singing throughout this dreadful period in our national life, but right now I’m focusing on the fact that it never asked a crumb of me. That is what hope alone does. While listening to that little bird’s brave, lovely song, we have ignored the canary in the coal mine warning us of the poisonous gases blowing through our land.

That is not to say that no one has contributed a crumb to right our listing ship of state (please forgive the mixed metaphors!) On the contrary, most courts, excluding the Supreme Court, have earned our gratitude for defending our democracy and civil rights. Many government officials and legislators have refused to act in an improper manner, preferring to resign and end their careers. Most important was the action at the grass root level. Idealistic, committed people have marched on No Kings Days, protected immigrants, staged protests and boycotted sycophantic business owners. Innumerable citizens have taken to writing Substack letters to counteract official lies and propaganda.

All these measures will work – eventually. But time is not on the side of the just. In my own Substack post of August, 2025 I predicted that we would be witnessing a “cornered rat” scene with Trump fighting with any means at his disposal to blunt the effect of the Epstein Files. But I could never have predicted the speed with which harm is being inflicted on the body politic. Still, perhaps we could have waited out the outrages and the chaos while winning over the opponents and the doubters, if something even worse, possibly irremediable, had not recently beset our nation.

Rot, some deliberately spread and some arising from conditions this administration created, is spreading through our society with the speed of the Ebola virus. The Department of Justice, seeking impunity for collaborators, is pushing measures to emasculate state bar associations, one of the few institutions left whose ability to impose ethical standards and discipline on lawyers is out of reach of the federal government. Universities, cowed by Trump’s threats and his withholding of funds they rely on for research and scholarships, are increasingly willing to permit government interference in their policies and curricula. In the private sector, more and more entrepreneurs, especially in technology, are switching their allegiance to Trump’s world view, essentially a fascist one.

They are doing so from conviction, or self-interest, or fear of retribution. In addition, with their purses swollen to bursting by Trump’s tax cuts, they also seek new ways to invest their enormous wealth, overwhelming entire industries and professions. Thus, in some states investors who are not lawyers are now permitted to own law firms. News media and entertainment are increasingly in conservative hands. Elon Musk owns Twitter. The Fox media empire has long been controlled by archconservative Rupert Murdoch, while his archconservative son James has recently acquired New York Magazine and the Vox Podcast Network. CBS News and The Free Press are now controlled by Trump contributor Larry Ellison, who also seeks to acquire Warner Brothers, including CNN. Conservative Nexstar Media Group now owns The Hill.Trump himself is said to have arranged the acquisition of TikTok by a group of investors that includes both Ellison and Murdoch. And Sam Altman, founder and CEO of AI, has recently made large contributions to Trump.

In view of these developments, the danger is exponentially higher than it was during Trump’s first term or even at the start of the second. If, as is likely to happen, universities indoctrinate rather than teach, news stories are slanted or simply false, critical voices are deplatformed from social media, entertainment deals only with approved subjects, and disfavored parties can find no competent lawyers to represent their interests, then we won’t have a system as benign as mere authoritarianism. We will have totalitarianism. We are also likely to see the development of artificial intelligence unfettered by any guardrails in giant AI farms which degrade our environment and gobble up land, water and electricity.

My fear, therefore, is that we will again succumb to the siren song of that little bird of hope and forgo the drastic measures needed to save us. Certainly, there is reason for optimism in regard to the midterm election, but the danger is that if we don’t achieve the numbers needed to undo some of the harm done and to prevent more, we might again find comfort in the fact that, after all, 2028 is not that far away. We simply have no time to wait.

Ordinary people have done and continue to do their part. It is time for political leaders to step up. What I now want them to do is work for success in 2026, but be ready for some serious stuff in case of failure.

I’m grateful that at least some leaders have gotten the memo and that serious work is already being done. Governor Hochul of New York has just signed into law sweeping protections against aggressive immigration enforcement. These prohibit the wearing of masks while interacting with the public, the use of state and municipal facilities to facilitate immigration enforcement, and the entry by immigration authorities into places like hospitals, schools, public housing, parks, community centers, houses of worship and, most important, polling places. Federal officers are also made accountable for violations of New Yorkers’ constitutional rights.

Another proposal is to tax the proceeds received by any claimant from Trump’s Anti-Weaponization slush fund at the rate of 100%. Bills to that effect are already being drafted in New York and Wisconsin and have wide support among Democratic candidates in blue states.

These are examples of measures the times require. And if 2026 does not bring relief even more drastic action will be necessary. Politicians should prepare now to be the kind of leaders whose bite is far, far worse than their bark. They should work on imaginative ways to inflict immediate pain so as to command immediate attention, not excluding general strikes, arrangements which paralyze crucial segments of the economy, and tax strikes.

Extreme ills require extreme remedies