How do we handle four more years of Trumpism? That whole "reality" thing has a nasty habit of making itself felt

Nathan Robinson, editor-in-chief of the British progressive magazine Current Affairs and also a columnist for The Guardian, had these comments just after Trump’s election victory. It’s one more way to frame the moment we’re in politically.

Is there an upside? A silver lining? Only this: Trump’s second term is likely to be deeply unpopular. Americans do not want the Project 2025 agenda. They do not want authoritarian governance. They do not want a spiraling climate catastrophe that destroys their homes. And as it becomes clear that Trump’s actions are wildly unpopular and he cannot govern the country well, there will be backlash. Trump’s first term sparked what might have been the largest protest movement in American history. It grew the Democratic Socialists of America. It forced Democrats in 2020 to run on much more compelling social democratic policies. Trump’s gang are crooks and sadists, and people don’t like being ruled by crooks and sadists!

Unfortunately, Trump is one of the most skilled bullshitters of our age. He has an amazing capacity to convince voters that things that objectively harm them (such as letting climate change spin out of control, or not raising their wages) are actually measures to stick it to The Elites. Those who oppose his vision need to understand how he’s been so successful. The photo ops and stunts are corny and dumb, but they delight his fans. The meandering speeches often don’t make sense, but Trump can be charismatic and funny. [my emphasis] (1)

He did a related video soon afterward: (2)

It's going to be a long slog through the Trump Administration. Hopefully with no nuclear war involved.

But reality does have that very annoying, unpleasant characteristic of imposing itself. Gravity may be “just a theory.” But if you jump off the top of a twelve-story building, you're going to hit the ground pretty hard.

Paul Krugman points out that gravity already seems to be working:

Large numbers of farm workers in Kern County, at the heart of California’s agricultural country, have reportedly stopped showing up for work after what appears to be a wave of arrests — based, as far as anyone can tell, on racial profiling — by Border Patrol agents.

This is how it begins. (3)

“It” in this case being the beginning of some serious economic damage.

The thing is, I don’t believe that Trump could pursue a limited, restrained crackdown on immigrants even if he wanted to. If you incessantly make the false claim that millions of criminal migrants are fueling a vast crime wave, if you make it clear that respecting the rights of the accused is a liberal, DEI thing, of course some ICE and Border Control agents will run wild. Basically, anyone with brown skin will be at risk of at least temporary detention.

And if you want to think about both the humanitarian and the economic impact of the crackdown, you shouldn’t focus too much on the logistics — on the fact that the Trump administration doesn’t have remotely enough resources to deport millions of U.S. residents or put them in [concentration camps or holding facilities or insert latest euphemism]. The number of immigrants arrested may be small so far, but the raids are already inspiring widespread fear. And this fear will have major consequences, with workers staying home or, if they can, going back to their home countries, with businesses laying off valuable employees for fear that they may be raided.

Let me make a further prediction that I hope turns out to be wrong: As the official immigrant crackdown ramps up, we’re also going to see a lot of vigilantism. Some of this may take the form of swatting, reports to ICE that such and such a business or gathering place is full of migrant criminals. Some of it will take the form of direct action; remember when the Guardian Angels roughed up a “migrant” (actually a New Yorker) in Times Square? Expect to see much more of that.

And he calls attention to these insistent realities:

Immigrants — many of them undocumented — make up most of the farm labor force [in the US] …

Push those workers out, either by actual deportation or detention or simply by creating a climate of fear, and just watch what happens to grocery prices.

About a quarter of construction industry employees are immigrants — 40 percent in Texas and California — but this number rises to 31 percent if you look only at “construction trades,” i.e., people who actually build stuff as opposed to working in offices or marketing. And the immigrant share is much higher in particular trades ...

Krugman ends his column with a Nanci Griffith song about working on the farm. I’ll follow his lead with this Woody Guthrie cover by Edgey Pires and vocalist Delila Paz, aka, The Last Internationale: (4)

Notes:

(1) Robinson, Nathan (2025): Once Again, the Democratic Leadership Has Failed Us All. Current Affairs 11/06/2024. <https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/once-again-democratic-leadership-has-failed-us-all> (Accessed: 2025-22-01).

(2) How Does This Keep Happening? Current Affairs YouTube channel 11/16/2024. <https://youtu.be/r1OR4m7B4_U?si=SKLLJLrm4OwrWiLd> (Accessed: 2025-22-01).

(3) The Deportation Nightmare Begins. Paul Krugman Substack 01/27/2025. <https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-deportation-nightmare-begins> (Accessed: 2025-22-01).

(4) Deportees (Woody Guthrie). The Last Internationale YouTube channel 12/11/2013. (Accessed: 2025-22-01).