A bruise on a hand of U.S. President Donald Trump is seen during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Georgetown University political science Professor Dan Nexon penned a thread that expressed optimism in the face of an ICE checkpoint outside of Washington, D.C.
Writing Wednesday evening, Nexon acknowledged, "Things are dark. I expect they will get far darker still. The light may remain obscured for a decade — or more." However, he witnesses many kindling a light amid the darkness.
"First time in months, I can feel the lingering presence of genuine optimism," Nexon wrote.
"Trump's popularity is cratering. His corruption is in full view. He unravels. It grows ever-harder for him to hide behind his orange mask. He smells, albeit still too faintly, of decay and desperation," wrote Nexon.
"Trump's decline complicates his administration's efforts to consolidate a competitive authoritarian regime. More importantly, it has, I think, made it much less likely that the public will stand by as Trump mucks with the electoral process," he prophesied.
Nexon said that over the past year, he has watched as the Trump administration worked to "eliminate state autonomy and shift power into the hands of loyalists." Meanwhile, American oligarchs "cowed" to Trump. "Or, worse, [indulged] in their own madness."
"The New Fusionism — far-right ideology joined to kleptocratic corruption — still hammers away at the foundations of U.S. power and prosperity," Nexon lamented.
He anticipates that even once it is ultimately defeated, the Trump "regime will likely leave behind an America primed for political violence, disposed to instability, and plagued by ever-growing discontent."
Despite all of that, today, Nexon sees higher "odds of restoring a Constitutional Republic." In fact, he finds them "better than they've been in quite some time."
For now, on "chilly midweek night," Nexon closed, "that is enough."