01/20/26 - Special
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, January 20th.
One full year of Trump 2.0.
And while yes, it has been… more than any of us could have ever expected (we knew it would be bad, we just didn’t expect it to be, you know… “hey, please don’t invade Greenland while the ink on the “acting president of Venezuela” Wikipedia page dries,” bad.
It’s been a year of dealing with that putz, which means that it’s also been a year of him having to deal with us.
So, now’s as good a time as any for…
And now, the news.
Trump 2.0, One Year Later
-via
I can’t guess at what you thought a year ago, waking up on Trump’s second inauguration day, but I can tell you what I was thinking.
I was thinking this would be so much worse this time.
And I was terrified, but I didn’t know what that worse was. I could imagine it… turns out, I have a trash imagination! I imagined so many bad things and things are worse!
Today, instead of looking back at what Trump’s done for the last year (I barely want to look at what he’s done for the last week), I want to talk about something else.
Something a little quieter. Something a little more powerful.
Because for all the systems and norms that Trump broke this year, there is one thing he didn’t: us.
The Courts Didn’t Break
-via AP News and CDF Labor Laws
I know it doesn’t feel like it, I even feel a little insane mentioning it, but the courts… didn’t break.
Setting the Supremes aside, and even those little weirdos are wildcards sometimes – who knows what’s happening in Kavanaugh and Comey Barrett’s brain at any given moment… the state and federal courts continue to be a judicial thorn in Trump’s side.
Just last week, a federal judge in California dismissed a DOJ suit against the state seeking voter data for 23 million registered voters.
In Maryland, just one month into Trump’s second term, when he should have been at his most powerful, the federal district court blocked the president from enforcing his executive orders that would have eliminated DEI initiatives in government agencies, educational institutions, or in the private sector.
He thinks he can do whatever he wants because he’s the president, and to be fair, Republican congressmembers seem pretty hellbent on making sure Congress upholds that lie. But there are three branches of government, and the judicial branch may bend here or there, but this year has proved it can hold up under pressure.
Boring Government Work Worked
-via Brookings Institute
It doesn’t often make headlines, a little because it doesn’t make for a splashy headline and little because there is just so. Much. News. Every day. So much news!
I wish someone had told me because Zazz asked me to start doing this show. I would have… still said yes, because I’d never say no to her, but still…
Anyway, it doesn’t always make the news but boring government work didn’t break.
He tried! He really tried… you think you can break someone who chooses to spend their life in service of the government? Of local or state government? Have you seen Parks and Rec? You’re really, with a straight face, going to tell me you think Trump can break Leslie Knope? Or Ron Swanson? Don’t make me giggle
Brookings Institute tracked regulatory changes made in this first year and looking at that tracker shows something you’re not going to find in the headlines… yes, of course Trump wants to ditch most regulations because he was someone, anyone, to authentically like him in the way his dad never did and so he thinks if he bails on regulations maybe some rich CEO will want to take him for root beer floats or something.
But you can’t just, carte blanche, cut all of these regulations. Not in the way he wants.
He wants to rollback things like work safety regulations, but he can’t just wave his weird signature and boomtown, it’ll happen.
Moreover, the very existence of places like Brookings being able to continue to track is a sign that he can’t break everything. Do you know how much he hates that we continue to watch his every move? (And by the way, isn’t it kind of fun, how much he hates these things?
He wishes these watchdogs, watchkittens, would go away. But he doesn’t get everything he wants. He cannot wish his way into success.
Yes, it’s boring. But it’s vital. And it’s part of how he lost this year.
Elections Didn’t Break
-via Virginia.org, K-12.org
It would be easy to keep the cadence here and say elections didn’t break this year, but that wouldn’t be the whole story.
They certainly tried to break elections. Through fraud. Through candidates they thought they could run in red districts. Through states they thought would stand for gerrymandering.
In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger won the gubernatorial race by 57.6%. Why do these elections matter? This past week, just after being sworn in, she overturned Executive Order #47 (yes, those dweebs did, indeed, give it #47 for the same reason you’re thinking) that gave state law enforcement the directive to work with ICE.
In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill shocked everyone by winning with 57% of the votes.
New York City saw the highest voter turnout in years as Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral race and became the city's first Muslim and South Asian mayor. Also, one of the most handsome.
Even when they didn’t win, democrats expanded their majorities.
In California, after we watched Texas Democrats risk their lives and careers to stand up for democracy and against gerrymandering, voters passed Prop 50 to redistrict the state, making five of those districts more of a democratic lean. Coulda done the whole state, but instead, Prop 50 only redistricted five, in direct response.
A reminder that no one is in any of this alone.
And of course, my very favorite story – in Colorado, voters were offered the chance to get a tax return. And instead, they decided to turn that money down and instead voted to give it to fund meals for school-age kids.
It’s not that elections didn’t break.
It’s that we grabbed democracy by the shoulders. It’s that we gripped it stronger than ever.
Democracy didn’t break because it’s just so strong. It didn’t break because we wouldn’t let it.
People Didn’t Break
-via
July 14th saw the 1st No Kings protest as a counter-programming event to Trump’s birthday military parade.
Between four and six million people attended the more than 2,000 protests.
These events were independently created.
Sure, the No Kings Day had a basic like “we’re all doing this on this day” organization, but that was it. People were encouraged to make their own local event. And so they did.
It was one of the largest single-day protest movements in recent U.S. history.
Until October 18th.
No Kings Day II.
About 2700 events.
More than seven million people.
And these aren’t the only large-scale protests. Not by a long shot.
We are his nightmare. A body politic that will not give up. That will not roll over.
That will not give him and his monsters what they want.
One year ago today, Trump stood on the same podium that, four years and three weeks ealier, on January 6th 2020, he’d sent a mob of insurrectionists to, and swore an owth he had no intention of upholding to a constitution he’s never had an ability to care about or a curiosity to understand.
He should be in jail.
He should have never been able to return to the scene of the crime.
And yet…
One of the things he said that day, one of our darkest, for a country with some fairly dark days, frankly, was that they would move with purpose and speed.
And he was right. They have.
What he wasn’t counting on, what he made a mistake in not counting on, is that so would we.
Speed.
And purpose.
When we hit the 100-day mark, I said something similar to what I’m about to say now, but it hasn’t escaped my little noggin that there was a big difference though.
Because here in Los Angeles, when Trump was sworn in, we were already dealing with something else. Trump was sworn in just about two weeks after the fires. It was, frankly, a little hat on a hat of stress to watch this man be sworn in while we were looking at the burned wreckage of our city.
We knew we would rebuild, but we weren’t there yet.
Instead, we were still working to help each other. We were doing everything we could, giving everything we could give to just - stop the bleed. We were together, like never before. Or at least, like I’d ever seen.
But, we knew rebuilding would come. Of course it would. Eventually.
And what I said then still stands.
We got through a year of this.
A year of something we didn’t think we’d have to get through.
We WILL get through these next three years. We just need to put one foot in front of another. One day in front of another.
There is a day after him. There is a world after him.
There is an America after him.
We cannot wait until he’s gone to decide what kind of America it’ll be.
One year down.
Let’s get to work.
And that’s it. That’s one year down.
One year behind us.
If you are a subscriber to the show there is a regular episode of the show in your feed. Also, the Substack is back and either in your inbox as I speak OR ready to be subscribed to for free.
We’re getting through it.
Together.
And because of it, I’m proud of you.