Trump Is Getting Weaker, and the Resistance Is Getting Stronger

[marble falls]

Trump Is Getting Weaker, and the Resistance Is Getting Stronger

Michelle Goldberg
Dec. 26, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/opinion/trump-weaker-resistance-stronger.html

?quality=75&auto=webp


-snip-

That’s because of millions of people throughout the country who have refused to surrender to this administration’s bullying. When Trump began his second term, conventional wisdom held that the resistance was moribund. If that was ever true, it’s certainly not anymore. This year has seen some of the largest street protests in American history. Amanda Litman, a founder of Run for Something, a group that trains young progressives to seek local office, told me that since the 2024 election, it has seen more sign-ups than in all of Trump’s first four years. Just this month, the Republican-dominated legislature in Indiana, urged on by voters, rebelled against MAGA efforts to intimidate them and refused to redraw their congressional maps to eliminate Democratic-leaning districts.

-snip-

In June, Trump’s military parade, meant as a display of dominance, was a flop, and simultaneous No Kings protests all over the country were huge and energetic. A few months later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a tragedy that the administration sought to exploit to silence its opponents. When the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a distasteful comment on ABC that seemed to blame the right for Kirk’s killing, Disney, the network’s parent company, gave in to pressure to take Kimmel off the air. It was a perilous moment for free speech; suddenly America was becoming the kind of country in which regime critics are forced off television. But then came a wave of cancellations of Disney+ and the Disney-owned Hulu service, as well as a celebrity boycott, and Disney gave Kimmel his show back.

-snip-

Trump ends the year weak and unpopular, his coalition dispirited and riven by infighting. Democrats dominated in the November elections. During Joe Biden’s administration, far-right victories in school board races were an early indication of the cultural backlash that would carry Trump to office. Now, however, Democrats are flipping school board seats nationwide.

Much of the credit for the reinvigoration of the resistance belongs to Trump himself. Had he focused his deportation campaign on criminals or refrained from injuring the economy with haphazard tariffs while mocking concerns about affordability, he would probably have remained a more formidable figure. He’s still a supremely dangerous one, especially as he comes to feel increasingly cornered and aggrieved. After all, by the time you read this, we could well be at war with Venezuela, though no one in the administration has bothered to articulate a plausible rationale for the escalating conflict.

-snip-

[CentralMass]

1. Yet he seems to be oblivious and just keeps tearing up the country.

[quaker bill]

4. When all you have is a hammer

every problem begins to look like a nail. The answer is always to just swing it harder.

It never works, but it is all you got to offer.

[msongs]

2. the people that matter are repubs in the house, senate, and courts nt

[Wednesdays]

3. And disinformation continues, even in a piece friendly to us

" When the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a distasteful comment on ABC that seemed to blame the right for Kirk’s killing..."

For the last time: KIMMEL MADE NO SUCH COMMENT!

Kimmel merely pointed out how MAGA was exploiting the assassination.

GOD!!