The Trump horror show continues — but here are 12 reasons to have hope

My heart leapt last Saturday when I saw how many people turned out for the Hands Off protests: More than 1,200 rallies were held across all 50 states — drawing an estimated 3 million participants. Even red states like Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Kentucky had well-attended protests.

Across the land, demonstrators were peaceful, civil, and respectful; the atmosphere was buoyant and joyful — yet determined.

There were other reasons for modest hope this week. Herewith:

1. Trump’s wild retreat on tariffs.

Trump has called tariffs the key to American prosperity and said trade wars are easy to win. But investors think otherwise, and on Wednesday Trump decided maybe investors are right. It was a large and embarrassing retreat.

After a flight from U.S. assets and a rout in the bond market, Trump announced a pause for 90 days on the worst of his “liberation” tariffs on most countries, China excepted.

Even after Trump’s retreat, the stock market continued to tumble yesterday, signaling renewed investor concern about the worsening trade war with China and the destabilizing effects of Trump’s tariffs. In the government bond market, U.S. Treasuries started to sell off again, with the yield on 10-year Treasuries climbing to around 4.4 percent, the highest since February.

Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff madness is further undermining public confidence in his regime (see #7, below).

2. Trump can’t win a trade war with China because he’s cut off other suppliers. Duh.

After China retaliated against last week’s tariffs, imposing an 84 percent duty on all U.S. goods, Trump raised his duties on Chinese imports to a total of 145 percent.

But facing off against the world’s second-largest economy in a trade war requires alternative and reliable suppliers, which Trump has foolishly cut off.

He seemed to believe he could make deals with traditional partners such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to team up against China. But Trump’s unexpectedly aggressive levies against these nations, including his bonkers 46 percent tariff on Vietnam, spooked them — so they’re not available as alternative suppliers.

China has been looking to take advantage of any rifts, dispatching its foreign minister to meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

It’s just more clumsy, incompetent Trump economic policy that’s undermining public confidence.

3. Democrats see a surge of interest in running for office.

Partly as a result of this and other horrors (such as last week’s Signalgate and Elon Musk’s ongoing mayhem), Democrats are gearing up to push deeper into red territory on the campaign trail next year.

Three Senate candidates rolled out their bids this week and party recruiters are reporting an uptick in interest from candidates in tough-to-win territory.

Among the areas of interest: an Iowa district now held by GOP Rep. Zach Nunn (which is certain to feel the effects of Trump’s tariffs); two prospective bids in Pennsylvania and Michigan by candidates who lost or left jobs thanks to the Trump administration, giving them a powerful story on the campaign trail; a pair of former representatives considering comeback bids for battleground districts in the Rust Belt; and at least two districts in Virginia, held by GOP Reps. Rob Wittman and Jen Kiggans, that Dems believe are increasingly in play thanks to backlash against Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting frenzy.

Meanwhile, former Rep. Wiley Nickel(D-N.C.) announced he’ll run for Senate with plans to hammer Senator Thom Tillis(R-N.C.) for not standing up to Trump. Notably, Nickel’s launch video leads with an attack on Tillis for not voting against tariffs.

Mike Sacks became the fourth Democrat to jump into the race against Rep. Mike Lawler(R-N.Y.). The lawyer and former TV reporter’s campaign pledge? To “unfuck the country.”

The renewed excitement from Democrats also comes as Barack Obama delivered a scathing speech hitting back against Trump this week at Hamilton College, which the former president intended as an approach for Democrats to follow.

Obama said he doesn’t believe Democrats need to choose between criticizing Trump on practical kitchen-table issues (like the prices of groceries) or criticizing him on his rejection of democracy and the rule of law, because Trump could not have threatened the kitchen-table well-being of most Americans if he hadn’t also ran roughshod over our democracy.

4. Democrats are plotting a fresh round of town halls in GOP-held districts, to hammer Republicans

As another recess period begins, Democrats see another opportunity to strike against embattled Republicans for scaling back town halls and other open forums. On top of their town-hall target list over the upcoming recess is North Carolina’s National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, who told GOP representatives last month to stop holding in-person town halls.

5. Trump’s firing of Timothy Haugh at Laura Loomer’s urging causes widespread bipartisan concern.

Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer — yes, the person who thinks 9/11 was an inside job, who has openly advocated at a white nationalist conference that she is a white advocate, who said during the campaign that if [the presidential race was won by] Kamala Harris, who is half Indian, “the White House would smell like curry, and White House speeches will be facilitated by a call center” — is influencing Trump’s critical decisions over staffing his foreign policy team.

