LIBERALISM IN AN AGE OF CHAOS AND UNCERTAINTY

Abstract: The essay critiques James Carville's call for Democrats to adopt a "strategic political retreat" and instead advocates for active resistance against the perceived destruction caused by the Trump administration. It highlights a range of controversial policies and actions, including the erosion of immigrant rights, historical revisionism, dismantling of foreign aid, attacks on unions, and alleged corruption. The piece argues that such measures are not only harmful but also risk entrenching MAGA ideology. It underscores the disarray within the Democratic Party, pointing to ineffective leadership and lack of unity, while urging liberals to embrace a proactive agenda rooted in "politics of abundance" to expand resources rather than redistribute scarcity. The essay warns against complacency, drawing parallels to 1933 Germany, and calls for collective action through advocacy and public engagement to counteract authoritarian tendencies and preserve democratic values.

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James Carville, of “it’s the economy, stupid” fame, last month urged Democrats to make a “strategic political retreat,” advising US “to play dead.” “Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat,” he wrote in a guest column for The New York Times.

One can reasonably ask if such a strategy doesn’t run the risk that delay will allow MAGA to become so entrenched it cannot be dislodged. Let’s review a portion of the destruction and chaos that has already been wrought and see if it leads us towards a more active resistance, at the very least of the type of truth tour being pursued by Bernie Saunders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Trump insists on using a Revolutionary War era statute to deport resident aliens without so much as a chance to plead their case before a judge or referee, and he is now rounding up legal residents based upon their having opposed his views.

Trump now wants to root through the exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution to eliminate any he doesn’t believe are politically correct. The process of rewriting American history is now well underway. Slavery wasn’t a blot on the American character but a passing event; white Americans were never prejudiced against Blacks or Hispanics; the Confederacy was a social club, and lynching a hobby. Americans have absolutely nothing, nothing at all, in our history about which we should apologize.

Trump has devastated U.S. foreign aid, eliminating 83% of programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development in a purge that has done away with entire categories of development work that took decades to build up. USAID has now been destaffed from 10,000 people to 15! This reverses decades of bipartisan consensus that humanitarian and development assistance serves American security interests by stabilizing fragile regions, fostering economic growth, and building diplomatic goodwill. Instead hundreds of thousands of people will now die of malaria, polio, polluted drinking water, malnutrition and starvation as a result.

Trump yesterday signed an executive order ending collective bargaining for over a million federal employees, essentially wiping out their union.

Trump has made Canada and Denmark our enemies and Russia our new BFF. Ukraine is just too evil to put in any category at all.

Trump has ordained that electric cars, other than Tesla, are bad and gas-guzzling trucks made in America are the ideal.

Trump would have you believe that tariffs are good for you and fluoridation isn’t.

Trump directs the impeachment of judges who rule against him, criminal prosecution of politicians who oppose him, and summary removal of lawful non-citizen residents who support causes he opposes.

Trump, it now seems clear, has no real motivation to govern well but is more interested in punishing his personal enemies. He is waging war not only against the justice system but against law firms that are essential to it’s integrity. At least two major silk-stocking law firms have knuckled under to Trump’s threats. This disruption threatens the entire foundation of the legal system where potential clients have to believe they can find legal representation wholly on their side and not under the thumb of government. I for one would never do business with a firm that has bowed to Trump’s threats; I could never trust them and think they are acting the maggot. which I just learned is an Irish expression for someone behaving foolishly and risking embarrassment. Praise be to those firms brave enough to be fighting back and to the Bush-appointed judge, for one, who granted them at least temporary protection.

No one, not Musk nor any of the new crop of low-knowledge Cabinet appointees nor -- apparently -- Trump himself, knows what tomorrow will bring. Fire the people who control our nuclear weapons. Then race to find them and hire them back. Threaten to abolish FEMA. Never mind. Seize Greenland -- and maybe Canada. Of course not by force. Possibly refuse to recognize the results of next year’s mid-term congressional elections in California, Hawaii, New York because conducted by radical left lunatics? And would the MAGAs in Congress timidly go along and refuse to seat them? (Article I, section 5, U.S. Constitution: “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members”)

One major problem is that neither Trump nor his boss Elon Musk know how government is supposed to operate. Government is not a business. Businesses take risks in pursuit of profit and risk failure as part of growth; government can’t afford for planes to fall out of the sky or Social Security checks not get mailed . Maybe introducing chaos will work in some few business settings to produce a stronger core, but doing this with our government is the action of petulant youngsters destroying the toys of other children, not tactical thinking and planned reform.

