The legacy of Trump's brutal America is headed for the dustbin of history

U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs for Palm Beach, Florida, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., January 31, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Public pressure. Pause over these two words. They explain much of what happened this past week.

Why did the Department of Justice finally agree to commence a civil rights investigation into the murder of Alex Pretti?

Why was Greg (“How-the-hell-do-I-open-this-teargas canister?”) Bovino removed from his commander-at-large position in Minneapolis and replaced with border czar Tom Homan, who promises to de-escalate the situation there and drawdown the number of agents?

Why did seven Senate Republicans join all Senate Democrats in voting to block the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security?

Why did two Senate Republicans even vote with Democrats to repeal the $75 billion funding increase for ICE that Republicans had included in their Big Ugly bill last July?

Public pressure.

It’s different from political power. You and I and most Americans have little or no political power. We can’t force the dictator or his thugs to do, or stop doing, anything. Politically, we’re hostages to Trump and his congressional Republican cowards and zombies.

But this past week we exerted public pressure.

We rallied. We demonstrated. We marched in towns and cities across America. We called our neighbors and friends and families. We called our local media. We called our members of Congress. We wrote letters. We put up signs and billboards.

This culminated in a national shutdown on Friday — shuttering schools and businesses.

We did what a free people do when threatened by a dictator or fascist strongman — we joined together. In outrage and disbelief. In fear and in fury. We joined together to say ENOUGH.

We drew inspiration from the disciplined, dedicated, and courageous people of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They’re ordinary Americans — not “lefties” or “professional agitators,” as the regime describes them — but average Americans with jobs, moms and dads with children, and their friends and neighbors.

As Adam Serwer writes in the The Atlantic, “If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it ‘neighborism’— a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.”

Contrast this with the guiding philosophy of the Trump regime as stated by JD Vance: “It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’”

The best of America accepts and helps strangers. The best of America welcomes new neighbors. The best of America rejects bigotry. The best of America stands up to dictators.

In Minnesota and elsewhere across the land, grassroots “neighborism” and outrage at Trump’s tyranny are creating an extraordinarily powerful movement.

It’s the kind of public pressure that seeps upward — and boils up — from the roots of America. I’ve seen and felt it (and been part of it) before. During the Vietnam War. During the Civil Rights Movement.

It’s more powerful than everyday political power because it reverberates across America, engulfing those in positions of formal power. It can be felt and heard even by a sociopath sitting in the Oval Office.

This one is just starting.

Trees grow from their roots. The roots send up green shoots. This past week, green shoots emerged.

Make no mistake: These green shoots are still no match for shootings by Trump’s goons. No match for the “official” permission granted to masked ICE agents to make warrantless arrests of people they “suspect” of being undocumented — a direct assault on the Fourth Amendment. Or the arrests of journalists who were covering protests — an assault on the First.

We have a long way to go before America’s new roots and their green shoots grow into trees and the trees grow into forests that foster a new birth of civic virtue and democracy in America.

But, my friends, have no doubt. The roots of America’s neighborism and outrage against tyranny are deepening and spreading, and their green shoots are sprouting. And the fossilized remnants of a bigoted and brutal America — culminating in and exemplified by Donald J. Trump and his thugs — are heading for the dustbin of history.

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/

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