# The anti-Trump resistance has become exhausted **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [February 20, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846 "2024-02-20T19:02:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/41 "2024-02-21T01:03:10Z")
I would argue that the more the electorate becomes exhausted by Trump, the more motivated they are to vote for Biden, which is the only way to make the vexatious Trumpolalia stop. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/42 "2024-02-21T01:10:02Z")
Trumporrhea? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/43 "2024-02-21T01:26:09Z")
The leading candidate for the Republican party is running on a platform of vengeance against his political opponents and anyone involved in his civil litigations or criminal prosecutions, avoiding the consquences of his criminal actions, assisting Putin, and the southern US border. The GOP has demonstrated they are unable and incapable of governing effectively. The Democrats on the other hand have gotten things done. Things have actually improved a bit since Trump got out of office. I’m one of those people who suffers from Trump Fatigue Syndrome. I’m not particularly fired up these days when Trump says or does something outrageous. But I’m voting against him and the Republican party for the rest of my days. If the GOP ever repudiates Trump and purges their ranks of MAGA types they might earn my trust again. But until then I’m making a point to vote a straight Democrat ticket for the rest of my life. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/44 "2024-02-21T01:28:37Z")
What is ANY Republican for, anyway? All they are now is the party of grievance. Name one bill that MGT wants to pass. You can’t because she isn’t a legislator, she’s a performance artist (using the term “artist” very loosely). I’ll tell you what I and many other Democrats are for: abortion rights, sensible gun legislation, saving democracy here and in Ukraine, staying in NATO, solving the immigration issue, and undoing the insane Republican tax cuts of the past two decades. All I hear on the other side are things they’re against: abortion, fair elections, Russia’s enemies, gun regulations, fighting climate change, holding criminal ex-presidents accountible, etc. If you tell me that Democrats, after turning out in 2018, 2020, 2022, and every special election are all of a sudden going to lose the will to come out and vote in 2024 I disagree most strenuously. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/45 "2024-02-21T01:33:17Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > bullshit opinion that Biden is old The commentary is assuredly partisan but it’s not a bullshit opinion that Biden is old. However, provided, as POTUS, he seeks, obtains and acts on the best available advice, I’m rather meh about that fact. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/46 "2024-02-21T01:37:10Z")
Another article - a bit different - this one points out that the response to Trump winning in 2024 may lead to a very different reaction than in 2016 - a “flight” rather than “fight” response, as many anti-Trump people decide they just can’t stand it anymore - not necessarily leaving the nation, but perhaps just withdrawing and giving up out of exhaustion. > **[Trump Could Come Back. #Resistance Might Not.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/26/trump-win-activism-philanthropists-00137965)** > > The shock of 2016 spurred his critics to fight. A 2024 repeat could prompt flight instead. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/47 "2024-02-21T01:41:37Z")
So what? An article speculating on something that could possibly happen. The Trump disgust is permanent. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/48 "2024-02-21T01:52:16Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > As horrid as Trump is, at the end of the day, Republicans are fighting to _get_ someone elected. Democrats are fighting to _prevent_ someone from being elected. I don’t think that’s at all accurate. Republicans are full of “Let’s go Brandon” folks who hate Biden or Democrats in general and overlook all the repulsive aspects of Trump in their opposition to the left. They very much **are** fighting to prevent Biden from being reelected. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/49 "2024-02-21T01:57:33Z")
This.^^ ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/50 "2024-02-21T04:18:03Z")
It is to laugh. The reality is that the political writers have become exhausted. In most elections, a certain soupçon of uncertainly allowed them to pretend to snake through the tangled mess that is prediction and explicate to the naive reader the true meaning of each and every curve and dodge. Not this time. The fact, unchangeable bar the metaphorical meteor crash, that the election will be a repeat of 2020, is all too obvious to them. Nevertheless, like a break in a seawall, the holes need to be filled every day without let or surcease. What to say, what to write, how can their self-proclaimed expertise be wrought to keep the attention of the oversated readership? Hark! A crumb, a nugget, a tinge of a hint of an intimation of a shifting in the steady breeze that is Trump/Biden! Heads raise, nostrils twitching. The political press knows that you, the impersonal you, the average reader, does not read all the desperate columnists sunk in the noisome swamp that is politics, but they do, they have an audience of 200 that matter, and that small body are the people who write on the same topic as they, and whenever one spots a crumb, all will assemble to nibble away at the edges of that same tiny crumb until it has been reduced to a hobbled nanonothing. It’s nine months until the election. You, the impersonal you, will not pay true attention for at least seven of those months. Do not take anything any columnist writes now all too seriously. You, the very personal you, don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/51 "2024-02-21T04:26:04Z")
You shure write purty. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/52 "2024-02-21T05:03:14Z")
Biden can afford to sit back. He knows Trump will spend the next nine months winning the election for him. Sure the Trump opposition isn’t out on the streets now. It’s February. But Trump will be out there saying and doing stupid things and by this November we’ll be lined up to vote against him again. Trump got outvoted by three million votes in 2016. He got outvoted by seven million votes in 2020. I bet he gets outvoted by ten million votes in 2024. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/53 "2024-02-21T12:21:51Z")
A “resistance” would have organized sustained mass demonstrations, general strikes, sit-ins, and the like during the last administration. Calling the anti-Trump side a “resistance” obscures a depressing reality: thousands of Americans can be mobilized to storm the Capitol to overturn an election, but Americans who want to defend democratic norms are not nearly as organized or committed. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/54 "2024-02-21T12:46:59Z")
