Yesterday I wrote a post basically arguing for a broad resistance to allowing the avalanche of corrupt and criminal conduct under the second Trump administration to take on the color of normality and acceptability. The answer to that is broad criminal accountability. The post was entitled, “The Law is Coming.” This was partly a reference to a phrase I used frequently during the first Trump administration, after which the cause of accountability was at best uneven and ultimately a failure, a story we all know well and from bitter experience.
The phrase is part prediction, part aspiration. It certainly isn’t a mere statement of fact like the second law of thermodynamics or the unbreakable grip of gravity on matter. The future is created by actions of people living in the present. But in response this morning I’ve read a few responses saying: No, that’s not true. There will be no accountability. I know. It can’t happen. Another reader says, the costs of accountability are too great. There are too many armed and violent people invested in the Trump regime. You can’t antagonize them. This is far from the predominant response. But there were a few.
If this works for you, I have no objection. It doesn’t work for me. Political change and political action are hard. I cannot dispute this. It’s a cardinal fact of public life. But this kind of defeatism or self-womping is, first of all, not really backed up by any history. Things change. They frequently change when those in power are so deeply unpopular and discredited. Indeed, this kind of self-willed defeatism and dignity loss is especially curious at a time when those in power are so on the ropes. But it’s really more a form of self-care, a kind of militant assertion of confidence in a future outcome — even a negative or dystopian one — because confidence about the outcome outweighs the substance of the outcome and thus provides a sense of predictability, a more comfortable posture than facing into the wind.
