we weren't paying attention
trying to make sense of democrats' lukewarm response to the new administration.
Freedom never descends upon people. It is always bought with a price.
- Harry Moore
The last four weeks have felt like a cruel attempt to compensate for the warped sense of time we experienced during the initial days of the pandemic.
Five years ago, we watched the world unravel in a matter of days before life came to a standstill. The clanging of pots from balconies in the evening took on an eerie quality, a small sign of life during a season marked by so much loss. Living through the first month of Trump’s second term has taken on a different - though just as unsettling - quality.
Since his inauguration, it’s felt like we have lived through four years, not four weeks. There is the avalanche of executive orders ‘flooding the zone’ while raising fundamental Constitutional questions around birthright citizenship and the role of the executive branch. Mass firings that represent, in some cases, 10 percent or more of certain federal departments serving critical functions, like the IRS and CDC. A bill to implement a national abortion ban was introduced to the House. Mayor Eric Adams seems poised to sell out on New York City’s sanctuary status, going so far as to meet with Trump’s border czar on Thursday to protect himself from legal troubles.
To turn on the news is to listen to statements that seem taken from either a poorly written dystopian novel or an episode of reality television. Depending on the day, it’s hard to tell. The richest man in the world has eagerly assumed the role of edgelord supervillain, waving Nazi salutes, gutting Congressionally-approved departments delivering humanitarian aid, accessing sensitive information - all with little oversight. Elon Musk is now a “special government employee,” running a department named after a meme that we now all have to suffer through geriatric politicians saying with a straight face. The last month has all the makings of a compelling drama - except for the fact that this is reality.
The current administration is delivering on its promises outlined in Project 2025, leaving many wondering: Where are the Democrats?
If the first Trump presidency was defined by its pussy hats, online clapbacks, and a dizzying amount of Handmaid’s Tale references, the #resistance this time around feels like a parent going to the principal’s office with a strongly worded letter after finding out a classmate is bullying their child. Nice in theory, but still not addressing the root of the issue. Trump convinced his followers that the 2020 election was stolen and they stormed the Capitol. Democrats are watching the very fabric of our republic fall apart and are filing lawsuits - which Vice President Vance has already signaled the administration won’t follow. After all, the Supreme Court ruled last summer that presidents are effectively above the law.
None of this happened by accident, nor was it some secret plot only discussed in shadowy basements or backrooms. In addition to an entire 800+-page policy document, there was also a series of yellow lights Democrats either knowingly or unwittingly blew right past that deserve greater attention and scrutiny. It’s clear that we weren’t paying attention, but in trying to find some meaning in how we got to this moment, I keep circling back to three themes I have observed over the last decade.
From a national level, Democrats and leftists have allowed conservatives to recapture the public’s attention without offering a compelling counternarrative. Those in positions of power either willfully or naively believed that the mere passage of laws and legal rulings was enough to move our society to its idealized, post-racial conclusion. However, if Reconstruction were to offer any warning, the battle isn’t simply about winning rights but working to maintain them.
Rather than focus on preserving those rights and enshrining new ones, Democrats have instead shifted to become as moderate as possible to maintain the mythical “white working class voter,” simultaneously alienating those further on the left while refusing to recognize the pervasive role white supremacy continues to have. During the 2008 primary in West Virginia, twenty percent went as far as to say the quiet part out loud - race played a role in who they voted for. Of that bloc, seventy percent of Democratic voters said they wouldn’t support Barack Obama over John McCain. To pretend that we could move on from discussing racism and its continued presence in our country was a delusional miscalculation.
At the same time, the oldest millennials are approaching their mid-forties and we have yet to see a successful social movement maintain momentum.
Instead, it has come in fits and starts - Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, Defund the Police - while missing the critical aspect of community and coalition building that defined previous waves of activism in other generations. We are the most connected generation in modern history, yet have failed to organize effectively in a way that continues the conversation while inspiring others to take action. Commentaries around how our opportunities were stripped from us are both valid yet also miss how other generations were able to still mobilize during times of racial violence and economic turmoil. Instead of turning inward and realizing no one is coming to save us but ourselves, the helicopter generation is stuck in a state of arrested development, expecting others to pick up the slack without realizing we are the adults in the room now.
This isn’t to say there is not incredible, important work continuing to happen across the country. If anything, I increasingly believe the next phase of political involvement must shift from the national to the local level.
My job as a consultant working with left-leaning organizations has taken me from Grand Rapids and West Lafayette to Boston’s North Shore and the Bay Area. There are coalitions, nonprofits, and local government leaders who are piloting municipal grocery stores to provide fresh food to low-income communities, creating low or no-interest loan funds to help families repair their homes, and developing programs in Black neighborhoods to support artists. So much work is happening, yet even in the age of social media and interconnectedness, it’s become even harder to uplift and share these stories.
Despite being the first in my family to graduate college, I now find myself in incredibly privileged spaces both socially and professionally. Working to support progressive causes around the country has led me to back rooms with future NYC Mayoral candidates and riding the trams beneath the Capitol building. My background has given me a unique perspective to observe the evolution of the white moderate, the impacts of millennials’ weaponized incompetence, and how the integration of a few carefully selected non-white representatives continues to uphold the status quo.
Over the next few weeks, I want to explore and interrogate each of these observations, beginning next week with how the resurgence of white moderates can help explain how our politicians and contemporary media landscape were not equipped to respond to this recent wave of white nationalism.
currently…
reading: looking for lorraine (imani perry) + live through this (kristen mcguinnes)
watching: severance
eating: smor
listening: hazel scott
hot goss: jacquline woodson is working on a new adult fiction novel
c u next week —
xx, kayla