U.S. President Donald Trump stands next to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev (not pictured) at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 8, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak
During a recent rant, "Real Time" host Bill Maher argued that President Donald Trump's critics and opponents need to be more selective in their "outrage" and not "lose their s——" every time he says something offensive. Trump's opponents, he stressed, need to pick their battles carefully — and they play into Trump's hands, Maher told viewers, when they exhaust themselves by living in a state of constant outrage.
The New York Times Ben Rhodes, in his August 11 column, also encourages Trump's opponents to look at the big picture. And he warns that "short-term thinking" is detrimental to the anti-Trump opposition."
Rhodes explains, "Short-term compulsions blind us to the forces remaking our lives…. Today, his takeover of our national psyche appears complete."
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Rhodes argues that because "the second Trump Administration has binged on short-term 'wins' at the expense of the future," Trump's opponents need to think long-term.
"Democrats are also trapped in this short-termism," Rhodes laments. "Opposition to each action Mr. Trump takes may be morally and practically necessary, but it also reinforces his dominance over events. Every day brings a new battle, generating outrage that overwhelms their capacity to present a coherent alternative. The party spends more time defending what is being lost than imagining what will take its place."
Rhodes continues, "The public stares down at phones instead of looking to any horizon. We are all living in the disorienting present, swept along by currents we don’t control. The distractions abound. The data centers get built. And we forget the inconvenience of reality itself: Mr. Trump may be able to escape the consequences of his actions; the rest of us cannot."
According to Rhodes, the United States' "crisis of short-termism has been building for a long time" but accelerated thanks to Trump.
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"Mr. Trump is a 79-year-old strongman nostalgic for the past," Rhodes wrote. "His domination of the present is not permanent, but it is leading many Americans to live in the status quo he commands while ignoring where we are going. To overcome thatreality, Democrats must mobilize people to believe in the future."
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Ben Rhodes' full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).