I don’t think you even know who the enemy is. Hint: it isn’t Trump. The powers that be found in Trump, an easily manipulated idiot, who other idiots think is charismatic and wonderful. That’s a great tool to have if you are a fascist, and for that reason, Trump is valuable to them. Trump is only focused on increasing his fortune and putting his name on everything. He’s not the one that came up with idea of gutting federal agencies and filling them with yes-men, or telling the courts to fuck off, or removing slavery exhibits from George Washington’s house.
Quite right: let’s look on the bright side. A minority of Americans really don’t like what’s going on! Sometimes they win in court! We’ll be fine.
P.S. maybe don’t think about climate change, either.
If by “a minority” you mean “nearly two thirds”.
https://www.cnn.com/polling/approval/trump-cnn-poll-of-polls
If by “sometimes” you mean “more than two thirds”.
Then we can fight and beat them, too.
About those courts…
Legal challenges to the administration at the district court level won around 60 percent of the 240 orders judges have issued. That includes their winning 55 percent of the time when Trump-appointed judges were rendering the decisions.
At circuit courts of appeals, there was a similar win rate, with challengers to Trump winning around 59 percent of the time in the 90 orders examined by Court Accountability. However, there were more partisan outcomes: Republican-appointed judges sided with the president in 84 percent of the cases, while Democratic-appointed judges sided with the challengers in 85 percent of the cases.
At the Supreme Court, however, the rate was unquestionably pro-Trump — among the 23 rulings and temporary orders made and examined by Court Accountability relating to the administration’s actions, Trump had a 90 percent win rate.
That’s the spirit!
It’s also a bold thing to say when you don’t know who your enemy is.
Yes, the Supreme Court is currently broken.
It also only hears about 5% of the cases involving the admin.
Like I said, anti-pessimists pick fights with pessimists about their “defeatist attitudes” not because they have some objectively better strategy for avoiding defeat, but because it makes them feel better.
Large-scale political realities are very complex systems, and nobody really knows exactly what quantitative blend of hopefulness and realism will maximize commitment and success among those fighting against political oppression and malfeasance.
Most of us have all got basically the same idea about what real-life practical actions to take, and basically the same determination about taking them. (And yes, plenty of the people taking such actions, including ACLU lawyers, have pretty pessimistic views of the chances. You don’t necessarily need sunny optimism or even unshakeable confidence in order to win a fight.) The “attitude” arguments are just tone policing for emotional comfort.
Trump has been in office for barely over a year. The Appeals process takes time before something even reaches the Supreme Court. That 5% is going to rise significantly in the future.
You had me up until here. Apathy is what gave us President Trump, and I fear apathy is what will prolong all of this. We, as a whole, are not appearing all that determined to do anything. It reminds me of the 3.5% rule about peaceful protest. We can’t even seem to meet that percentage.
A crowdsourcing effort by data journalists that tallied attendance at the June 2025 No Kings protests estimated total attendance in the range of 4–6 million people, or roughly 1.2–1.8% of the US population. The October 2025 No Kings protests had nearly 7 million participants, or approximately 2% of the US population
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I intended that “most of us” to refer to “those fighting against political oppression and malfeasance”: that is, the people, optimists and pessimists alike, who aren’t apathetic about it.
Fair enough. Sorry for the misinterpretation and appreciate the clarification.
[bolding mine]
You, literally, cannot help yourself, can you?
Amazing.
Also beautifully put.
Forgive me defaulting to an AI response, but I’m tired, it’s early, and I need coffee. I remembered a situation that this all reminds me of:
Was author-scientist, Barbara Ehrenreich, castigated for 'not being cheery enough' as she battled cancer?
Yes, Barbara Ehrenreich was significantly criticized—or as she put it, “scolded”—for her lack of cheerfulness after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000.
She documented these experiences in her 2001 Harper’s Magazine essay, “Welcome to Cancerland,” and later in her 2009 book, “Bright-Sided” (published in the UK as Smile or Die ).
Nature of the Criticism
Ehrenreich found that the prevailing “pink ribbon” culture demanded a specific type of performance from patients: relentless optimism . When she expressed anger or dissent on online message boards regarding the infantilizing nature of the culture (such as being given teddy bears and crayons), she faced backlash:
+1
- Peer Scolding: On one message board, a fellow patient suggested she “run, not walk” to a therapist and stated she would pray for Ehrenreich because she needed to “work on [her] bad attitude” if she wanted to live.
- Victim Blaming: She highlighted a cultural belief that “negative” emotions like anger or sadness could actually cause the cancer to spread or prevent recovery. This created a environment where dissent was viewed as a “form of treason” against the community of survivors.
+1
- Labeling as “Negativity”: She was frequently chided for her “negativity” by those who believed that a positive attitude was a medical necessity for survival—a claim Ehrenreich, who held a PhD in cellular biology, found scientifically baseless and cruel.
Her Response
Ehrenreich used these criticisms as a jumping-off point to critique the broader “ideology of positive thinking” in America. She argued that this forced gaiety serves to:
- Infantilize women , encouraging them to regress to a “little-girl state” rather than demanding answers about the environmental causes of cancer.
- Silence legitimate anger regarding the grueling nature of treatments (chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery).
- Place the burden of healing on the patient , suggesting that if they do not recover, it is a failure of their own willpower or “bad attitude.”
IIRC from a recent LegalEagle (Liz Dye) video, the administration has already accomplished something like half of the goals Project 2025 mentions.
It’s entirely possible to have a position that’s neither blind optimism nor total despair. I stand on ‘it’s quite possible that we’re doomed, but it’s also possible that enough people will show up in one fashion or another that we won’t be, so let’s show up and give it a damn good try.’
The problem with ‘we’re doomed’ is that people who accept that won’t act to try to stop it from becoming true. The problem with ‘everything’s fine’ is that people who accept that have no reason to bother acting. And I say that the additional problem with both of them is that neither one is true. This current situation was entirely unpredictable from fifteen years ago. The situation fifteen years from now is equally unpredictable from now.
Although I’d say that the former statement is often a lot less true than the latter. There are a lot of people who are in fact firmly convinced that “we’re doomed” (to a degree of certainty that to me seems unwarranted, or certainly not yet warranted), but who nonetheless are committed to active resistance because they feel it’s their duty.
More pessimism-minded people may find it emotionally satisfying to be candid about expressing “we’re doomed” ideas (although for the life of me I will NEVER understand why! 
), but that doesn’t mean it makes them feel better to literally give up on fighting back.
The ones who have given up entirely aren’t, mostly, posting about politics.
Because we see insipid optimism for the dangerous lie that it is. All the people saying “just wait until the midterms,” will very slowly realize that they didn’t fix anything and then they’ll say “just wait until 2028.” Meanwhile, we’ve been waiting years for people to figure it out, but they never fucking do and they never fucking will.
Thinking that Trump will be impeached and convicted after the midterms is a childish idea that is not grounded in reality and it’s the same people who said the “real Republicans will come back.”
It’s like saying the unicorn rainbow farts will save us all.
This is why I’ve said the problem is Trump and the Republicans, not just Trump.
But Trump does serve as a convenient target because he’s so visibly evil. Most Republicans are quiet about their crimes; Trump brags about them.
So making the message “We need to get rid of the Republicans in order to get rid of Trump” is effectively targeting both enemies.
As for any problems people may have with the Democrats, I feel these problems are marginal in comparison to what the Republicans are actively doing. And like it or not, the Democrats are the only political organization that’s now in existence and has any chance of replacing the Republicans.