I disagree. If anything short of unhinged fanaticism (e.g., attacking the Capital) equals uncommitted, then I guess we’re doomed. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/55 "2024-02-21T12:53:37Z")
I spelled out what committed resistance would look like. I’m grateful for the activists mentioned in the article cited by the OP. But let’s not kid ourselves that we have seen anything like an anti-Trump “resistance.” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/56 "2024-02-21T13:43:31Z")
I tend to agree in part with **Exapno\_Mapcase** in that we may be looking at a segment of the commenting classes having exhausted what else can be said, and pulling their hair out at _“What the HELL is it going to take for there to be a mass loud rejection of Trump and all he stands for? Why doesn’t anything happen that makes the Republicans think, maybe we should throw HIM under the bus?”_ Well I ain’t got an answer for that. These writers propose that it’s just that we’ve been wearied into impotence. I say they know the answer as much as I do, and don’t like not knowing. And that of course ties in with **Chad\_Sudan** ’s observation that we did not see much if any _real_ old-school on-the-streets “resistance” while he was in office. IMO that last bit is mostly because, well, “Mainstream” Americans historically have not done “resistance” they’ve done “opposition”. 'Cause they got s\*\*\*t to lose if things get heated and they’re identified as one of the troublemakers. Resistance in the USA has always been from one particular marginalized community or another and thus convenient for isolating and coopting at best, dismissing more often or suppressing if need be, as may work best to keep the establishment stable. (ISTM the closest thing to a major “resistance” movement happening during the Trump years was Black Lives Matters but we saw how much of the country reacted by doubling down on _“OMG not THAT! Save us, Trump!”_ Oh, right, and at the start of the term there was the Women’s March that was a strong affirmation of the risk to women’s rights, but ended up garnering a heap of ridicule because everyone was pointing and snickering at the \*&^%$ Pussy Hats.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/57 "2024-02-21T13:59:04Z")
> [@Chad\_Sudan](#): > > A “resistance” would have organized sustained mass demonstrations, general strikes, sit-ins, and the like during the last administration. Calling the anti-Trump side a “resistance” obscures a depressing reality: thousands of Americans can be mobilized to storm the Capitol to overturn an election, but Americans who want to defend democratic norms are not nearly as organized or committed. That’s what people who can’t win elections do. Our side has enough people to win elections so that’s how we resist. And our method works. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/58 "2024-02-21T14:02:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Trump will be out there saying and doing stupid things And his campaign staff know it. > [@A Perfectly Reasonable Amount of Schadenfreude about Things Happening to Trump & His Enablers (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-2/984250/3983): > > Not sure where to post this. It’s definitely worth noticing: > > > [@](#): > > > > # Team Trump to GOP megadonors: Ignore what the candidate says > > > > Members of Team Trump expect the former president to say radical and ridiculous things in the coming months. They’re asking megadonors not to care. > > > > … > > … > > … > > NBC News reports: > > > > “A top adviser to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign has a message for some of the wealthiest Republican donors in the country: Don’t take the former president’s divisive rhetoric too seriously. … Speaking at the luxurious Four Seasons hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, [Susie] Wiles encouraged the powerful donors to essentially ignore Trump’s more offensive remarks and focus instead on the fact that the former president is in pole position in the Republican primary for president, according to people familiar with her remarks.” > > > > … > > … > > … > > As the Republican tries to return to the White House, his team’s position hasn’t changed much. Members of his campaign operation seem to realize that Trump will spend the next several months saying ridiculous, offensive, and potentially even dangerous things, and they’d appreciate it if the party’s megadonors didn’t pay too much attention when this inevitably happens. > > > > Not to put too fine a point on this, but there is no modern precedent for a national campaign effectively telling campaign contributors, “Please ignore all the crazy stuff our boss is poised to say between now and Election Day.” > > [Team Trump to GOP megadonors: Ignore what the candidate says](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/team-trump-gop-megadonors-ignore-candidate-says-rcna136966) ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/59 "2024-02-21T14:29:30Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > Many democratic leaning voters are not that tuned in yet, or at their peak enthusiasm yet, because it is exhausting to be that fired up constantly for this long. Plus, what does it mean to be “exhausted” or “fired up”? Ultimately, what matters is getting out to vote. Sure, I might get tired about arguing about Trump every damned day, but does that mean I’ll suddenly decide not to vote (if I were American, that is)? No, it means I’ll stop talking to the idiots, stop reading Trump’s blatherings, and just go vote when the day finally rolls around. I mean, when was the last time you clicked on a link for “See what Trump said now!”, and it was in any way surprising or informative to you? The latest one I saw was about Nalvany’s death, and it it was utterly unsurprising that Trump just made it all about himself. Yawn, I’m exhausted. Seems to me, that “Exhausted” just means, “Finally sick of his shit and just ignoring him from now on”, which doesn’t seem like a good thing for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846/60 "2024-02-21T16:19:20Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > The fact that the MAGAs are 100% this fired up this far out from the election, is, I think, not great for them. How can they maintain this for 9 months, let alone increase it? The resistance laying low & letting Trump run wild is not a terrible strategy for now – he truly is his worst enemy. There appears to be some fatigue setting in among his supporters already. The Fox comments section under the article about Trump questioning where Nikki Haley’s husband was contained more criticism of Trump, from his supporters/Republicans, than I’ve ever seen in a comment section. It was remarkable. There was also a lot of criticism when his daughter-in-law assured the world that every penny taken in by the RNC would go to Trump. I’ve been reading Fox comments for years & I’ve never seen this degree of anti-Trump sentiment. Yes, many of those folks will still vote for him, but it’s clear his appeal is wearing thin for some &, as you said, where is he getting new voters from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-anti-trump-resistance-has-become-exhausted/997846.md?page=4)