At Loomer’s urging, Trump this week fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, a four-star general who served as head of both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.

Haugh’s termination shocked lawmakers and national security veterans, who described the unexpected action as a “chilling” one that would damage America’s cyber defenses and “roll out the red carpet” for attacks on critical networks by foreign adversaries. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are furious at the firing, which they say severely undermine the nation’s national security efforts.

6. The Republican Party is splitting over tariffs

Seven Republican senators who think Trump’s tariffs are bad policy have signed on as co-sponsors of the Trade Review Act, which would reassert Congress’ trade authority and let it weigh in on new tariffs. Those seven: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Todd Young (R-Indiana), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

7. Trump’s poll numbers continue to drop.

An Economist-YouGov poll (done between April 5 and April 8) shows Trump’s approval rating falling to 43 percent from 48 percent two weeks ago, with a stunning 80 percent of Americans expecting the tariffs to raise prices for things they buy.

Since inauguration day, Trump has lost 29 points among voters aged 18-29, 14 points among 30-44, and 8 points among 65+.

A Navigator poll (done between April 3 and April 7) shows Trump’s economic approval at its worst ever, with 58 percent of Americans holding an unfavorable view of tariffs, compared to only 30 percent favorable. Overall, Trump has a 44 percent approval versus 53 percent disapproval.

Quinnipiac’s latest poll (done April 3 to April 7), shows that 72 percent voters think Trump’s tariffs will hurt the economy in the short-term, including 77 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans Overall, Trump has a 41 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval.

8. The courts continue to hit back at Trump

On Thursday, the Supreme Court endorsed a trial judge’s order that requires the government to “facilitate and effectuate the return” of a Salvadoran migrant it had wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Federal judges in both New York and Texas have blocked the deportations of Venezuelan men likely to be deported under the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered Trump to reinstate Associated Press access to White House events, after Trump banned the news service for continuing to call the sea between the southern states and Mexico the “Gulf of Mexico.”

9. The Solicitor General’s Office loses much of its talent.

The Solicitor General’s office is expected to lose at least half of its 16 assistant lawyers because of their concerns about Trump’s Justice Department. It’s an unusual exodus that raises questions about the Trump regime’s ability to win arguments at the Supreme Court (full disclosure: I used to work in the Solicitor General’s office).

10. The Republican’s budget will cause mayhem.

House Republicans have approved a budget blueprint that requires them to find $1.5 trillion of spending cuts.

Trump’s and the Republican’s goal is to pass another huge tax cut that, like the last one, will mostly benefit big corporations and the wealthy. But the only way they can get close to $1.5 trillion in cuts would be to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

I include this as a small reason for modest hope because cutting these popular programs in order to give a giant tax cut to big corporations and the wealthy would be political suicide.

11. Musk is disappearing.

Finally, did you notice that you heard almost nothing about Elon Musk this week? That could be because his influence in the White House is quickly disappearing.

Part of the reason is Elon apparently doesn’t like tariffs (he lost an estimated $31 billion since April 2, when Trump announced them, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.)

On Monday, Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor, said on CNBC that Musk was not a “car manufacturer” but a “car assembler” because Tesla, Mr. Musk’s electric vehicle company, relied on parts from around the world.

Musk fired back on Tuesday, calling Navarro a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” in a post on X. Later in the day, Musk posted “That was so unfair to bricks,” and referred to Navarro as “Peter Retarrdo.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, tried to downplay the tiff by saying “Boys will be boys.” Yes, and adolescents will be adolescents.

12. DOGE is sinking.

The wildly unpopular DOGE seems to be sinking. The Social Security Administration is walking back its DOGE-led, widely-unpopular phone service cuts.

DOGE itself is now being audited by the Government Accountability Office over its access to and use of sensitive government data.

And Trump’s own pollster, Tony Fabrizio, found that a majority of Trump voters oppose efforts to cut Medicaid.

***

The Trump horror show continues. I bring you these small reasons for modest hope to remind you that there are still some cause for optimism.

The struggle will be long and difficult, but the forces of decency are like the green shoots of spring — small and fragile now yet eventually powerful enough to overcome the harshness and cruelty of this regime.

NOW READ: Trump is about to target something far more terrifying than tariffs

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/