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Notes -
I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.
This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.
I've noticed that the people in my life who are most distressed by Trump are the people who seem to have the least faith in the American system. For whatever reason, they don't think that a government designed to prevent runaway unitary power can actually accomplish that task.
It's fascinating to discuss. When they see Congress flailing around and failing to advance Trump's agenda, for example, they don't see it as a designed-in firebreak that policy should be hard to enact. They see it as two distinct problems - policy is hard to enact and it's policy they don't like.
This pattern seems to hold on the left and the right. The topics that cause their dismay change, but the fundamental mechanism does not.
Adding to this, (some of) the people who react this way are also ones who feel upset and betrayed when their side has power and doesn’t achieve every possible goal, often against predictable and legible opposition from the other party, the centrists, and the other branches of government. Is it possible that some of our civic dysfunction rests on the back of sheer misconceptions about how a republic is intended to operate…?
Probably. There's a definite overlap between the degree of distress and how often I hear catch-phrases like "Our Democracy".
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