Jamelle Bouie is Wrong: Trump is Not “Weak;” the Massive Harm He’s Strong Enough to Inflict is What's Uniting the Country Against Him.

By clenching the power to improv the economy, law enforcement, and war, Trumpian harm will come for all of us...and eventually him.

Yes, a bully terrorizing a schoolyard is “weak” in character. But that doesn’t mean he can’t punch you right in the face.

This is the error columnist Jamelle Bouie made in The New York Times last week. He’s been a sharp commentator on Trump for a full decade. But sharpness can dull in wild moments.

Last week, President Trump federalized National Guard troops from my home state and deployed them along with 700 Marines to my hometown of Los Angeles. They were supporting ICE raids originally billed as targeting “criminals, bad actors, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, traffickers, and drug smugglers.”

Instead, they followed new instructions to target non-criminals at schools, hospitals, churches, swap meets, and Home Depot, some of whom were pregnant, and all of whom were conspicuously people of color.

Of course, Bouie is right that these inflammatory, unpopular, illegal moves exhibit Trump's “weak” character. He campaigned relentlessly on deporting hardened criminals, “the worst of the worst.” That now appears to have been a lie. Trump also confirmed he would not deploy National Guard troops—apparently, another lie.

Officially, “strong character” is “moral excellence and firmness,” or holding virtuous principles even when circumstances make that difficult. Lying, then, reveals that one's stated principles were merely gambits to neutralize opposition that might impede one’s desires.

But Bouie is a journalist, and Trump’s weak character is the opposite of “news.” Rather, it’s one of the most established, enduring storylines of our time. It’s then a bizarre thesis for an esteemed thought leader to trumpet in the country’s newspaper of record.

Trump’s political "strength" - his ability to use the state to affect people’s lives - is unrivaled. Just ask California Senator Alex Padilla, who was pinned to the ground and cuffed for “aggressively questioning” Kristi Noem about her agency’s illegal operations in LA. Ask NYC comptroller Brad Lander, who was hauled out of an immigration court in cuffs for accompanying a constituent to a hearing. Ask the 238 migrants to the U.S. illegally rotting in a Salvadoran mega-prison, or the approximately 45,000 people in ICE detention who have never been convicted of a serious crime.

Finally, ask Minnesota state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, both recovering in a hospital from gunshots by an anti-abortion fanatic, almost certainly influenced by Donald Trump’s repeated encouragement of stochastic violence against his political enemies.

Bizarrely, it’s Trump’s weak character that makes him “strong.” His acute narcissism leaves him unburdened by the shock of empathy and reassessment that human suffering usually sparks in leaders with normal neurochemistry. When asked, Trump told the press that sending condolences to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over his colleague being murdered would “waste time.”

Bouie’s article was clearly meant as a rallying cry for the pro-democracy movement that saw 5 million people populate 2,100 demonstrations across the country on June 14. But it’s the opposite of what the movement needs.

Protesters led to believe that marches would have an immediate impact on a "weak" president would be disappointed and misinformed. Academics stress that political movements require sustained energy, relentless recruitment, potent messaging, public defiance, and winning elections. This type of historic, transformational work is hard, especially against an aspiring dictator with a cult-like hold on his followers.

But Trump’s hold on the vast majority of Americans is not strong. They voted him to the presidency as a gamble on better economic conditions following years of painful post-pandemic inflation. True to form, his promise to “end inflation and make America affordable again…starting on day one,” seems to have been another empty statement. Instead of commissions, meetings, and press conferences on the economy, casual news observers are being inundated with disturbing videos from ICE raids and a new war between Iran and Israel.

The millions of Americans who “avoid political news” because they think (rightfully) it’s a frustrating mess have proved they won’t be swayed by messages that “feel woke,” echo Democrat policies, or are hysterically anti-Trump. But Trump’s penchant for inflicting harm - at a scale that’s society-wide, expanding, and showing no sign of stopping - is a counter-message more powerful than anything since he politicized a pandemic that killed a million Americans.

Trumpian damage is coming for all of us. Take me: a white, male U.S. citizen from a well-to-do conservative family. My phone exploded all last week with messages from friends and acquaintances about loved ones detained and facing deportation. Trump can’t conceive of how connected his constituents are to one another, that when you detain one person, you upend a family and a community, and when you arrest thousands from schools, stores, and immigration courts, fear and exasperation reverberate as far and wide as a nuclear blast radius.

Our media-obsessed populace can feel how the threat of Trump has transformed from an abstraction to a vice-grip on our way of life. Only one-tenth of the way through his second term, anti-Trump protests have surged in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia.

The movement, from an academic perspective, has been exquisite. It’s held to the necessary tenets for compelling large-scale political change: widespread cooperation, targeted goals, grassroots mobilization, diverse strategies, and the ability to evolve and adapt. The next demonstrations - themed “Good Trouble Lives On,” on July 17, the fifth anniversary of John Lewis’ death - allow an entire month for Trump’s newest indignities to inflame thousands of new tempers.

I have no doubt Jamelle Bouie will be a stalwart ally in this wild chapter of American politics. But for now, it is not Trump’s weakness that will fuel his ouster from power, but the devastating, unprecedented harm his power enables him to inflict.