Welcome to Hell
After Donald Trump was inexplicably named the winner of the 2024 election, I wrote an article titled “We’re in Hell now.” In that moment it was clear that we were in for a world of hurt, chaos, tragedy, and outright insanity. One of the reasons I had such a hard time functioning during the transition period was that I could see how bad it was going to be. I know it was the same for many of you.
These days there’s no time for lamenting. It’s go time, in every sense of the phrase. I don’t have to tell you why. Donald Trump and his allies are lighting as many things on fire at once as they possibly can. Trump is trying to shut down entire government agencies, while pardoning terrorists and picking fights with too many nations to list. Elon Musk, who no one elected, is trying to take over entire government agencies. And then there was whatever that was supposed to be yesterday, when Trump appeared to announce that he’s sending the U.S. military to claim Gaza as part of the United States, a string of words that even seemed to leave Netanyahu visibly bewildered.
The list of insanity goes on and on – and it’s only week two. This is going to go on for four years? Yes. But here’s a little secret that no one is talking about right now. Any new U.S. President is going to have the maximum amount of political muscle during the first hundred days, and afterwards, that political muscle will drop off. It happens every time. And it won’t change in 2025 just because Trump is a madman.
Why a hundred days? Because, as part of some sort of weird unspoken ceremonial tradition in this country, we’ve arbitrarily made it that way. The mainstream media generally spends the first hundred days trying to look unbiased giving a new President the benefit of the doubt, before deciding to go negative on that President for the sake of ratings. This prompts persuadable Americans in the middle to turn against that President after the first hundred days. That’s when members of Congress from the new President’s party start to decide they’ve done enough to prop up the President, and it’s time for them to start selfishly focusing on whatever positions they have to take to get themselves reelected in the midterms. It happens every time, without fail, and it’ll happen this time around too. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will play out this way. It always does.
So our marching orders are clear: hold down the fort as best we can for the remainder of these first hundred days. Fight on all fronts. Be loud and educate people on social media. Amplify everything the Democrats say that you agree with. Join peaceful protests. Do it all. Whatever your role is in all this, do it now, and do it loudly. And let’s see how much of the American experiment we can make sure is still standing by the time we reach that hundred day mark.
What will things look like by then? There’s no way to say, and anyone who claims to have that answer is overconfident in their predictive abilities. But if we can just get to the hundred day mark with some semblance of this country still intact, that’s when Trump’s political muscle will start to recede, and that’s when we can gain the upper hand. This isn’t a four year battle. Right now this is a hundred day battle – and we’re on day sixteen. So let’s pull ourselves together the best we can, and treat these next eighty-four days like they’re for all the remaining marbles. Because they are.
