What Is to Be Done?—2

My struggle to figure out the best way forward for our country continues

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) speaks to reporters during a series of votes at the Capitol on March 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. The House passed a bill that day to avert a government shutdown by a 217-214 vote largely along party lines. The bill passed the Senate on Friday thanks to help from Democrats, ten of whom voted to move it past a filibuster. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post titled “What Is to Be Done?” about my struggle to figure out how to respond responsibly, honestly, and usefully as an analyst and critic of the second Trump administration. I concluded then that “understanding is enough”—meaning that I didn’t consider it my job to offer helpful, practical advice for how to resist, oppose, or thwart the actions of the president and his team. I offered, instead, an intellectual perspective on what the administration and its ideological cheerleaders were trying to do, and why.

The events of the past month haven’t shaken that conviction entirely. But I will admit to feeling, already, a little demoralized by my work here becoming a running commentary on The Latest Trump Outrage and Offense Against Democracy. Is that really the primary thing I’ll have to offer my subscribers over the next four years? Reactive criticism to whatever the president did over the last few days to threaten self-government in the United States?

I hope not. But figuring out how to be more helpful is a real challenge. I’m accustomed to offering a critical perspective on the news of the day, intervening in disputes on one side or the other, adding a philosophical perspective on the debates and disagreements that sometimes seem close to tearing the country apart. But writing critically about a presidential administration that seems motivated above all else to grab Caesarist powers for itself—that seems to call for something else, something bigger, something more incisive.

But so far, at least, I haven’t figured out what that is. That’s in large part because my assumptions and style of analysis bring me back again and again to a feeling of fatalism rooted in the conviction that the time to stop Trump was in November 2016, in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection (via conviction in his second impeachment trial), or in November 2024. I don’t want to succumb to the feeling that it’s already too late to stop him. It’s just that I’m still trying to figure out how to break out of that cul-de-sac. I hope you’ll permit me to use this space to keep trying, over the coming weeks and months, to do exactly that.

What I have to offer today is a close look at how a recent event in the news, and commentary on it by some of my fellow pundits, inspired some second guessing and self-doubts about how I think about politics—and how that thinking could be getting in the way of figuring out how to respond to the Trump threat.

Two Cheers for Team Schumer