And it is going well beyond plain incompetence. Chris Murphy writing in the New Yorker documents the unprecedented degree of corruption attributable to Donald Trump, from exacting $5 million contributions from corporate executives who want to dine at Mar a Lago to pressing prosecutors to drop criminal cases against politicians who pledge loyalty to Trump but especially to the “grift” (Murphy’s word) of his sale of $TRUMP crypto-coin which inflated Trump’s assets by as much as $1 billion or more with absolutely no solid backing whatever.

If the goal is to keep resistance wrong-footed, it seems MAGA is succeeding mightily. Democrats are fragmented as the party in opposition. Close down the government to keep Musk/Trump from wrecking more destruction or keep the government open in the hope they will wreck less destruction? Definitely not the way to pose the question of the hour, for without organization and a plan neither option works. Chuck Schumer represents the old guard but is firmly entrenched in his position and handled the shut down risk incredibly poorly. Ocasio-Cortez may represent a voice of the future -- maybe even the voice -- but she does not command control of the Party, not even of the Democrats in the House; nor does Bernie Saunders speak for the majority of Senate Democrats and at 83 is unlikely to take command of the Party. Democratic governors are far from unanimous in enunciating an opposition movement and many seem more intent on preparing for a Presidential run. It seems among them timidity is the order of the day; say little and keep your head down until campaign season.

So we circle back to the question: what to do before the nation is shredded beyond repair. Lately there has been much written about the politics of abundance, persuasively noting that as the richest country in the world we should not have to put government on a diet in order to achieve better social benefits. “Rather than asking who gets what share of a fixed pie, [the abundance agenda] asks: How can we bake a bigger, better pie together? . . . The proffered solutions are to abandon “a politics of pessimism” in favor of “expanding supply rather than simply redistributing existing resources. (Mark Thompson)

Regrettably traditional “liberals” are sometimes guilty of many of the bottlenecks out of a sense of personal empowerment which unfortunately can be stretched to absurd limits. In San Francisco of all places anti-abortionists prevented construction of a new clinic, pointing to local rues regulating noise and traffic -- because of the protests they themselves intended to organize; liberal residents obtained historic preservation for a laundromat to prevent its destruction and replacement with new real estate. Twenty-seven percent of Manhattan is shrouded in preservation covenants preventing redevelopment; in Maryland construction of an apartment building was blocked in order to construct a parking lot. We can protect and preserve without nonsense if we apply ourselves, not by repeal as demanded by conservatives but by application of logic and consolidation. Solutions likely will involve more rather than less government but with a mandate to reduce rather than increase roadblocks. Endorsing liberal progress is a demanding task but well worth it.

Is our time running out? Perhaps. With increasingly obvious parallels to 1933 Germany, the words of the prominent German pastor Martin Niemöller are so painfully relevant:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I have written earlier about the urgent need to adopt a clear progressive agenda (Out of My Liberal Mind March 15, 2025 https://werchick.substack.com/p/wrong-wrong-wrong), and that still feels right to me. So I again urge that liberals speak out, whether by writing letters to the editor, giving speeches to social or service clubs, carrying signs in public, just talking to any of acquaintances who will listen. Challenge the Carville Democrats urging us to “play dead”, instead with regular displays of liberal advocacy. And, as always, invite your friends to join our little conversation.

Arne Werchick, after fifty years as a litigation attorney with emphasis on medical-legal issues, pro tem judge, law writer and lecturer, former Presiding Arbitrator of the State Bar of California, and past president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, moved to Hawaii and lives with his wife Ruth and their rescue dog Topaz. He can be contacted at liberalmind@werchick.com.