Trump Opposition is "Emboldened," says Mother Jones' Tim Murphy. Emboldened to Do What?

You Can Stop Asking Where the Mass Opposition is. It's Everywhere.

Tim Murphy's observation on Saturday's mass protests against Trump's actions and policies is a great narrative on the subject, one of the best I've read. You can read it too, by clicking the link above.  He does a great job characterizing the feelings of protesters, and pointing out that this is a movement that exists everywhere, that opposition to Trump's second term in office is widespread and condemning.  

It's a pity that this wasn't happening prior to the election, when it would have made a real difference. But, as Murphy observes, most people think the first time around wasn't nearly as bad as what we have seen, and a lot of people just didn't believe it would go where it has so quickly.  So it is that we have what we have.  

The only other protests I can recall in my own lifetime were those held against the Vietnam War.  Those were big, but this seems to be much larger and much more universal in its purpose.  Trump has never held the confidence of a majority of Americans, though it seems there should be more Americans who understand this is better resolved in a voting booth than in marches down city streets.  The message is clear, and received, the Trump administration does not represent the will of the American people.  But we are constitutionally stuck with it until his term is up.  

Or are we? 

The Opposition is Emboldened, and its Momentum Will Carry it Forward

What is the goal of the opposition?  Protests are design to put forward the idea that a chosen political course of action is not popular, and needs to be reconsidered.  For someone like Trump, who will never be influenced by protests or opposition, and who doesn't have the ability within himself to compromise on anything, the question goes back to the purpose of the protest.  

The size and scope of the turnout shook the Republican party's Congressional leadership to its very core.  They, of course, won't admit it, but it's not really much of a secret at this point.  If that was one of the goals of the protesters, it was achieved.  What the result of this will be, short term or in the long run, is anyone's guess.  

The Constitutional options are limited: 

• Impeachment and removal, which seems highly unlikely.  However, it was Republican pressure on Nixon, after the Watergate scandal broke, threatening removal if Congress did impeach him, that got him to resign.  We seem to be a long way off from that kind of pressure coming from enough Republicans to force him out by resignation.  
• Invoking the 25th amendment, also unlikely given that many of those in the cabinet are his own hand-picked sycophants who don't see his insanity, or do see it but want to use it for their own advantage. 
• Putting enough public pressure on him to get him to resign on his own.  I don't see this as a realistic possibility.  Trump is emotionally incapable of seeing mistakes he makes. He has been the worst President in history, by far and away, worse than even poor James Buchanan, whose lack of leadership actually caused the Civil War, or John Tyler, who succeeded William Henry Harrison after just 31 days, and whose term can be characterized as one of the most anti-Constitutional, anti-patriotic times in history, except for Trump. Tyler managed to alienate himself from the entire electorate, and both major political parties in just four years.  

So, considering the options, what is the goal of the opposition?  

What Can Protests Alone Do? 

From what we know about Trump, a guy who measured his own support by crowd sizes at rallies, he is deeply disturbed by the size and scope of opposition against him.  Word has leaked out that he is enraged by news of the size of his opposition's rallies and no matter what his advisors tell him, he cannot resist taking the bait and making some kind of response.  He might as well just say, "I make a lot of my decisions in anger, based on response to opposition I see."  And as a result, he makes a lot of mistakes.  

And claiming that protests are made up of paid protesters, which is exactly what Trump has done, via Elon Musk, is kind of funny.  If the Democratic party had that kind of money, they more than likely wouldn't have lost the election. 

The protests are not likely to affect Trump or his administration very much.  But they are having a devastating effect on the Republican party, many of whom have seen "empty chair town halls" in their own districts as a direct threat to their re-election. Combined with recent special election results, including the landslide won by Susan Crawford for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in the teeth of millions given to her opponent by Elon Musk, and the turnout that Josh Weil and Gay Valimont got in deep red, gerrymandered Florida districts, the Republican rhetoric seems to be making some shifts.  The Trump tariffs seem to be on the verge of being taken back by Congress.    

We aren't at the point where they're mad enough at Trump to dump him...yet.  But that's one of the goals, and I won't predict when we will get to that point.  Nixon knew, in 1974, that there would be enough Republican votes to throw him out of office, so he resigned.  That took just over two years from the time that the crimes he committed occurred, and just under a year from the time that word got out.    Getting Trump out that way, even though his corruption is far worse than Nixon's was, is a more difficult prospect.  But the protests will have an effect and you can bet that there are members of Congress in some gerrymandered states, and some red states, that know how many protesters were out in the streets in their state by heart right about now, and they've done the subtraction of those numbers from their last election vote total.  

Someone's already been kind enough to point out that if the shifts in margins in Wisconsin and Florida this month, virtually equal in the ten percentage point drop in Republican support, translates over into the next election, 45 Republicans in the House, and seven in the Senate, would lose their races.  I think the numbers will be larger than that, by the time we get that far.  

We do not have a media reporting on this fairly or equitably.  In fact, many of the journalists I see on television, including a few on networks that don't appear to be bought by money, and the habit of inserting several news items each day, chronicling everything Trump does except trips to the bathroom, while ignoring the opposition, is still going on in spite of their protesting that's an unfair accusation. 

But how do you reach supporters who are blind to reality?  Trump is slashing and cutting government departments and services, based on the unproven lie that "trillions" can be saved by cutting "waste."  He's not cutting waste, he's cutting what the government does for its people, which is one of its constitutional functions.  Trump and the Republicans operate under the false pretense that if the government is involved in providing some service, there is massive waste.  It's their definition of "waste" that is lacking in credibility.  Providing medical services for people who cannot afford insurance to cover them is not waste.  But they think it is.  It's the populist rhetoric that is impossible to refute.  

The goal is to continue to put enough pressure on the whole right wing side of the government to trigger a constitutional movement to push him out, either by impeachment or resignation, both of which may not be the long shots everyone thinks now.  This guy's popularity can fade quickly.  I think either he, or one of his ridiculously incompetent cabinet members, like Gabbard or RFK Jr. or Hegseth, will do something that causes real damage and opens up a real security threat to the United States, and that will do it.  

In the meantime, keep protesting.