Redburn Reads (June 18, 2025)

The Resistance isn't enough to save America.

Photo: Tom Redburn

Is the resistance strong enough to prevent Trump from ruining our country? After last weekend’s No Kings demonstrations, I am more hopeful than I was before. And so are others who are far more plugged in than I am.

Writing in The Bulwark, Lauren Egan explains why the No Kings protests attracted a broader audience than previous demonstrations.

YESTERDAY’S NATIONWIDE “NO KINGS” protest against Donald Trump was, by all accounts, a smashing success. Millions of people showed up at hundreds of events in red and blue state houses and town centers across the country all in the spirit of rallying against the Trump administration.

The “No Kings” protests offered the first real sign that the grassroots resistance to Trump hasn’t died—but it does look different from how it did, and it may, perhaps, be taking a more strategic form.. . .

In addition to fighting exhaustion and choosing their moments, organizers during the second Trump term have tried to appeal to a broader coalition. That’s meant trying to get more moderates, independents, and working-class voters to show up, especially in red parts of the country—not just the college-educated MSNBC-addicts who were largely the face of the 2017 protests. It’s required organizers to shed some of the defining features of the original #Resistance, like the pink pussyhats.

“There’s a little bit more of an all-hands-on-deck approach and a clear understanding that you ain’t winning this with a bunch of base Democrats this time,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne.

“That requires work on the part of the people driving the opposition, because you have to check your desire for purity at the door. You have to check your desire to have everyone conform,” Payne continued. “You don’t want it to be so homogenized that it makes it feel like it’s something easy to write off and disregard.”

But now the challenge to translate that resistance into a positive outcome becomes far more difficult. Trump will continue to occupy the White House and the damage he is doing is incalcuable. To end his authoritarian misrule requires not just winning the House in the 2026 election, but making a serious effort to wrest control of the Senate from the GOP – and in 2028 ultimately defeating whoever Trump tries to anoint as his successor.

Much as I hate to admit it, a lot of the political ideals I hold aren’t popular enough to command a majority of voters. And even though Trump may well self-destruct, that isn’t going to change in the foreseeable future. Here’s Ruy Teixeria, a long-time Democratic moderate, writing just before the election that swept Trump back into office in a piece that he just updated this month.

It wasn’t so long ago progressives were riding high. They had a moment; they really did. Their radical views set the agenda and tone for the Democratic Party and, especially in cultural areas, were hegemonic in the nation’s discourse. Building in the teens and cresting in the early ‘20s with the Black Lives Matter protests and heady early days of the Biden administration, very few of their ideas seemed off the table. Defund the police and empty the jails? Sure! Abolish ICE and decriminalize the border? Absolutely! Get rid of fossil fuels and have a “Green New Deal”? Definitely! Demand trillions of dollars for a “transformational” Build Back Better bill? We’re just getting started! Promote DEI and the struggle for “equity” (not equal opportunity) everywhere? It’s the only way to fight privilege! Insist that a new ideology around race and gender should be accepted by everyone? Of course, only a bigot would resist!

As far as progressives were concerned, they had ripped the Overton window wide open and it only remained to push the voters through it. In their view, that wouldn’t be too hard since these were great ideas and voters, at least the non-deplorable ones, were thirsty for a bold new approach to America’s problems.

So they thought. In reality, a lot of these ideas were pretty terrible and most voters, outside the precincts of the progressive left itself, were never very interested in them. That was true from the get-go but now the backlash against these ideas is strong enough that it can’t be ignored. As a result, politics is adjusting and the progressive moment is well and truly over.

I’m encouraged by the choice of Mikie Sherrill as the Democratic candidate for governor in New Jersey and Abigal Spanberger to run as the Democratic standard bearer in Virginia. Both are center-left moderates in the party and both are likely to win in November. And there’s a very good chance, in a fair election, that Democrats will recapture the House in 2027. But as long as Republicans control the Senate, there’s very little chance for defeating the MAGA movement and setting the country in a new direction.

Again, you and I may find this thought deeply disturbing, but Matt Yglesias makes a very compelling case for why we must give us some of our dreams in order to prevent the worst from happening.

One of the most frequent questions I get is why I’m not spending more time sounding the alarm about Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and his threat to the stability of American democracy.

One reason is temperamental. But a much bigger reason is that, analytically, I don’t think that telling my audience to become more alarmed is generally a very productive course of action. On the contrary, I actually think that increasing their level of alarm — which, to be clear, is generally already quite high — can be counterproductive. . .

But the final, related, reason that I’m not “sounding the alarm” more is the same reason I’m leery of anti-ICE protests and a lot of other activity happening on the left: I am profoundly obsessed with the Senate map.

And the reason I’m obsessed with the Senate map is that I am, in fact, alarmed about Trump’s threat to democracy and the rule of law. The good news is that so far, the judicial system continues to do its job and Trump is losing in court, even before judges who were appointed by George W. Bush or by Trump himself during his first term. The bad news about judges is that the president gets to appoint new ones. And unlike during Trump 1.0, Senate Republicans are not constraining Trump here. He has an unqualified lackey as Secretary of Defense. He fired the Chair of the Joint Chiefs for no reason to install a loyalist. He has a stooge running the FBI. . .

They’re not doing that, in part because a lot of them are now genuinely in the MAGA cult, but also because basically nobody in the GOP caucus is all that worried about losing elections to Democrats. This means that over time, the judiciary will be increasingly MAGA-fied. It also means that executive branch officials who decline to follow inappropriate directives will be fired and replaced by those who will.

Which is just to say that the crisis of the rule of law, democracy, and the constitutional order is not some separate issue — it’s Democrats’ inability to compete credibly across enough states that is making the crisis so severe. . .

People don’t want to talk about the Senate because there’s really only one viable conclusion about it, and it’s a conclusion they find unpleasant. It’s a conclusion that, if you articulated it openly, might get you in trouble with your peers, your donors, or the in-crowd on social media. To say “to defend democracy, we need to pander more to the actually existing views of people who voted for Donald Trump three times” is to risk being cast out into the circle of cringe and moderation. You’ll find yourself showing up at WelcomeFest and getting dunked-on in Rolling Stone.

But just giving up on the upper house is not a viable path toward saving democracy. . .

Right now, the entire Democratic Party — not just the left, not just the progressive wing, but the mainstream as well — is just banging their heads against a wall. They know that the party, as currently configured, can’t win a majority in the Senate. And they know that without a majority in the Senate, they can’t defend democracy and they can’t pass progressive policy.

Under the circumstances, it should be a no-brainer for the party to write a more moderate platform and deliberately engage in a loud and proud big tent recruiting strategy. In states where Democrats are struggling to win, there’s nothing to lose by recruiting and standing behind pro-gun candidates, candidates who are friendly to oil and gas, candidates who are okay with late-term abortion restrictions, candidates who have traditional views on gender identity, candidates who are immigration restrictionists, candidates who are old-fashioned deficit hawks, candidates who are vocally skeptical of affirmative action.

But to get from Point A to Point B requires pushing through pain points and enduring bad faith arguments and ignorant criticism. I sincerely believe that every single member of the caucus, from Slotkin to Schumer to Sanders, knows how to read a map and is capable of reaching this same conclusion. But winning will require the party, and its donors, and its staffers, and its cloud of vaguely aligned advocacy groups and pundits, to focus on one question: Does this make it harder or easier to win the Senate? . .

That, to me, is sounding the alarm. We need to win seats and frighten Republican incumbents, or else we’ll be facing a full federal judiciary of MAGA cronies.

I realize a lot of people who read this newsletter will disagree with these views. So let’s hear your perspective. I welcome an open debate.