How to pay attention
Tricks for parsing Trump’s noise; plus, a new poll on January 6 pardons
Next week will be a firehose.
Then the week after that. And the week after that, too. If there is one lesson from the first Trump Administration, it’s this: Expect a chaotic drumbeat of BREAKING NEWS.
This time around will also be worse. The second Trump Administration is counting on a shock-and-awe campaign of sorts. The pledge is 100 executive orders in 100 days.
It’s going to feel overwhelming. And that’s deliberate.
Authoritarianism thrives on despair. Trump aims to grind down critics by throwing so much at the media, civil society, and his political opponents that they can’t keep up. Every moment we collectively spend chasing outrages that don’t really matter makes it more likely that we lose heart or focus, and then some threat that truly matters slips through.
As Trump’s former White House strategist and pardonee Steve Bannon memorably said back in 2018, the strategy is to “flood the zone with sh*t.” Authoritarianism wants you to feel like you’re drowning in the crud.
We can’t let that happen. For everything that happens this next week, and the months and weeks after that, here are four questions to ask yourself to help separate the signal from the noise. To pay attention to the right things and figure out the genuine threats to our democracy so you can safely — and ruthlessly — prioritize.
Is the action tangible, actionable, and detailed? Or intangible, abstract, and vague?
One of Donald Trump’s favorite messaging tactics is to throw out provocative or inflammatory ideas with few to no details. This has a double effect — not only is the headline jarring, but he leaves everyone else to scramble and fill in the details.
…And then argue about the details. And argue about the argument about the details.
For example, take his implied threats to annex Greenland by force. Look at some of the resulting media coverage. (There are, I’m not kidding, 4.3 million Google News hits for “Trump Greenland” in the past month.)
When he leaves the details vague, we, collectively, cannot help ourselves. We try to fill them in. But — if Trump’s past promises are any guide — intangibility is a pretty good indicator that a proposal is a less-than-pressing concern.
I can promise you, there will also be executive orders that are a lot longer, more robust, more concrete, and more detailed than the Greenland threats. Those are usually the ones to pay attention to.
Does this thing cause irreparable harm to real people?
The Trump Administration is going to cause harm and suffering.
Keep in mind, though, as Adam Serwer first argued in The Atlantic back in 2018, the cruelty is the point. Trump and his allies aren’t just going to cause harm, they’re going to play up the harm they cause. They want to intimidate and demoralize the opposition.
As The Bulwark’s Adrian Carrasquillo reported yesterday, this will be especially true in areas like immigration:
When it comes to Trump world, the projection of fear is not a bug: It is a feature of their revitalized deportation machine. Just this past week, according to an NBC News report, the Trump transition team warned of “showcase” workplace raids, possibly in the Washington, D.C. area, which has activist and immigrant communities on high alert in neighboring Maryland and Virginia. Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming border czar, separately told NBC he plans to bring a “fresh” idea to the table—a hotline for Americans to report undocumented immigrants they suspect of having committed crimes, which is of course ripe for abuse. And in that same report, Homan casually remarked that people without criminal records will get caught in the deportation dragnet, too.
Why such public gestures? Because the incoming administration’s immigration approach is more about generating shock than awe.
With everything that happens, try to triage your responses based on the likelihood and irreparability of the damage. Actions that harm real people in cruel ways matter more than bluster. Deploying the military to conduct immigration raids and rounding people into mass camps is a major threat. An unspecified announcement (likely via Truth Social post) suggesting future plans to bully folks — as scary as that sounds — may not be.
Does this action target the opposition in a way that may cause anticipatory obedience?
Fear matters because anticipatory obedience — obeying in advance — matters. It’s the crux of how autocrats win.
Trump understands this dynamic. He knows that by targeting individual politicians, companies, civil servants, nonprofits, donors, media outlets, and journalists, he can cow hundreds or thousands of others into a more submissive and defensive posture.
Look for things like:
Lawsuits or retribution against individual media outlets and journalists for disfavored coverage (like ABC news).
Investigations or prosecutions of prominent politicians or opposition leaders (like Liz Cheney).
Regulatory retaliation against disfavored companies (like Disney).
Law enforcement or investigatory actions against individual nonprofits or civil society organizations (like El Paso’s Annunciation House).
