The MAGA Wall Is Cracking

Major cracks are appearing in the MAGA wall, and we’re not even getting started good.

One crack is the election of John Thune (R-S.D.) as Senate majority leader.  Trump had strongly backed Rick Scott (Fla.), because Scott promised to recess the Senate to allow Trump to make recess appointments to his Cabinet. That way, Trump would not have to parade his appointees before Senate hearings, hearings that that would be televised to the nation.  That’s the last thing Trump wanted, so getting Scott elected was major.

But Thune won, and Thune is an institutionalist who will not allow Trump to evade those hearings.  So now we’ll get to examine Trump’s appointees, whom he has tried his utmost to keep us from seeing, and it becomes obvious why he did not want anyone to see them. Here are five:

These appointments are so outrageous that they have even infuriated some of his top backers.  Those backers can see that Trump is tossing softballs to the Democrats with these choices.  Can you imagine what well-prepared Democratic senators can and will do when they have a chance to drill into those appointees with pointed, soul-searching questions?

It will only take three or four Republican senators to see this for what it is and reject every one of Trump’s appointments, and it shouldn’t be hard to find them.  At least two senators, maybe three, are on the brink now, and others may become emboldened by what should be a huge groundswell of infuriated Democrats  and, one would hope, a lot of Republicans.  Some senators might be starting to feel they can oppose Trump and survive unscathed.  A large number of rejections would be a major, humiliating defeat for him.

There is a real possibility that Trump will withdraw some of his nominations before any hearings occur to prevent that humiliation.  But even if he does, he still would be admitting publicly that he knew they didn’t have a chance if light shined on them.  Admitting that would be a devastating defeat for him.   Either way, Trump is seriously weakened before he even begins.  He won’t even start with the Cabinet he so wanted.

There is plenty more good news just around the corner.  When MAGAs realize how Trump’s tariffs will impact their manufacturing jobs, their take-home pay, and their cost of living; when they understand that brown-skinned farm laborers being driven out of the country are causing them to pay more at the grocery store and inflation to rise; when they see their wives and daughters bleeding out in hospital emergency rooms because MAGA legislators forbid their doctors to help them; when they realize that Project 2025 is not a horror dream but a horrible reality; when they see Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, which they depend on, vanishing; when they see their Social Security weakened; when they come to grips with the fact that Trump doesn’t give a damn about them, then they may finally understand that we liberals have been fighting for them all along and they will stand with us and defeat the real enemy within.

Trump will enter office facing other headwinds as well. The gap between what he has promised his supporters and what his voters want is wide.  Trump wants to ban abortions, but 65 percent of his voters want abortion rights.  He wants to deport all undocumented immigrants, but his own voters want them to have a path to citizenship.  Trump’s people claim he was stopped from putting the full MAGA agenda into place in his first term because he did not move quickly enough and they vow that will not happen again, but rapidly imposing those extremist policies risks alienating the more moderate voters who just put them in power.

More good news: lawyers are ready to do important work.  Lawyers for immigrants have a blueprint of Trump’s plans to deport millions of undocumented people and they have been preparing for months for the possibility that he will follow through with it.  They are ready, eager and able to act.

And the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has informed Trump directly that it will “challenge you in the courts, at state legislatures, and in the streets.”  It reminded him in a public letter that it brought 434 legal actions against him during his last presidency and won landmark cases against him, such as those on family separation, the U.S. Census, and immigrants’ rights.  Some of those were decided by judges he appointed.  ACLU also mobilized the power of more than a million card-carrying members into the streets, at airports and in state capitals.

Bottom Line:  The pendulum has swung as far right as it can, reaching its apex on election day, and now has begun its return trip.  All we have to do is nudge it along.

All of us can do something.  Even if we are burdened with work, we can find time to make a telephone call or write an email. Letters to lawmakers have impact. If you do’t tell them how you feel, they will never know.  They also may come to understand that not one Democrat is likely to become a MAGA, a lot of voting MAGAs are likely to walk away from Trump once they realize what they’ve done to themselves.  But they won’t know how we feel unless we tell them, so please write a letter or make a phone call.  It will have an  impact.  And if you don’t know your senator or congressperson or how to reach them, click here.

The way forward is through unity.  We have real work to do.  We have a nation to save.    We are not powerless, but we must act. Please do something — today.