These targets may be relatively few — and often have plenty of resources to defend themselves — but remember, the real goal is to intimidate everyone else. What happens to these cases, especially early on, will have outsized importance over whether our democracy survives.
Does this entrench the authoritarian faction in power and make it more difficult to dislodge?
Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear a lot from us on the idea of “entrenchment.” That’s key to understanding the version of authoritarianism we’re most likely to see here in the U.S.
Trump and his supporters’ unifying goal will be to entrench themselves in power, indefinitely. Not necessarily by canceling elections outright, to be clear, but rather by tilting the political playing field so much that they’re unlikely to ever lose power through elections (or other means).
READ MORE: Leading Republicans oppose pardoning violent January 6 criminals.
Look for things like Schedule F, which aims to purge the civil service and replace nonpartisan, career federal employees with political apparatchiks. Or politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI and prosecutions that aim to wield the law against opponents. Or things like “henchmen pardons,” which are designed to spread impunity and license future lawbreaking on the president’s behalf. Or weaponization of federal funding — like wildfire aid — against Democratic politicians or voters. Or brutal crackdowns on those who protest Administration policies.
All of these, at their core, are about making Trump’s hold on power irreversible. That’s the autocratic faction’s top goal; the pro-democracy coalition will need to halt it, so that the voting public still gets to choose who represents us.
One final thought — as you think about responding to various outrages in the months ahead, remember that, often, the goal of provocative actions and statements is to provoke. To get opponents to overreact in a way that advances the provocateur’s goals.
So a final question you might ask yourself before taking action: "How does the person doing this thing want me to respond?”
Monday is Inauguration Day. It’s also MLK Day. I’m turning to him for inspiration and solace — and wisdom on how to react without being reactive. How to proceed deliberately, carefully, strategically, and nonviolently.
If you’ve never listened to King’s final speech, “I've Been to the Mountaintop” (given the night before he was murdered by a white supremacist), this weekend might be a good time.
New poll on January 6 pardons
A new YouGov poll commissioned by Protect Democracy United finds continued strong opposition to January 6 pardons, even as Trump’s inauguration approaches. Some highlights:
75% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of using a deadly or dangerous weapon at the Capitol, including 55% of Republicans.
73% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of assaulting Capitol Police officers, including 54% of Republicans.
56% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of organizing and directing violence on January 6.
54% of Americans agree that pardoning people who took part in political violence will encourage more of the same.
Pardoning those convicted or accused of crimes on January 6th ranked among the lowest priorities for the incoming Trump Administration of those tested with 7% support.
Full poll results here.
Perhaps this is why so many leading Republicans seem to be trying to talk Trump out of at least some pardons.
A sweeping vision of better politics
Beyond just responding to the outrages of these coming years, I also recommend keeping one eye on the more distant future.
On Tuesday, The New York Times published one of the most compelling cases for what comprehensive reform could look like in the United States: How to fix America’s two-party problem, by Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman.
It’s immersive, interactive, and worth absorbing directly from the source, but the bottom line is this:
No democracy can survive long in the face of this much division and distrust. It’s hardly surprising, then, that more than two-thirds of Americans want to see major changes in our political system. Roughly the same proportion wish they had more than two parties to choose from.
They’re right: Two parties competing in winner-take-all elections cannot reflect the diversity of 335 million Americans.
Here’s what that diversity looks like:
And here’s the eight words in federal statute — not the Constitution — we need to change to make our electoral system to help us all work out our disagreements better:
Read the whole piece.
(As a bonus: On his Substack Undercurrent Events, Drutman has a deeper history of how American democracy became a broken game without winners. Very much worth a read.)
What you can do:
From Anna Dorman:
Now is the time to invest in and double-check your digital safety. Given both continued cyberattacks and the threat of an autocratic administration, tech experts are advising everyone to secure their communications with others. This not only protects you but also your broader community.
More things you can do here.
Thank you for posting. Since Trump’s election all the points you make confirm my suspicions especially voting. Finally your post confirmed my thoughts. Perhaps why it’s not said” magical thinking, he will go away. Your post has good ideas about not paying attention to everything( overwhelming), not over re-act. I’m sharing your post and saving it as a reminder.
I had a museum director I worked for who managed this way. Forced me to fix or resist stupid, thoughtless ideas and left me without energy to make my own.